Since we didn’t get to Vermont until late in the evening on Monday, there
wasn’t much chance of setting up a really big ski day on Tuesday.  With so
much snow in the valley however, the potential for local skiing would be
great.  We slept in, and in the afternoon E went out to take care of some
shopping.  By the time she returned, it was after 3:00 P.M., and I knew we
had to motivate if we were going to get going before dark.  With a settled
valley snowpack of 1-2 feet, it seemed like this was a good chance to ski
one of our local Champlain Valley hills, Mt. Philo (968’).  Although I’ve
hiked, biked, snowshoed, and driven to the summit dozens of times, I’ve only
skied the mountain once before, and I'd forgotten about it until I checked
the SkiVT-L archives.  I’ve always noticed that the woods on the western
face had plenty of skiable lines, with easy access by the road to the state
park on the summit.  Depending on the snow consistency, it would be nice to
try out the skiing in the trees.

After getting our things together, we finally got out the door at around
4:00 P.M., and the light was already beginning to fade.  The drive took
about 10-15 minutes, and we parked at the base among some sledders building
a snowman, and a hiker coming down the road with his dog.  We’d brought
snowshoes, but a quick look at the summit road revealed that it was nicely
packed from all the winter recreational traffic.  We strapped our skis on
our packs and headed up in the twilight.  The hiking was really quick on the
road, and there were a good 6-12 inches of packed snow to keep us off the
pavement.  As we headed up, we could see some of the nice skiable tree lines
that cut the switchbacks of the road, but we knew it would probably be too
dark to take them on our descent.  The combination of not knowing the lines
in the trees very well, and the fact that temperatures in the upper 30s had
turned the snow to a tricky mush, made us lean towards skiing the road down.

The most exciting lines I saw dropped off some of the cliffs on the south
side of the mountain.  There were a variety of lines ranging from
essentially no drop, up to 50 footers, all landing on a nice steep slope in
very open trees.  It would take a good snowpack (although this base with
another foot or two of powder would be sufficient) and there would be some
fantastic drops.  This is the same cliff band that forms the great views
from the summit on the western side of the mountain, although the western
cliffs are bigger and don’t seem to have any landing zones.  This was the
first time I’ve looked at the terrain with such a snowpack, but it has
definitely been stored in my memory banks for a future session of filming.

Passing the cliffs, we hit the steepest section of the road (probably blue
square at best).  The slope then flattened out as we wrapped around to the
eastern side of the mountain, and then reached the parking lot at the
summit.  It was now pretty dark, and although there was enough light to hike
on the road, I needed my headlamp to fiddle with gear.  I wanted to get a
photo from the summit of the lights in the valley (Charlotte/Ferrisburg
area) along with the last traces of light in the western sky, so E and I
headed over to one of the overlooks and got a couple of night shots.

After enjoying the view, we headed back to our gear at the top of the road
and suited up for the downhill run.  The snow was a bit wet, but it had
cooled down quickly here at the summit and the snow was getting firmer and
faster.  Any concerns I had about being able to slide on the road, quickly
vanished as I found the skis gliding quickly downhill on the gentlest of
slope.  We didn't even need to worry about any wax.  The downhill run was
very exiting, and although we both had halogen bulbs, it we could easily
overski the headlamps.  We had to make turns to slow down on all but the
flattest of slopes, which I hadn't expected.  Overall it was like skiing a
real trail, except that the grooming was from a variety of hikers and
snowmobiles, so things weren't quite as smooth as a traditional ski
area-style groomed run.  We finished the run in only about 10 minutes or so,
around 600 vertical feet in total.  The temperature at the base was notably
warmer than that at the summit, although the lack of wind down low may have
made up some of the difference.  It sounds like snow is in the forecast for
tonight and tomorrow with moderate accumulations, so hopefully we can return
to some more traditional northern Vermont powder conditions for a bit.

A couple of scenic shots from the outing are available at our web page:

http://www.JandEproductions.com/2003/23DEC03.html

J.Spin

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