Middlebury: Flatline Powder

With a voucher valid on President’s Day weekend and potential day old powder in the woods, I couldn’t resist giving Middlebury Snow Bowl another try. My first and only previous day at Middlebury was also a President’s Day weekend crowd dodger, but with abysmal conditions preventing me from skiing the trees. I’ve since heard rumors of incredible off map glades. With potential day old untracked lingering in the woods during a holiday weekend, Middlebury seemed like the perfect plan. Would rumors of Middlebury’s woods live up to the hype? Read on…

Middlebury’s Winter Carnival was happening as Middlebury College played host to a GS race on Allen. Despite what is likely the mountain’s busiest weekend of the year, all of the lifts were ski on. The lodge was packed to the gills with racers, family, friends, alumni, and college kids. However, the Winter Carnival action was confined to the base area while the trails and woods were almost eerily quiet for a holiday weekend.

Worth Mountain sports the on map glades so I quickly made my way towards the Bailey Falls side of the mountain to explore. I quickly discovered tree shots between every trail on the mountain. And I was delighted but unsurprised to find ample two day old untracked lines throughout the woods. Six to eight inches with significant untracked lines two days after the storm on a holiday weekend with limited crowds… perfect, right?

Kinda. While I appreciate the time and effort that went into the thinning of Middlebury’s woods, no architect is going to be able to change Middlebury’s primary woods skiing handicap: its topography. The Bailey Falls Lift is 4,395 feet long while rising only 980 vertical feet. There are very few trail pods around with interesting terrain that have such a low run to rise ratio. For comparison, the Sunnyside Double at Mad River Glen rises a bit more than 400 more vertical feet in almost 100′ less length.

Almost all of Middlebury’s trails resemble a multi-level wedding cake: short steeps followed by flats. The excitement almost seems to end before it begins. When visiting a mid-sized 1000′ vertical mountain, you need to go in expecting the excitement to be packed into limited vertical. Big fun can be packed into just a few hundred feet. But the fun needs to be intense to make up for the lack of length. I might forgive short vertical shots if the lines were exceptional but I didn’t find the trees to flow very well, as if a square peg had been driven through a round hole.

If last Saturday’s Bolton Valley report was about Mellow Powder, than today’s Middlebury report is about flatline powder. While Bolton Valley also suffers from limited vertical, Bolton’s issue lies more in a long run out after short yet amazing tree shots. By comparison, Middlebury’s woods options just feel stunted. The topography and flow just did not grab me at all. I’d rather fight the crowds a little further north for just a few epic packed powder runs than have two day old untracked and uncontested powder on terrain that fails to thrill.

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