2024 MDT #7 Reports
Catamount Trail Association's 2024 Four Day Tour MDT #7
from Thursday February 21 to Sunday February 24, Sections 20 through 23
Trip Reports:
This was another tour that almost got cancelled, but I'm glad we went ahead with the two days we did do. And I think we made the right choice cancelling the last two days, at least based on the conditions that the Ruby Run team encountered. They walked the last three miles of Section 20. But Winter isn't over yet.
Thanks to all the skiers for making it so much fun. Thanks to others for offering help with shuttles, route-finding, parking, lodging. Thanks to the Trail Chiefs for keeping the trails ready.
The MDTs are offered to all CTA members free of charge, but that doesn't mean a donation to the CTA isn't welcome. I used the "office" a lot in getting this ready, and it wouldn't happen without their behind-the-scenes support.
Here are my daily trip reports:
02/22/2024 Section 23 Trip report - Today we skied Section 23 northbound, Trapps to Edson Hill. Trail chief
Ed, leaders Sam and Marie, and "passengers" Sean, Steve, Hans and Mark
made up our troupe. After a mostly uneventful (note to self: check roofbox before driving off) and short shuttle we headed out from Trapps Touring Center with our trail passes. We had great cover leaving Trapps on nicely groomed trails. There was a thin crust on the snow on the edges and toward mid-day some folks had a little trouble with snow clumping on their
skis. We had a short break at the Slayton Pasture Cabin to cool off from the
climb, then headed down toward the Stowe Trails, which were also in
great shape. As we got closer to the valley floor we found very thin
cover on short sections on the southern slopes and under the evergreens.
Views of Mansfield and Spruce along the way - Photo by Sam
We had a
few folks miss the untracked but well blazed turn off of the Stowe Rec
Path, but they were quickly recovered. I was quite intrigued by the way
the trail passes right through a barn before crossing Rt 108.
The trail goes right through this barn - Photo by Marie
"These are my rock skis, it's ok" - Photo by Marie
After crossing Rt 108 we had untracked trail and thin cover. It was all skiable, if you consider occasionally herring-boning over leaves and dirt
to be skiing.
"I'm glad we aren't skiing down this" - Photo by Sam
We would have had to remove skis if we were going the
other direction, but northbound the downhills were all fine.
We had lovely, slightly
clouded views of Mansfield and Spruce Peak at many points along the way.
We stopped for a group photo
at the Founder's Sign on the Founder's Trail north of Weissner Woods. Some of the founders are skiing north a few sections behind us as they celebrate the Fortieth anniversary of their founding of the CTA!
Sign honoring the CTA Founders - Photo by Sean
Easy skiing, great views - Photo by Sam
Some of us finished the day with a quiet potluck dinner at Michael and Julie's.
Thanks to Ed and Mark for their trail work and Trapps and Stowe for
grooming and Edson Hill for parking.
The guide book says it is 12.7 miles but Hans' watch said 14.7 miles,
which felt more accurate.
02/23/2024 Section 22 Trip report -
A high point of Friday's Section 22 tour (Bolton to Trapps), for me, was standing at Raven's Wind trail intersection and watching a raven do enthusiastic barrel rolls across the blue sky. It was a harbinger of the enthusiastic skiers I would soon watch barrelling down (or sedately navigating) from Windy Ridge to Nebraska Valley. It also foreshadowed a few barrel rolls of my own, just not in the blue sky.
A complicated shuttle (leaving enough cars at Trapps and Nebraska Valley) led to a late start, about 10:30. Thanks to Marie for some shuttle driving!
I use this broken ski to hold up a big CTA blaze to gather the Catamounts in the morning - Photo by Hilary
Ten of us headed up from Bolton on soft, velvety warm snow. Two of us were on AT gear, three were on light BC gear and the rest were on full-on tele, mostly Voile Vector BCs. We all skinned from the start, which wasn't strictly necessary but it seemed more reliable to put skins on dry skis in the parking lot.
We quickly shed layers. We passed Bryant Cabin, supplying light first aid support to another skier. We only encountered one group coming back down after we left the Bolton Valley trails.
This is why you should dress in layers, everyone heats up differently - Photo by Hilary
"Bolton-Trapp Trail not patrolled" - Photo by Sam
Climbing to Raven's Wind - Photo by Sam
We did encounter many blow downs up high on the ridge. The CTA's trail maintenance policy is to get the trail ready for the season, and whatever happens after that is "backcountry skiing". We had lots of that on this section. Since this part of the trail chooses the best route through some very challenging terrain, there are places where a large spruce tree across the trail means having to descend a ledge and back up to get around the damage.
