And then there were four. You can talk all you want about Stowe skiing, but when you've scrolled through all of the trails here, you come in the end to the four that made Stowe famous: Goat, Lift Line, National, Starr (sometimes called International). As I've said, widening, snowmaking, and grooming have taken some of the teeth out of National and Lift Line. On my last two visits to Stowe, National was a steep but un-moguled swath of hard, artificial snow. Yes weather conditions had dictated that (I had come across a couple of rain-refreeze cycles), but the idea of National being anything but a mogul run struck me as incongruous. This is not to say, however, that National is a pushover, and if weather cooperates, the ski area does allow moguls to form, at least on the trail's upper portion.
You're more likely, though to find moguls on Lift Line. It's a ledge-stepping type of trail: big drop-offs interspersed by less steep sections and usually pocked by tooth-rattling bumps. Recent trail work has enabled the ski area to groom Lift Line top to bottom, so don't count on moguls, but if too much mogul-leveling went on here, the ski-area managers would probably be skewered on ski poles by the large contingent of local-area bumpsters. Lift Line's biggest problem and it's a serious problem is that the first hundred yards or so are invariably a wind-scoured sheet of ice. I find this one of the scariest parts of the mountain, especially if my edges aren't sharp give me the steeps and stumps of Goat any day. Like the top of Nose Dive, this is grit-it-out time, with the knowledge that the skiing lower down, either on lower Lift Line or lower National, promises to be much, much better.
I personally have not skied Starr much, not because it's a bad trail, but because conditions must be just right to really enjoy it. And if conditions are right for Starr, they're usually right for Goat, and Goat is a very special trail.
But Starr, first: When you look over the edge of its entry, you see. . . nothing. The trail is so steep at first, it seems to disappear, a visual illusion of steepness usually enhanced by big moguls. Ya gotta turn 'em aggressively here, guys; this is big-time, moguled steeps, and narrow to boot. The moguls at the top can take on strange shapes trail-entry moguls have a tendency to do that but hang on. The moguls after that tend to be formed in a good, rhythmic pattern, one reason being that it is almost exclusively good, rhythmic skiers who take the Starr challenge in the first place.
Finally, Goat. Impossibly narrow, ridiculously steep, pitched on a left-leaning fall line. Laced with moguls, ledges, ice bands, and other niceties. I remember many years ago, just after the trail had been opened following a 16-inch storm, coming across a guy halfway down Goat who had blown out of his skis. What do I mean by blown out? He had completely ripped his binding toe pieces from his skis by hitting one of those infamous"unmarked obstacles." This was a day when Goat was on its best, most skiable, behavior, and it was still exacting a brutal toll. Tell you something?
All I can say is, if conditions are less than good, Goat ain't worth it. If conditions are good, be ready to pick your way carefully, generally staying toward the left side. If conditions are excellent, Goat is one of the supreme trails of Eastern skiing, a classical physical/mental challenge. Just make sure your bindings are glued on tightly.
Like other areas of northern Vermont (i.e., Jay and Smugglers' Notch) not all of Stowe's expert skiing is on designated trails. "Bootleg" trails semi-trails cut on the sly by local chainsaw artistes are a skier's revival of the spirit of the era when Smugglers Notch was used as a cache for contraband liquor during the dry era in the late 1800's. Some unmarked routes run for miles, dropping more than 3,000 vertical feet.
Where those trails are and who cut them, though, is information you must pry from knowledgeable locals. I say that for two reasons. One, I honor the bootleg tradition of preserving the anonymity of the lawless. Two, wandering around Mt. Mansfield without local guidance is begging for trouble. It's a big mountain with big hazards: cliffs, dead-end ravines, icefalls, even avalanches. Dipping into the wrong drainage could land you in Underhill, 40 miles around the mountain from Stowe. If you want to ski the backcountry, make friends with a local. If you want to go off the designated-trail path without venturing into the backcountry, I'd recommend trying the lift line beneath the Lookout Double. Look for a small track that cuts through the trees across the upper part of Lift Line, National, and Starr. The lift-line snow is all natural and the pitch is just the right steepness for some of the best skiing on the mountain for two or three days after a big storm.
from Away.com
