It was another successful year for the Stowe Derby. Some 793 racers took on the challenge of a 2,602′ descent over 12.5 miles on cross country skis. That may not sound bad until you look at the course profile and realize that nearly 2,000 of those vertical feet are descended in the first 3 miles as skiers race down the Toll Road on Stowe Mountain Resort.

But I get ahead of myself. Before the insanity begins, the short course competitors start on the Stowe Recreation Path. The mass starts with long skinny skis on your feet is a different kind of chaos but most everyone starts with a smile and the competitors eventually string out into a long line marching towards the finish.

It’s pretty easy to tell who’s in this race as a competitor

and who’s just out to have a good day on snow with a few hundred friends.

This little guy’s only 5 years old and he’s already competed in more Stowe Derbys than I have.

Back at the top, I usually start to get settled as the racers are warming up. A half dozen racers usually ski down two or three turns to get a feel for the snow and the course and then turn around  to hike their way back up to the start. When the ski patrol comes through to sweep the course, it’s time for the chaos to begin.

The first racers usually clean the upper corners well. Their legs are fresh and usually they’re experienced enough on skis to manage the hill and loose snow.

It doesn’t take long before the trail claims its first pieces of gear.

and provides us with some spectacular falls.

I may be wrong, but I think you’re missing something, #143. Nice job staying on your feet, though!

When you watch a few hundred skiers come around the same corner, you start to get a feel for the technique or line that contributes to an explosive fall. Sometimes you get surprised, though. #179 looked like he was headed for disaster and then finished his turn with perfect form. I hope the rest of your race went well!

Sometimes, you can’t help but laugh at some of the falls. I’d feel bad except for the fact that most of the racers laugh as they’re going down as well.

After a crash, they pop back up like kids and skate back into the thick of the race. With 5 people starting every 30 seconds, you don’t have long to collect yourself before getting run over!

In past years, I’ve seen people on heavy telemark gear, full-on alpine touring bindings and snowlerblades, but this was the first year that I saw someone on a snowboard. Well, kind of; last year three or four snowboarders popped out of the woods and onto the race course oblivious to the fact that there was a race going on. At first I thought that’s what happened to this guy until it registered that he had cross-country ski poles in his hand. Tawny said she saw him go by at her location, so he made it the whole 12.5 miles on a splitboard. That’s some dedication.

About 1k from the finish, it’s a much more conventional cross-country race.

Well, except for those people that ski by with broken gear on their back. Way to keep Vermont green, #3! (And it’s not even Green-Up Day.)

I’m not sure where Gumby started – you’d think I would remember the big green guy passing me at the start…

As if one run down the mountain wasn’t crazy enough, the Stowe Derby has heats for Freestyle and Classical styles. In between runs, they run a cat down the trail and groom it flat. With a modern, shaped alpine ski, it’s easy to lay down railroad tracks on this easy slope.

but I can’t imagine doing it on skinny skis!

This doesn’t look good! Believe it or not, he pulls it off and continues past as if he did this on purpose.

This is my favorite expression of the day.

Again at the bottom, most people are all smiles as they’re approaching the finish. Dirk is no exception.

I checked in with Tawny before moving to the finish line. She was hard at work at the blind corner, as usual.

As racers reach the finish line, they have to cross one last bridge and round a corner to a cheering crowd.

It’s not uncommon for people to fall within feet of the finish line. Sometimes it’s a sprint for the finish gone wrong, other times it’s plain old fatigue.

I hear this was #795′s first Stowe Derby. I hope you’ll be back again to do it next year!

All of these photos and more will be available for purchase on skipix.com soon.

Congratulations to all of the competitors and a big thank you to the Mount Mansfield Ski Club and all of the volunteers, sponsors, and other organizations for putting on another great race.

If you’ve read this far and you’re one of the racers above that I’ve featured crashing, send me an email with your bib number. I’ve got something for you.

