Mar 18, 2017

We got up and got ready for skiing at Stratton as I took phone calls from photographers in Jacksonville doing the Insane Inflatable 5K. Once that was all taken care of we took the winding roads up to the resort and got to skiing. It was really crowded, but we didn't end up waiting in too many lines. We took the gondola a couple times, but mostly avoided it. The weather was amazingly perfect. Blue skies and not too cold. The snow wasn't perfect, but it was better than Mount Snow. We had a great day of skiing.

We went back to the hotel and relaxed for a while. It felt good to just lie in bed after skiing. We had gotten done early so it was another day with extra time. We went to Hermit Thrush Brewery a little later and did a flight of all of their beers. There were a few new ones, but the Party Guy was my favorite of them. Everything was quite good as always (except the super boozy quad) and the Truthy Cardinal barrel-aged tripel was amazing. I wish it wasn't so pricy to get cans.

We walked down to the outdoor store and I got a new belt. We went next door to Mocha Joe's where I got a green tea ginger maple drink that was amazing. This isn't that. This is Ryan's drink. I'm sure it was good but probably not as good as mine. We went back to our hotel for the night and watched The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror that we always quote with "The Shinning" and the time travel segment. It made me want to go back and watch more of the old episodes.

Jan 9, 2017

We had a little slower start in the morning getting ready going to the grocery store so I could get some hummus and then to get a bagel to eat on the way with it. The drive seemed longer, but it was much clearer than the way home last night. We got there and got ready inside since there were so many less people that we could park right next to the lodge.

We got out on the mountain and skied some of the same trails before venturing off to the other side of again to see if we could get anywhere new. We went there for a short time and raced down one of the green routes once or twice before deciding to go back over toward the gondola with everyone else.

We did a few new trails and found a fun double diamond area that was very hilly and ungroomed to ski. We both fell on it once in different places, but I wish we had done that more. We did one glade, but it was mostly open and a little icy so it wasn't something we wanted to do more. We had one group of people in the gondola ask us if they could pop a window to smoke a joint. I politely declined. We finished on a good run and hit the road in clear conditions.

Superfresh Cafe closed really early so we couldn't go there, but we went to another place and I got a good quinoa bowl. I made another stop at the brewery for another small tasting of the delicious sours before we came back to the hotel for the night. We played some Nintendo games and finally finished the annoying Ninja Turtles 3 that we started a while ago. We played Blades of Steel and a couple other games to cleanse our palate after that. It was a good way to kill time before bed. Last night here!

Jan 8, 2017

Ryan and I got up and, after briefly considering taking a lazy day after our long drive, we got on the road to Stratton. The roads were fine in the morning and I think we were both ready to get on the slopes. After the usual fun of putting our boots on at the car we caught the lift bus up to the resort to get our tickets.

The weather was perfect. The sun was out and it was cold but not windy. Our first runs were fun and then we headed to the other side of the mountain where things turned very cold, especially on the lift. The snow-making didn't help matters there. We took a couple of short breaks and decided to head back to the other side to get food.

The trees at the top of the mountain were so beautiful covered in ice and snow. I couldn't capture them all the way I wanted to, but I'm going to try tomorrow. Some of them were just icy and others had these thick layers of snow hanging from each branch making them look heavy and wise. I love the imagery, but I hate that the environment is so inhospitable.

We had a good lunch of soup in bread bowls for a steep price before I went out to get my other face mask and hit the trails again. The other mask made all the difference. Also taking the gondola and not the open-air lift probably helped. We spent the rest of the day on that side of the mountain exploring trails until it was almost time to go. We found a diamond we liked a lot called Upper/Lower Spruce and decided to do it twice to end the day on that good note.

The Thai place we went to for dinner was right next door to Hermit Thrush Brewery so I stopped in to try their sours. Everything I had was really good. It was great to have a flight of only sours that exceeded my expectations. Some of the non-aged beers weren't as amazing, but it's not fair after trying my favorite style to judge those ones. They seemed really good too. I left with a mixed 4-pack of cans and a desire to go back again very soon.

We went next door to Thai Bamboo and each got curry that we had been thinking about all day. It was a little pricy, but the food was really good. We also had a pretty view of this outside the window by our table as it snowed lightly. The drive to the hotel was careful and slow on the snowy roads, but we made it after navigating around some steep hills. It's early bedtimes and drying out facemasks now.

Mar 5, 2012

We headed over to Stratton for day two and we were not disappointed with this one. It was plenty big and it had a lot of choices for advanced runs. I really like the bear on the sign.

It was a beautiful day for skiing and we spent the whole day there with a break for lunch in the middle. Vermont skiing is very different from PA. It just feels like everyone knows what is going on.

Another nice thing about Vermont is that some of the resorts have gondolas instead of chair lifts. It's really nice to be able to sit or lean and take your hat and gloves off, even if it is briefly.

When we finished for the day we realized there weren't really many places we could find food and decided to eat at Mulligan's, a restaurant at the resort that had ribs. We got them to share along with nachos because they want to charge if you share plates of food. I never understood that and I won't do it. We had a good meal and then headed back to our room to hang for the rest of the night.

Jan 12, 2010

Our third and final day of skiing was at Stratton Mountain. This mountain seemed about as expansive as the other but somehow much higher. The lifts and gondolas seemed to take forever to reach the top. It was awesome though, the trails were wide and went on and on.

If you notice the first picture, taken from closer to the top of the mountain, is hazy and the trees are snow covered. This picture is taken from lower and you can see how completely different it was. It was cold at the top and not so much at the bottom. It was snowing and cloudy towards the top and clear at the bottom. It was a really strange difference to ski through. I think this was my favorite of the three for sure.

When we got back to the hotel we got a pizza from Pizza Hut and topped it off a little later with ice cream treats from Ninety-Nine. Yep.

After our gluttonous evening it wasn't hard to get to sleep somewhat early after we packed up most of our stuff and put it in the car. Quite a fun day though.