Cliffs like this one made the detours very tricky - Photo by Hans
Some of these chutes are steep and not really wide enough to side step or side slip, requiring threading your tips and tails around other trees. Some were too steep and tree-filled and scraped to just ski down, even with skins. This led to some slow going as the group had to navigate dozens of obstacles. In places I took my skis off and walked down. I found the best bet was to skin down backwards on some of these chutes. A bit tricky navigating but otherwise much quicker than side stepping. Other places you had to duck or crawl under trees across the trail, or step over them at knee height. At some point one of these trees must have snagged the jacket off my pack. I back-tracked a bit but never found it. Maybe the Ruby Tour will recover it!
"TRAIL IS STEEP
LONG AND UNP
ATROLLED DO
NOT SKI ALONE
EXPERTS ONLY"
- Photo by Sam
The sun came out and the sky was blue as we headed across the traverse. Due to the late start we grabbed lunch in short stops and kept going.
A bluebird day on the BT traverse - Photo by Hans
The descent into Nebraska Valley was filled with hooting and hollering, sit-stops and face-plants, aerial tele-turns, smooth tele-turns, wobbly tele-turns, kick-turns, snowplows and down-skinning. There were tracks ahead of us but not very many given how long it had been since new snow, so there was lots of untracked snow for everyone.
Click here for video
Hilary shows us how to smoothly ski the tricky crusted mashed potatoes - Video by Hans
Alison shows us how to do it on AT gear - Photo by Hilary
Sean was also making the snow fly - Photo by Hilary
Hans rips it up in his heavy tele gear - Photo by Hilary
Sam was on lighter gear, not the best choice at this point - Photo by Hilary
The first "sunset" was at 3:30, then we would ski out of the shadow into the sun, then back into the shadow, giving us several sunsets and sunrises for one afternoon.
The setting sun allowed a light crust to form on the snow, but the roughly 6" of soft wet snow underneath was pretty manageable, although not as light and fluffy as it must have been earlier in the week. We were able to get some good runs by descending straight through the switchbacks, being sure to keep track of everyone and watching carefully for blue blazes.
The cover got thinner as we approached the valley floor, and the trail, which is more of a road at this point, was more skied out but provided a fun-filled finish down to the trailhead at Nebraska Valley.
We had two trucks here, in case everyone needed to finish, but the sun was still up (again) so six of us headed north on skis and four drove back to Bolton to end the day and unwind the shuttle.
Thin cover in the valley - Photo by Hilary
Since Mark lives right on the trail here we were able just leave his truck for him to recover later. We had more thin cover and open water in road side ditches as we climbed back up to Russell Knoll on the Trapps trail system. Here our one remaining AT skier took off her skins for the descent, which meant she had to skate the flats and uphills, which she was able to do faster than the rest of the group was skiing, for the most part. By now the cold was setting in and the snow was setting up, spelling lousy backcountry skiing for the coming days.
We finished at about 5:30 with everyone accounted for, no missed turns, not much blood and lots of smiles. One car was all that was needed to finish the shuttle.
Thanks to Hilary for helping to herd the Catamounts today!
If you live near any Catamount Trail section, be sure to offer to help the trail chiefs. Section 22 will need a lot of sawing next year to open it back up.
Re 2/24 and 2/25 - Due to a lack of enthusiasm in light of the expected conditions
tomorrow, I am cancelling the rest of the tour. Thank you to everyone who offered to help with driving Saturday.
We had a beautiful day today, but you could feel the snow really setting
up as we finished at sunset. Have fun, be safe!
Here is the 2024 MDT #7 Four Day Tour by the numbers:
2 days of skiing,
2 days cancelled due to frozen crud and thin cover,
0 days with new snow on the ground in the morning,
58 skier-days registered for,
18 actual skier-days skied,
12 skiers skiing at least one day,
22.1 miles of Catamount Trail skied, (by the guidebook)
149 skier-miles skied,
10, most skiers on any day,
7, fewest skiers on any day,
4 women skiers,
8 men skiers,
0" of new snow overall,
1 couples skiing together,
6 skiers who skied at least part of both days,
1 skiers new to MultiDay Tours,
3 skiers who were already End-to-Enders,
4 skiers who skied every part of both days,
4? trail chiefs who helped keep these sections of trail clear and available,
260+ emails to or from the tour coordinators,
1 hosts who opened their home for skiers,
0 boot failures,
0 ski failure,
2 bailout cars used.
0 days of rain forecast,
0 days of actual skiing in the rain,
0 injuries,
1 lost jacket,
3 wayward skiers, we found them again....
0 skiers who went away mad,
0 skiers who missed a day due to communications mix-ups,
0 shuttle mix-ups,
0 skiers left at a trail head,
0 car problems or accidents, (except that roof box thing...)
These things were all uncountable, as they should be: smiles, laughs, thank yous, calories burned, help offered, beautiful vistas, tracks in the snow, interesting trail conversations.
A scene from Section 8 in 2017.
Don't forget to look around and enjoy the scenery when you are skiing along the CATAMOUNT trail....
Pray for Snow!
Go to the CTA's 2024 "Multi-Day Tour #7" Main Page