Without fail, though, Vermont gets crowded during the holidays. There was a line at the Smuggler’s Notch ticket window from 9:30am to 2:30pm.

The week started with cloudy skies that deposited 6-8″ of snow on the mountain providing us with frosted trees and great skiing & riding.

Monday and Tuesday were cold, though, with temperatures hovering around 0ºF and wind chills in the -20ºF range according to one ski patroller.

The riding, however was worth it. The trails were all soft snow and the trees were powder. It’s still early season in Vermont, so we were skiing carefully in the woods, but if the line was well maintained the skiing was incredible.

On Thursday, the sun made an appearance and we were treated to a Vermont rarity: a bluebird day!

The view from the top of Madonna was great with Mt. Washington and the rest of New Hampshire’s White Mountains visible on the horizon.  This one’s worth seeing a little larger.

New friends Chris & Ilene made their first visit to Smuggs and enjoyed Chilcoot  from top to bottom.

As the week came to an end, though, the temperatures rose and the snowpack started to melt.

I was solo for Saturday’s turns, so I only took my iPhone with me for a few documentary shots. 

The skiing was fun, but the terrain was getting limited. Snowmaking was a saving grace for trails like FIS, Smuggler’s Alley, and Black Snake. I was considering going up today, but instead of just warm temperatures, Mother Nature delivered a steady rain in Essex. The snow reports weren’t encouraging, so here I am in front of the computer. Tomorrow I’m obligated to head to the mountain & enjoy my last day off before returning to work. Let’s hear it for refrozen snow!

The email arrived late last week; Cinco de Mansfield would take place on Saturday, May 1st. I haven’t done a lot of skiing in the last few weeks, my season really ended in March for some reason. I packed a pair of skis, boots, poles, skins, and cameras into the car and headed to Stowe for our 11:00am start.

It was looking pretty bare at the bottom when we arrived. Instead of heading up the gondola, we stuck to Nose Dive.

I guess there were 6 of us – how could I forget Carter?  He spent the day looking for snowballs and squirrels.

Cinco de Mansfield wouldn’t be complete without margaritas at the top.  Chris played bartender this year and mixed up a tasty drink.

After some time relaxing at the top, it was time to ski.  The first turns down Nose Dive were sticky and challenging.  I took a digger on my second or third turn and then started to figure out my balance again.  It turns out I missed skiing in the month of April.  What an odd ski season.

You can see the full gallery of photos on my Smugmug page.

Tawny said that the first few steps were awkward, but she soon fell into a skinning rhythm.  It made me remember my first time on skins and my amazement as they grip the snow.

There were a lot of people in the parking lot, but we only ran into one other couple on the trail. We had plenty of time to enjoy the beautiful Vermont scenery.  The trees had a light frosting of snow on them, making the branches blend in with the cloudy skies.

No matter how many times I look at them, splitboards still look odd to me.

Are we there yet?

A peek into the treats that awaited us.  while the lower part of the skin is a buffed out cross country trail, the upper part opens into large expanses of tracked snow.  Considering we haven’t had significant snow in the last week or so, there’s a fair amount up in the Green Mountains and a surprising amount of untracked still available.

Tawny begins her first skin/ride transition.

I had some skin cheater strips hanging around.  I never appreciated them, but with Tawny’s size, new skin glue, and the fact that her skins are super wide, I think they’ll be helpful for her.

I’m amazed that Voile’s hardware keeps the board together.  It’s such a simple set of devices, but it works quite well!

A quick cup of hot cocoa to warm up and provide a bit of sugar for the descent.

Nice, moderately spaced trees awaited us below.  There were tracks down many of the open areas, but we didn’t have to look too hard to find pockets of untracked.

Was it deep?  Nope.  It was fun, though.  I’m so lucky to have a wife that will join me in the backcountry. Happy Valentine’s Day, Tawny!

We all had our moments adjusting to the snow.  I certainly played ostrich more than once, but I was lucky enough to capture Bobby with a spectacular display on his first run.

