Ski Bus Trip Mar 22, 2024

by Stephen Templeton | Mar 26, 2024 | Trip Report

By Phil Caracci from Mar 26, 2024
Spring skiing is special. The days are longer, the biting winter wind & cold has subsided and the snowpack has deepened. Yes, you heard me… deepened. Often March is the snowiest month in VT. Certainly this year!

As the forecast picture started to form, the trip registration started to grow until we had nearly filled our 50-bed lodge. NYC was looking at a drenching rain but colder air up north indicated a very different picture. The snow started shortly after our arrival on Friday night and continued for about 24 hours! Every turn on Saturday at Sugarbush was leaving fresh tracks in the powder. Yep, real like-you-see-in-Utah powder!

The best of the best found their way to the Slide Brook Wilderness for some tree skiing which leaves you on a road between the two peaks where you can flag down a shuttle bus to get back to base. This was a first for most in that group. Truly an epic day of skiing.

Another unique aspect of this trip was that 3 of our members invited their adult daughters to join them adding to an already unusually youthful group. This is Miramar’s 75th season and if you wanted a glimpse into the future I think you might have seen it right here with an outstanding group of new members and guests that bonded almost immediately.

Our new chef Matt made sure we were well fed and ready for the following day. His crème brûlée french toast at breakfast is amazing!

A day of nonstop snow is great but for me, the day after that when the sun is out is even better. And so it was on Day 2 at Killington where 24” of new snow blanketed their 7 peaks. We woke up an extra 30 minutes earlier to get here and savor every minute of this amazing day. Wow!

As you might imagine, the bus ride home was LOUD. There was so much joy and excitement. How could we top this? There was one idea…. A Flash Mob dancing in the middle of the Thruway rest area!!! Crazy fun! And when we got rolling again it was time for some bus ride karaoke! “Sweet Caroline… good times never seemed so good, SO GOOD, SO GOOD!”

Every trip is different. You won’t always get fresh powder and a flash mob but when you do you know you’ve reached the pinnacle of weekend skiing in VT and since 1949, nobody does it better than the Miramar Ski Club.

Ski Bus Trip Jan 19, 2024

by Stephen Templeton | Jan 29, 2024 | Trip Report

By Phil Caracci from Jan 21, 2024

There’s cold and then there’s damn cold! What else could you call a weekend that stayed consistently between 0 and 10 degrees.

But we’re eastern skiers so we know there’s no bad weather, just bad preparation for it. But still…..

Northern VT was getting snow (finally) after a few weeks of warm air and rain closed a few trails. But I think we saw about 4 feet of new snow in the two weeks leading up to this weekend. I’ll take it!

While I am not a tree skier, it seems that is where the best snow could be found. A few folks headed into the Slide Brook Wilderness area and found their way down to the road where they were scooped up by the Sugarbush shuttle that runs from Mt Ellen to Lincoln Peak. Someday I’ll try this.

Besides the cold weather, the other thing that stands out in my mind was the relative quiet of this group. I’ve been in Miramar more than two decades and this stands out as perhaps the quietest bus ride ever! And even the after dinner party was less rowdy than most. And no game of Left/Right/Center either!

Continuing on this theme, it was easy to talk at dinner but I attribute that to the sound absorbing panels that Richard, Chris and John installed in our dining room 2 weeks prior on a Work Weekend.

2023-4 continues to be the season of try-outs to be the club’s new cook. This weekend’s kitchen team is certainly a strong contender! Stay tuned to see who lands this coveted job.

Day 2 was still all about the cold. The mountain was cold, the bus was cold and someone said their pajamas were cold too. Should I explain?

I went to Mt Ellen, a.k.a. Sugarbush North, for the first time this winter. It started out sunny with no wind at the base. But halfway up the GMX the wind kicked into high gear and in a matter of minutes all lifts here were shut down. Brrr! Fortunately a short time later I was gliding down the slopes at Lincoln Peak and there was no wind at all. Only 2 miles apart but very different conditions!

Our ride home did involve a mechanical failure that left us with a cold bus. But that too was fixed as we crossed paths with a much warmer bus and arrived home on time and had the chance to make new friends too.

And as for the cold pajamas….. well maybe I’ll leave you guessing! LOL

Ski Bus Trip Dec 8, 2023

by Stephen Templeton | Jan 19, 2024 | Trip Report

By Phil Caracci from Dec 10, 2023

The emotions leading up to the first trip of the ski season have elements of the first day of a new semester in school as well as  the premier of a heavily-hyped movie.  There is expectation of greatness because you’ve been talking about it for months. “Winter is coming!”  “Think snow!!”  Like school, we know we will see our “classmates” again. The old routine will become the new routine but this year we may have some different “teachers”.

OK, I’m done trying to make this analogy work!  LOL. By now you figured out that classmates is in fact fellow members of this ski club and the teachers represent the employees, in this case the cook and the bus driver to name a few.

Carolyn, who cooked for us for 28 years, retired over the Summer and now we will discover what’s  next. But before we talk about food, let’s talk about snow.

The 23-24 ski season got off to an above average start.  There were a few good snow storms at the end of November and into the first week of December and even Mad River Glen, which relies on natural snow, opened up a day or two before my first ski day in VT.

There is always a lot of excitement for Opening Day of the Miramar season but the anticipated good conditions amped it up even more. And Saturday’s skiing at Sugarbush did not disappoint!  It was so good to see the gang and do what we do again!  Great snow!

Our cook that weekend was a new face for most of us and he delivered superbly crafted meals. Nobody left the table hungry!

As a special treat this weekend I invited Steve Joslin to come for dinner and talk about his family’s history in the Valley.

