Mount Mansfield, Vermont 3/7 A few pictures

[thepowderfreak]

Nice day for a morning hike. Most everything has been chewed up and spit out from the weekends 20-30". Still, deepest snowpack (70-80" at 3,800ft) of the year the past few days has provided some great backcountry conditions. March sun is definitely settling the dust quickly, although still a nice 12-18" of powder on north facing slopes.

Pictures are from Hourglass to Hellbrook...sorry not too many action shots.

Top of hourglass.



Ski lengths wide crux the top bowl funnels into.



Lower section coming out of the rock walls...wish I had some action shots here because it looked pretty sweet with slough running and sweet turns had.



18" crown on this slab avalanche that would've brought you only 100 feet or so, but through some trees and over rocks.





Chin.



Looking down Hellbrook. Took a line down the middle slot for the first hundred yards then went skiers right out on the north facing wall for a while. Felt the football fields would've been getting manky and/or mushy due to aspect.

















Great weather, deep snow, fun 2,000ft+ vert backcountry run.

[soul_skier]

nice, i was doing bc loops off the notch road on the smuggs side, some excellent trees and decent cliffs, looks like you had a good day too.

[thepowderfreak]

nice, i was doing bc lootps off the notch road on the smuggs side, some excellent trees and decent cliffs, looks like you had a good day too.

That's one area I need to explore more. Haven't done much off there at all. Tried some stuff off the Spruce side at Stowe down into the notch...but not knowing where we were going and with some massive cliff outs in there, didn't want to wander aimlessly so we stayed a couple gullies over from Tusk. I haven't heard of any Tusk reports yet this season...wonder if its seen any traffic. I was thinking due to the thaw-freeze cycles that the icefalls might just be too big for a lot of those chutes to be skiable. A lot of the icefalls on cliffs and other areas around Mansfield seem nearly twice as large as usual due to all the rain followed by quick freezes over and over and over again.

[Core Shot]

Super Steeze

[Adski]

Can we get a parise Jesus for our brethren and sistren out east? Say halleluja! I believe...

[biggins]

Halleluja!

Man, thats all gonna be gone by next Monday isn't it.

Sweetness all over the damn place.

[skiaholik]

Halleluja!

Man, thats all gonna be gone by next Monday isn't it.

Sweetness all over the damn place.

It's Tuesday, and it's already gone.

Powderfreak I'm pretty sure I heard you talking to whoever it is you ski with when you were in Hellbrook one of the times today and I think I saw you from across the ridge way over in the apple. It was pretty manky/heavy over there but we didn't go over there for the snow so much as to drop a certain cliff and get some shots of it. (tbars post)

According to the stake depths as of last night, we are about at last year's marks and at the highest for the year, yet we're still about a foot under the two previous years, and since sunday its been melting/condensing quick. Hopefully this front coming in turns colder and we get some more snow. Either way the last few weeks have made up for a good portion of the lameness that was january-most of feb.

[thepowderfreak]

skiaholik...definitely saw you guys ahead of us on the hike. we got out of the gondi as your group was partway up the climbing gully. assumed it was your group for some reason...1 snowboarder, 2 skiers.

Think we saw you guys walking around the Apple or that might have been another party...there were a lot of them out there.

[skiaholik]

It was probably us on the bootpack if it was right before 9. Caught the gondi at like 845 and basically jogged up the bootpack and down hourglass then over to the apple as Don had to get to work at 1. It probably was us over on the apple you saw too, didn't see too many people or tracks over that far. I was gonna yell to ya over on hellbrook but I wasn't positive. I kept looking over when I heard people talking skiing, but it was like playing where's waldo from where we were.

[BenWA]

Looks sweet! Makes me nostalgic. (But I wouldn't trade it for the goods I slayed today in a million years )

Keep you wits about you with them slabbies in the stowe b/c. I was first skier to the top of the chin after a 2' dump one morning and I kicked off a slab at the top of the hourglass that would definitely have carried me over the rocks at the bottom if i had made one or two more turns down before it released. Bad news. That stuff does happen up there.

[Tuckerman]

That looks like fun.

[vinzclortho]

nicely. some = gotten!

THIS right here is what EC skiing is all about for me:

[skatecow45]

After hitting the Mansfield BC where does it dump you out??

[soul_skier]

on the notch road, quick skate on skis or hike for snowboard back to gondola parking lot. Also, cut through the snowcat maintainence/storage area to save yourself like 5 mins.
That is assuming you are skiing hellbrook, if you drop off the backside, the skiing is amazing, but do it quickly after a storm because it gets a lot of sun. Also, either be prepared to hike back up or skin out a ways to a road, no really easy access.

[endlesswntr]

well it depends. if you head skier's right through the trees you end up back on the trails at Stowe, but if you go skier's left down the ridge under hourglass you end up on an access road. i'm sure someone else here knows the name.