As much as we joked around, complaining about the snow conditions, it was really quite good skiing in many places.

Definitely good enough to slap the skins on a few times and hunt out more pockets of non-wind affected powder.

Roger – you look like one of them Famous Internet Skiers here.

With temperatures hovering just above zero, not all of our skin glue worked all day.  Seeing as it was a simple out and back, the penalty for complete failure was pretty low.  Any good backcountry skier will have a bag of tricks to dip into when equipment (bindings, skins, boots, etc.) breaks.  In this case, Patrick had duct tape (plaid, mind you) holding one skin on and zip ties holding the other.  It’s worth paying attention when you zip tie your skins, though, otherwise you end up with a predicament like this:

As usual, it was great skiing with all of you.  Pray for snow!  We could use some.  Roger Hill posted a graphic on the SkiVT-L Listserv that compares this year’s snowpack to the 2009 season. It’s pretty dismal.

More photos from our backcountry excursion are on my SmugMug site.

After skiing “Living the Dream” we felt like we were.  Soft, swooping turns down a relatively steep untracked face.  Being on a snowboard, the traverse was some work, but worth it.  To the guy that we met at the bottom, you can see one of the photos below and some more in the gallery titled Snowbird – 1/3/2010

At some point, I’ll finish going through most of the photos and put up a combined set of galleries from our Utah vacation. What a great trip!  We can’t wait to head back.  Next time, later in the season when the snowpack is a little more consistent and predictable.

Tawny and I met up with Jorden, Pete, and Brian giving us one snowboarder, one telemarker, and three alpine skiers. Brian was also skiing with a camera, so we’ve got a couple extra photos.

The day began by heading up, and then up, and then up to get to Honeycomb Canyon. We were going to traverse out the high line skiers left right off the lift, but it wasn’t possible on a snowboard. The traverse was more of a horizontal sidestep that fought gravity the whole way across. So down we went, finding a few inches of fresh snow on top of skier packed perfection. It wasn’t deep, but the turns were delightful. About half way down we passed through a gate and traversed through to a gully that had deeper snow and nice turns, but a long runout to get back to the lift that would bring us back to civilization.

Opting to save our energy, we stayed on the front side for a few runs, finding pockets of untracked snow 2-4″ deep in the trees. Weaving around on the mid-mountain lifts, we had a ball.

Tawny then decided to take a breather and let the guys take the high traverse into Honeycomb. Off we went, heading left for a ways, but not quite to the second gate. We came down a pitch that had few tracks, and beautiful snow. It was supportive and thick, but somehow still easy to ski. Westerners probably wouldn’t call it powder, but I would. It was great! Over the next knoll, into some shrubby trees that had been largely ignored, and into more great snow.

At the same middle gate we hit on our last run out here, we traversed out further. Brian and Pete dropped in where it looked pretty good, but had some rocks lurking beneath the tempting snow. Jorden had a theory that people had started dropping here because the rocks got more prevalent, desiring good skiing before the terrain got worse. He thought that over the next rise we would find a stash of great snow (No experience, just a gut feel..) Follow Jorden’s gut. We discovered an open bowl area as opposed to the chutes & gullies we had traversed over. The snow was just like above and lightly tracked, making for a few dozen great turns.

The rest of the day was spent on the front side of the mountain, meandering around from soft snow to soft snow, with some bumps thrown in. Solitude’s a great mountain with a feel more like the east coast resorts I’m used to (Smuggs, MRG) The terrain may not be as challenging as Snowbird or Alta, but it’s a whole lot of fun and there’s a feeling of freedom when you ski a mountain you’re not familiar with and don’t have to worry as much about what’s over the next rise or below the next roll. Snowbird could contain a rocky chute, cliff, or something else; Solitude seems to just have good snow. Sure, there are some spots that you can scare yourself, but you have to try to get there instead of stumbling into them.

Solitude posted some of Brian Kretschmar’s photos on their community website / Flickr stream.