I drive past this surprising sight every day. I love its
intricate fence, guarding its claimed ground against the incursion of Route 30
and the gas station. This strange little piece of land goes easily unnoticed
while rushing to and from the ski slopes, but now I always pass by and wonder why and how it exists. The headstone reads:
Bailey Rawson
1760 - 1848
Pioneer settler of Rawsonville
1812
So the puzzle of the petite plot is solved, though after a
little expert Googling, the man behind the fence really began to come to life (sorry,
bad joke). Rawson was a rambling man and occasional scoundrel who traveled the Jamaica hills
on horseback, worked as a farrier, and cleared Rawsonville’s first trees in
1812. There, he built a cabin and a sawmill and called it “home”. And the rest,
I suppose, is history, a little piece of which is kept safe and sound behind
the funny green fence across from Tony’s Pizza.
With a good chunk of the season already under our belts and behind our boards, it's high time to check in with the Stratton Parks Crew and see what's going on.
To sum up, they've just finished reshaping Lower Middlebrook to make the most difficult of our three parks more spacious and flowing. A total of 59 features are dotted around the mountain in Big Ben, Lower Middlebrook and Tyrolienne. Test 'em out and get ready for this weekend's Cold Wars Rail Jam, the last of the season, and the upcoming Red Bull Butter Cup on February 25.
Some thoughts from Mountain Safety & Compliance Manager, Kathy Buckley, and VP of Operations, Mike Quinn.
We
take pride in creating an awesome mountain experience, but we know great snow,
fast lifts and exhilarating terrain are just part of a great day on the slopes.
That’s why we take great measures to promote a culture of safety for our guests and employees alike.
We’re
serious about fun, so we are serious about safety too because getting hurt is
no fun. Although we never like to, we
WILL pull your pass, your ticket, your privilege to ski and ride Stratton Mountain
if you fail to follow the Skier and Rider Responsibility Code.
Here
at Stratton, a team of 95 Ski and 48 Safety Patrollers is out in force, in
their red or yellow jackets, from 7 am to 4:45 pm, from before first chair to
that final slope sweep. So far,
Patrollers have answered 323 calls for help, but they devote even more energy
to education and prevention as they do rescue.
As of January 25, they have logged 504 hours in the URSA slow zone
alone, 288 hours encouraging that
easy-does-it style of skiing and riding on EZ Street and 108 hours checking SES
passes in the terrain parks.. A second team
focuses on trail maintenance and marking hazards to prevent incidents.
We
know that just one accident, one injury, is one too many. Especially if that one is you or your daughter
or brother or friend. Know that Patrol is enforcing the code and clipping tickets to keep YOU safe, so please respect
and obey their requests. Reckless
behavior has cost 48 people the right to ski or snowboard Stratton this season.
The
list of every day safety initiatives is long. Throughout the resort, you will
see safety messages on snow reports, screens and lifts. Safety tips are
incorporated in lessons and mountain tours. Patrol recognizes safe skiers and
riders with coupons, stickers and other goodies. Contests and games engage our
young guests in the message of safety. Employees set an example by always
wearing a helmet and bi-weekly discussion topics make safety a key priority on
and around the mountain.
In
fact, Stratton has earned the National Ski Areas Association Safety Award in
2010 and again last year; our renowned terrain park Safety Education Session
has also been recognized with three national awards.
But
even with 150 men and women on patrol, and heightened visibility at merging trails and slow zones, they cannot be on all 600 acres of terrain at
all times. So we need your help, please
take personal responsibility for safety.
Know the Code. Own your Zone.
Check your bindings, tune your boards, call it a day when you get
tired. For those of us old enough to
remember Hill Street Blues, “Be careful out there.” Please.
At the end of a challenging day, I wanted to give everyone the insider’s look at what we’ve faced today and an update on our action plan and focus heading into the weekend.
After the herculean effort of de-icing and chipping the lifts, we’re confident that skiing and riding conditions for this weekend will be back to what you’ve come to expect from us here at Stratton. While icing was a huge challenge today, it actually helped protect the snow surface. Groomers will be out tonight and we expect a nice weekend ahead.
What our lifties had to contend with...
We received two inches of snow early last night before it quickly changed over to mixed precipitation and then freezing rain. This morning, the mountain was encased in ice with a few tenths of an inch on the lower mountain and 1.5 to 2 inches on the upper mountain. Early this morning we groomed the lower mountain trails out of the main base while our lift crews worked to de-ice the lower mountain chair lifts. We got AMEX clear by 7:45 and opened without delay. Our crew moved on to each Lower Mountain Lift, starting with Villager and Tamarack before heading to Sun Bowl and the Upper Mtn in preparation for this weekend’s operation.
Ain't no rain getting through that.
With the lower mountain open, we shifted our focus to preparing for Saturday operations. Although the ice is a huge menace for our lifts crews as they must climb each and every tower to chip sheave wheels to free the tower assemblies in order for the haul rope to move (no small task and one that will take hours per lift), it’s actually a blessing for our snow surface as it creates a layer of insulation that sheds the water off the surface. For that reason, we’re staying off the majority of our trails until the rain passes later tonight.
