I haven’t been skiing in about 10 years so when my brother Philip suggested that (Philip), Mom, and I should go to Smugglers’ Notch for the weekend to ski, I was all for it.
Since it is the winter that means the famous mountain pass known to most as “the Notch” is closed because it is too dangerous to drive up it when it is covered in snow and ice. Not to mention it’s impossible to plow. I’ve been to the Notch before during the summer (as you might recall from my previous blog In The Notch) and I’ve also been in the winter many times, but this was the first time in AGES.
Getting ready was easy for me since I was renting my own skis. I just needed to bring enough clothing and snow gear to survive on the mountain for a few hours. Unfortunately I didn’t have my own snow pants so I had to buy them once I got there. Mom brought her own skis and Philip did as well. Philip, I’d say, is the best at skiing out of all of us. He can do basically any hard run, while I can do a variety of stuff, and Mom can do a few things. (I’ll go more into that later.) For dinner we were going to have steak fajitas and tortilla chips. I brought my new Lodge cast iron skillet to do the steak cooking.
Once we were done packing it was time to go. Mom was driving the entire 4 ish hours so I was in for a pretty boring ride. (Riding isn’t really fun for me unless I’m the driver.) We stopped on the way and I got some new snow pants. Very Exciting! We had a cooler with us with most of the food for the weekend, but the plan was to use the adopted strategy of visiting the nearby grocery store in Jeffersonville, VT for the rest of the ingredients just before arrival. That’s also where the beer was.
Check-in was a bit different this time since we were coming up for a weekend and not an RCI cashed in timeshare week. Instead of the big front desk we were at a mini desk on the Wyndham side. Mom wasn’t pleased. Checkin went by without a hitch and up until we finished we were guessing as to what building we would be in. They all have cool names! We were in Maple this time. Usually we have a big room in the Sycamore buildings, but for just one day of skiing they crammed us into Maple. It was bigger than my Philmont duplex, but not by much. The room had a common area attached to a tiny college dorm style kitchenette. There was also a separate bedroom with a queen bed (Mom claimed this) and a closet…er excuse me… bedroom with bunkbeds for Philip and myself.
Before heading to the condominium we stopped at the rental place to pick up my rental skis, boots, and poles. That went by flawlessly.
Once settled in, Mom and I went about making dinner. I cooked the steaks, onions, and peppers. She did the tortillas, condiments, and setting up the table. Philip was on cleanup duty. After dinner we all promptly went to bed since we’d be getting up early to ski!
Ski day!
There are a few different ski difficulties and this is supremely important to remember when out on the slopes. I’ll go through them now as a reminder:
- Green 🟢: Easiest trails. The slope is not steep at all, well groomed, and usually has a lot of kids. It’s also very wide for people practicing turns. Maybe a couple practice moguls.
- Blue 🟦: These are intermediate trails that are generally steeper/narrower than green, and sometimes boast moguls on the trail. Moguls sort of look like a checkerboard where the squares are raised up a few feet making it so that you need to ski around them.
- Black ♦: These are for expert skiers and have everything a green and blue have plus more ice, are really steep, and are sometimes not groomed depending on the terrain.
- Black ♦♦: Double black are meant for expert only and are the hardest trails most mountains
- Black ♦♦♦: Only the best of the best attempt these. Usually glades (trail in the forest) and can have unpredictable cliff jumps, ice, and terrain.
**Quick side note that I’m using the North American ski description as I’m pretty sure Europe is different.**
Philip is more like Dad in that he likes to be on the mountain before the lifts open. The night before we had had a hot debate on when exactly they open. There are three mountains at Smugglers’ Notch Resort: Morse, Madonna, and Sterling. Philip wanted to get out early enough to attempt all the hardest stuff on at Smuggs and take a shot at the elusively infamous Robins Run ♦♦ atop Mt. Madonna. Dad once did this trail and lost his skis doing a cliff jump on the trail (he eventually found them no worries) so it has been the stuff of legends in the family ever since. It’s also closed much of the time for unfavorable conditions so it’s hard to even attempt it.
