Last night was the second Saturday Night Lights Uphill Event of the season at Stowe Mountain Resort. These are fun events that are free to participants and designed to bring together those individuals that don’t mind putting in a little effort to earn their turns… and last night’s turns were definitely earned.
The weather forecast for last night wasn’t ideal. The people that know about those types of things were calling for temperatures in the low single digits and a considerable amount of wind; and they weren’t wrong. Last night at 5:00pm when the skiing began it was quite chilly, but the real kicker was the wind. It was blasting straight down the mountain at a good clip and would occasionally gust to the point where forward progress was difficult.
Typically when skiing uphill it’s not difficult to stay warm, but last night that wasn’t the case. Between the low temps and the wind, heat was a rare commodity and any exposed skin was in very real danger of becoming frostbit. Because of this many people turned around before making it to the top.
Now, once you turned around the adventure wasn’t over. The wind had removed every bit of snow that wasn’t frozen in place and the ski down was on an extremely firm, and often quite icy surface. It’s not that there weren’t some good turns, but you definitely had to be constantly on the lookout to find those patches and low spots where loose snow accumulated.
In the end it was another fun night out. Despite the weather almost 60 people showed up to conquer the weather. Also, the Skirack was on hand showing off various different types of backcountry equipment, giving out free buffs (which where super handy considering the wind), and even helping some of the participants with things like trimming their skins. The next Saturday Night Uphill Event is scheduled for Saturday, February 8th. Maybe we’ll see you there!
Happy Winter!
