The Tear Drop trail is a classic down-mountain ski trail cut by the CCC in the 1930s on the west side of Mountain Mansfield. The steep and winding 2000 ft ascent is approximately 1.8 miles and requires climbing skins, tricep muscles, and some aerobic capacity. The descent is a challenging and ever changing ride that presents sharp turns, steep drops, and double fall-lines.
Last Friday a crew gathered at the base of Mountain Road in Underhill to explore the trail. With folks traveling from as far away as Connecticut for the tour, we were thrilled to have comfortable temps (mid 20s), only a light breeze, and snow falling the entire time. We were a sizeable group and the climb up and ski back down took us roughly 3 hours. Although the Tear Drop trails sees quite a bit of traffic, the packed powder surface was covered with 3-4″ of new snow, or “Pulverschnee!” according to our German group member. There were no complaints on the way down (or on the way up), and we thoroughly enjoyed both the upper and the lower portions of the Tear Drop which have both filled in nicely with snow in the last few weeks. We finished up the day with some chili and backcountry conversation back at Amy’s house, just a few miles from the trailhead.
There was quite a bit of interest in this tour and we couldn’t accommodate everyone, so we are going to repeat it on Friday 2/13. Please see our day tour listings for more information on tour offerings and instructions on how to sign-up to participate.
The chili also got high marks. I’ll have another pot ready on 2/13. And if you can’t come try it in person and are looking for some good and easy to make post-ski fare, here’s the recipe.