Thanks for bearing with us today as we work our way through these challenges and we look forward to seeing you on the mountain this weekend.
After a long day cruising the powder like I’ve been having
lately, I’m happy that my feet don’t spend the rest of the evening recovering
from being jammed into ski boots. A common cry from skiers, and one that is
easy to remedy – get boots that fit properly! This, I can attest, can be easier
said than done.
When I moved back to Vermont
this year and unpacked my ski stuff, I decided that much of my equipment needed
an upgrade. My coat was no longer waterproof, my threadbare socks were looking
neither “smart” nor woolly, and my ski boots no longer had their former
vice-like grip on my toes. So I went shopping (woohoo!), but it was with some
sadness that I realized it was finally time to graduate to adult ski boots.
Because I’m a grown-up now, with a grown-up job! Well, sort of.
As I soon discovered, shopping for ski boots on your own is
a daunting task. There are an incredible number of makers and fits, and you
have to consider your own skiing ability, style and goals. Being an indecisive
person, this soon became a stressful project and I needed some expert advice.
Luckily for me, these experts reside at First Run Ski Shop,
just a few steps from my office, and I went in to ask their advice. Though a
quick glance at First Run’s boot wall did little to reassure me, boot guru Tom
Kajah told me not to worry. Turns out that from their wide variety of boots,
there are really only a few that suit my fickle feet.
“A lot of people can be intimidated when they walk in, but
we can really narrow this down to just 5 or 6 pairs. We think about each
person’s unique foot shape, skiing ability and how they want to ski when
picking out boot options," Tom told me.
A couple of pairs of boots and some tired feet later, I had
found a pair that was comfortable and would let me charge down the hill. And if
those new boots start rubbing in all the wrong places, I’ll just head back to
First Run for all the molding, grinding, shaping and heating needed. That’s the
beauty of having a ski shop in sliding distance of the lifts!
See you on the hill (with my shiny new boots)! Meryl
For you visual learners out there, “watch” this post in
stunning high def!
We asked for it, and the snow finally came! And now that it’s
here, I’m remembering all the reasons a snowy day makes me want to stay in bed.
Scraping the car, for one, and cold feet and a cold me for another. But none of
those reasons can top the single reason I have to get up and out, and that’s
making tracks in all this fresh powder! And once I’m up and at ‘em, even the
things that make me grumble at snowfall start to make me smile. For
instance:
Slushy, crappy roads. Yeah, they can make the morning commute
troublesome, slow, even heart-stopping, but I like it, since it kind of looks like we’re driving
on cookie dough.
Scraping the car. It’s a great workout! With a particularly
intense de-icing, you discover several muscles that you didn’t know you had.
Plus, it keeps you warm and peering through the tiny hole you've scraped makes
real driving more like a video game!
Slippery snowy sidewalks and parking lots. They’re actually
pretty fun if you’re ready for them. Get creative and practice your triple axels
or arabesques, or just enjoy a feeling that’s really unlike any other. It’s hard
to think of anything like walking on snow.
We’ve had an epic five-day run of snowmaking that has skiers and riders proclaiming, “winter is here.” The conditions have been truly great thanks to our snowmakers, groomers and a couple inches of fresh snow to top it off. The weekend forecast looks moderate with sunny skies for Sunday, what a great way to welcome the new year.
We fired our snowmaking system back up Monday day morning, January 2, and haven’t stopped since. We pumped more than 36 million gallons of water with our focus first on resurfacing and adding depth to all open trails before adding five new trails to the mix today for a total of 280 acres – over 20 miles -- of open terrain. At the end of the holiday week, the snow conditions were certainly less than desired and we knew our priority had to be quality over quantity and made the decision to go back before moving on. Because of the extended snowmaking run (our longest uninterrupted snowmaking window of the season), we’ve also been able to expand into new terrain which allowed us to open even more trails this week, bringing our trail count up to 54 with awesome skiing and riding. The conditions right now are phenomenal.
Today will end our snowmaking efforts and provide a short break until Saturday night when it looks like we’ll be able to fire up the snowmaking system again. Our immediate focus will be on trails such as Solstice Way, 91, Churchill Downs, Lower Kidderbrook, Upper & Lower Downeaster, Home Run, White Birch, Cabot’s, Flukey’s, URSA Access, Upper and Lower Liftline, Upper Standard, plus terrain parks on Lower Middlebrook and Big Ben along with the Coca Cola Tube Park.
We expect to open additional terrain on a consistent basis as long as snowmaking temperatures hold. We’re currently targeting an opening day of 1/13 for the Coca Cola Tube Park and more terrain parks – in time for the Martin Luther King holiday weekend..
And if the cards are right, we may be seeing some natural snow in the middle of next week. So keep those snow dancing shoes polished.
It’s finally starting to look a lot like winter up here at Stratton Mountain. I can’t wait to see you on the slopes.