Steve has recently been part of a local project called “Take Me Back” where he, and others, were interviewed on a local TV station to tell the story of the early days of Waitsfield.

The Joslin family has a library named after them and a road and perhaps some other places too.  But it’s special for Miramar because the ski lodge was once the Old Joslin Mill in the early 1900’s.

Steve told the story of how the hydraulic powered mill got water from the Mad River to grind the grain and that same flow continued on to power a saw mill right next to it.  In 1944 a fire burned both structures, The following year another structure was built on the mill’s foundation but it was now used to sell 100 pound bags of feed for cattle.

While club members like to say the lodge was once a mill the reality is it was once a “bag feed store” (built on the foundation of a mill).  Not as exciting as it being a grist mill!!! LOL

Saturday was such a good day that few of us seemed to care that it rained rather convincingly on Sunday before changing over to more snow by night.

Any time you engage in an outdoor activity you have no choice but to accept the weather you get. One thing I have found consistently is that skiers and snowboarders seem to just roll with it instead of complaining about that which cannot be changed.

This season just started.  We know there will be many more good days to come.

Ski Bus Trip Mar 10, 2023

by Stephen Templeton | Mar 24, 2023 | Trip Report

By Phil Caracci from Mar 12, 2023

“I’m going to ski in Steamboat Springs, CO for a week with Miramar! When I get back I’ll probably skip one VT weekend and sign up for the following bus trip”.

That’s what I thought and that’s what I usually do. However, this time I knew I had to get to Vermont NOW. I would not skip this weekend!

In my idle minutes last week in Colorado I was monitoring what was happening in Vermont. What was happening? SNOW!!! A few FEET of snow! The best skiing of the season was waiting for me.

The trip started off great. The Hampton Jitney sent us an Ambassador bus. We’re traveling in First Class with lots of leg-room, fold-down tray tables and a kitchen in the back. Cool!

The ride up was the usual good time. I was meeting new people and I was drinking good wine. I was being offered tasty chocolate treats, cookies, etc.. I was sharing my cheese and crackers with the folks around me. The storm was rolling in, but we were ahead of it and our drive was on dry roads with no traffic. Perfect.

Early Saturday was not particularly sunny. I was skiing with Elizabeth and Linda, a brand-new member, and a brand-new guest. But by late morning, the sun was breaking through the cloud cover and it was turning into an amazing ski day. I decided to pick up the speed a bit and I switched ski groups joining my buddies Chris and John for the rest of the day. The snow was soft. The temperature was mild and the sun was shining. I couldn’t believe there weren’t big crowds. It seems a lot of people don’t realize March and April can be the best ski months of the season!

My Irish brothers and I decided to ride the 2-mile chairlift to Mt Ellen after lunch because the sunshine was just outstanding and I wanted to take in the breathtaking views from that peak looking all the way to the Adirondacks in NY State. Lincoln Peak was not crowded but Mt Ellen was completely empty and we were skiing all over the mountain having a ball. So much so that we missed the connection back to the main base and missed the Miramar bus back to the lodge. No problem, there is craft beer on tap and a town shuttle as a backup!

And speaking of that shuttle…. We needed it the next morning as our bus had a slight problem and we returned to Sugarbush and this time went directly over to Mt Ellen for another day of great sunshine skiing with Bonnie and John. It was again a glorious sunshiny day.

The clock change last night was giving us even more daylight today. After a long outdoor lunch including Lawson’s Sip of Sunshine to emphasize the point, I returned to the top of the mountain and savored a nonstop run of the 2400 foot vertical drop just in time to catch the bus home.

Oh yeah!!!

Ski Bus Trip Feb 3, 2023

by Stephen Templeton | Feb 11, 2023 | Trip Report

By Jorene Chai from Feb 5, 2023

Freezing temperatures on the record did not stop us this weekend to head up to the lodge! 19 of us were up for the freezing weekend but we made the most of it. As a new staff-in-training, I got to peer behind the scenes of what it took to make a trip successful. There were reunions all around: former club presidents Linda and Phil met again for the first time after Linda moved south to Florida and long-time friends Janice and Wendy were elated to get onto a bus trip again.

Saturday morning started off with -20 degrees. Many resorts in the area reported that lifts were thawing and were not in operation until later in the day. We waited with bated breath; Blythe and new guest Tehila decided to relax at the Sugarbush spa while Phil and guests Nancy and Luther decided to brave the cold to get on the first chair. The rest of us were at the lodge and Janice made a call to Blueberry Lake and we had a new option for the rest of the afternoon – snowshoeing! Linnea, Shawn, Janice, Wendy and I snowshoed 4 miles around Blueberry Lake and before we dropped Johanne off at Sugarbush to work on conquering some moguls. Trip leader Amy and her twin boys Thomas and Thaddeus kept the lodge cozy for our return! The evening was delightful as usual with a mini birthday celebration for former club president Phil, which also marked his 26th year with the club! Guests and members relaxed by the fireplace before retiring for the evening.

We were hopeful for a good day on Sunday but were met with unexpected news – Killington lost power. The lodges were affected and lifts had delayed openings. But nothing was going to stop us from a balmy day on the slopes. We made the most of lifts that were open; a big thank you to trip leader Amy’s flexibility, our bus driver Sam’s dexterity and the amazing crew who joined the trip this weekend. Lifts did start opening up throughout the day! Tehlia started her first of three ski lessons at the ski school and guest Luther dominated the slopes with over 35 miles covered. Shawn, Linnea, Phil, Wendy, Janice and Luke skied to their hearts content while Nancy shredded the slopes and even coached some beginner snowboarders!

There is never a dull moment with Miramar ski club. Wait no more and sign up for a trip today!