Anyways, Philip’s incredibly loud and annoying telephone alarm went off at 7am and by 8am he had left to hit the trails, which left Mom and I to start a leisurely day at 9am…or so it would seem. You see, while Mom had her own skis, boots, and poles, she never actually tried them on at home. Instead she went on the theory that they still fit. Turns out the boots were too small! So we wasted about an hour getting that sorted out. By 10:30am we were on the lift going up Morse.
To get to Madonna you need to either drive there or go up Morse and ski over. Philip drove because he didn’t feel like taking the Morse trail. It’s kind of a long trail with some poling. That’s what I’d be doing first. Mom was more interested in warming up on Morse first. Probably a good idea since the other two mountains didn’t have a lot of easy options.
At the top of the Morse lift I said my goodbyes to Mom and headed over to try to find Philip. I didn’t have a great cell service so the plan was just to ski for a while and try to find him. A daunting task. I took the green trail Midway over and reached a top speed of 28.5mph according to the app I downloaded. It’s called Slopes. Philip uses Ski tracks. Philip claims his record is 55mph, (that is tough to verify because ski apps can sometimes be inaccurate, but Philip and I are choosing to ignore that).
Rather than go through the entire day, I’m just going to go through a few pictures and put the ski runs at the bottom.
Ski Runs
This next part is more for future me when I come back to reread the blog post, but you readers can follow along with the Smugglers Notch Trail Map as well:
Run 1: From the top of Morse I did Midway to the Madonna 2 (E) ski lift.
Run 2: Taking the Madonna 2 lift up I then took Mulcany’s Link all the way to the Sterling lift.
Run 3: From the top of Sterling I went left and took Smuggler’s Alley, then Upper – Rumrunner’s to Rumrunner’s. At the bottom I waited about 10 minutes and met up with Philip at the Madonna 1 (F) lift.
Run 4: From the very top of Madonna Phil and I split up for a few minutes. I did Upper Chilcoot, while he did Doc Dempsey’s Glades. At the bottom of the glades we met up and I went down Mulcany’s Link to McPherson’s, which took me all the way to the Madonna base lodge where we met up with Mom for lunch.
Run 5: Mom went up the Madonna 2 lift and headed back to Morse via Lower Chilcoot / Meadow Walk. Meanwhile, Phil and I took the Madonna 1 lift up to the very top and took Upper Drifter to Lower Drifter where Phil left me to try out the lowest part of the ♦♦ Upper Lift Line continuing into Lower Lift Line continuing to the Sterling lift. Meanwhile, I took Mulcany’s Link around to Lower Lift Line to the Madonna 1 lift.
Run 6: I did the exact same run as Run 5 except I was by myself.
Run 7: At the top of Sterling I did Smuggler’s Alley again then took Crossover to Treasure Run to Lower Exhibition to the bottom.
Run 8: At the top of Sterling I did Thompkey’s to Upper Rumrunner’s to Rumrunner’s to the bottom of Sterling.
Run 9: From the top of Sterling I took Upper Rumrunner’s to Black Snake to Lower Exhibition to the metal staircase to meet Philip.
I managed to squeeze in one last run of the day before the lifts closed at 4pm! After a full day of skiing I met back up with Philip for the short drive back to the Maple Condominium. Right as we pulled into the parking space we saw Mom get off the shuttle. She had just dropped off her rental skis. I got out of my ski boots and had a short rest before going over to the rental place myself. On the way back I got a cup of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. No one wanted to come with me so their loss. For dinner yesterday we went to the Hearth and Candle. It’s a fancier restaurant at the resort and a tradition in our family. After dinner I retired to my bed to play Kerbal Space Program on Steam and Mom / Philip watched Jurassic World.
Overall a really fun trip and totally worth the free trial on the ski app. Really cool to track my stats and progress throughout the day. That’s about it for now. See you next time!
Trip Stats
Just putting the stuff from the app this time.
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