Last Saturday at Smuggs, I gazed across the notch at the Nose and marvelled that routes like Profanity, Hourglass, and Hellbrook were already long gone. The Mansfield summit usually looks more filled in by the end of December. I usually reserve my two Stowe vouchers for days when I can ski off the ridge. But those days are long gone this season, so I decided to pick the best spring skiing day possible instead.

I was hell bent on getting the full spring skiing experience. So I lathered up my arms and face with sunscreen and hiked up to the Forerunner in a short sleeved T-shirt. I was wearing the only short sleeved T-shirt to be seen at Stowe that day. Despite the base area pushing into the mid-50s causing a puddle of water in the loading area, the top of the mountain was in the 40s with a 20-30 MPH wind. The chairlift ride was mostly pleasant except coming over the final ridge. The brief unpleasant wind burst was well worth skiing without a jacket.

I started off skiing some groomers which were frozen despite the warm temperatures. I was dumbfounded at how bad the snow conditions were. Occasionally you could find soft snow and make an awesome carve. But on your next turn, you would find frozen groomer tracks or legit ice. It was mostly unpleasant skiing.

I tried Chin Clip assuming the lower elevation and exposure would make for great spring bumps. Instead, I found occasional edge to edge sheets of solid blue ice. I am a solid proponent of opening terrain and letting skiers self select when conditions are bad. However, I can easily say that Chin Clip should have been closed (and they pulled the rope on the very next day).

I went back to the Forerunner to look for bumps on middle Lookout and Starr. National entrance was a bit icy but soft snow could be found amidst the scraped hard pack. A right hand turn brought me into Starr with a rope before Lookout. Middle Starr had really high quality bump lines amidst occasional thin cover. This is my type of skiing, obstacles and all. Lower Starr was closed so the rope redirected skiers out of Starr onto Lower Liftline which had less interesting and firmer bumps.

I kept lapping this route for the remainder of the day. It was the only good bump line on the entire mountain and I never saw another skier on the trail all day. It was midweek but I was still surprised to find solitude while skiing the best run that was open. The lower mountain was quite warm and I was working up a sweat so I was glad to be without jacket. But looking around at everyone else bundled up and skiing icy hard pack, it just didn’t feel like spring skiing.