Stratton lifts open at 8:30 AM and run until 4:00 PM, so in spite of our banner crew responsibilities (which actually diminished as the days wore on and the ranks of Burton volunteers increased and the projects were completed) we managed to ski in excess of six hours every day. In addition to the runs I mentioned earlier, we also discovered some nice terrain and great snow (especially after it dumped a second time) on Upper and Lower Standard, Upper Spruce and Snow Bowl Alley. All told, Stratton Mountain Resort offers up some excellent skiing. In general, I would agree with a mountain guide we rode a lift with one morning who acknowledged a certain degree of “slope inflation”, resulting in trails that are marginally less challenging than the marked degree of difficulty would imply. But we agreed that erring on the side of overestimation seemed like a prudent rule for a family oriented ski resort.

Advice to intermediate to advanced skiers? Take the Starship XII Gondola up the mountain in the morning, and remain high all day. You have access to all sorts of moderately challenging through expert runs, and you’ll avoid the lift lines that tend to collect at the base. And you can even eat up on the mountain. Although we ate lunch each day at the Sunbowl Lodge with the other US Open volunteers and competitors, I did stop in at Aunti Chilada’s on the mountain for a cocoa and brownie break, and can assure you that it would make a perfectly acceptable lunch spot. Especially if you like moist, oversized brownies!

Of course, if I’d eaten lunch at Aunti Chilada’s I would have missed one of the prime snowboarder observation venues. During the lead up to the US Open, the Sunbowl Lodge is the eats and schmoozing center for the single plank set. And it served as an important laboratory for me to study snowboarders off-slope, yielding ample fodder for the gross generalizations I trotted out earlier in this piece. But recall, patient reader, that I abridged my initial thesis… No, I quite blatantly veered from my preliminary goal of discovering and exposing snowboarding. Instead, my undisciplined mind wandered to Intrawest, wondered about the connections, the consistency of the Intrawest product. Which brings me to Whistler.

After all, I was skipping out of Stratton just before the main act, missing the US Open, in order to kidnap my girlfriend and head off to British Columbia for a short week of spring skiing at Whistler Blackcomb. So just as Chris and my brother were gearing up for the real fireworks, I packed up my gear, snapped a few last photographs, dialed the Whistler Blackcomb snow report on my cell phone (Snowphone: (604) 932-4211) and drove away, already daydreaming about the spring skiing conditions out west.

To be continued...

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