This past Saturday was the first ever Saturday Night Lights Uphill Event at Stowe Mountain Resort. The event was a collaboration between the Catamount Trail Association and Stowe Mountain Resort… but really it was Kim Leslie, the marketing and event manager at Stowe, that was mostly responsible for making this happen.
We had been exploring hosting an uphill event at Stowe since before last season. It started with the idea of an reverse Stowe Derby… an Upside Down Derby, or Topsy Turvy Derby, if you will. However, races require timing, and timing costs money and adds unnecessary complexity to an event that was really supposed to be about gathering together members of a community that tend not to ski in large groups, and fun.
In the end these discussions lead to the idea of a series of uphill events held after the mountain closes, under the lights of the gondola… aka Saturday Night Lights!
Leading up to the event we weren’t sure what to expect. The mountain administration had only signed off on this first event, and with not much time for promotion we did what we could to spread the word.
This past Saturday, registration was held from 4:00-5:00pm. We know that this could be a popular event, but on this first go-round we were just hoping to have a few people attend. In the end 68 skiers and riders showed up to skin up under the lights and ride back down… a very successful showing considering how quickly everything came together. It probably didn’t hurt that the weather gods sent some snow our way, laying down 1-2 inches of soft stuff during the skin up making for some pretty nice turns on the way down.
Because of the great turnout I think that it’s pretty safe to assume that there will be more events like this in the future. The next proposed date on the calendar is Saturday, January 31st. At this time nothing has been confirmed… so stay tuned. As soon as we have an official date for the next Saturday Night Lights we will let everyone know!
Thank you to everyone that came out and skied with us! It was a ton of fun hanging out with everyone and we’re working on making some changes/improvements to help bump up the fun factor. If you have any suggestions hop on over to the Catamount Trail Facebook Page and let us know. Things are pretty fluid right now and we’d be happy to hear your feedback/suggestions.
Think Snow!
