Super Bowl XL Monday!

Super Bowl Monday

Ski this day. Period. Double period… Got that? Read this and make the vacation request. The Monday after the Super Bowl (one week away) is a great way on a grand day to be a person who skis. Plus, snow is in the forecast. I may be making that up, but give it a look.

mid-station @ MRG, photo ~S.G.

Now seriously folks, how productive are you going to be at the office with a Super Bowl Size hangover? Add some value? Build consensus? As a professional football fan, you know exactly what I am writing about. The Monday after the big game is the most common day for members of the American workforce to bang in sick, Fact.
I have been taking Super Bowl Monday off to ski for years. The only time I didn’t make it onto the snow was in February ’01. What do you want from me? I was up in the mountains earlier that weekend, but the Patriots were in it and won it! This is not about the Patriots winning their first World Championship, it is about skiing on Super Bowl Monday.
The plan of attack: Request the Monday after the Super Bowl off as a vacation day. Brilliant, no guilt involved. Go Skiing. Short Notice!
The Story: Monday (after the big game) I slept in and skied a foot of fresh Powder at Mad River Glen. Best ski day of that season, 2001/2002.
A pseudo tradition amongst friends, we took Super Bowl Monday (day after the big game) off and headed north for a three day weekend. This is a powah move! Highly Recommended!
That was the year the Raiders folded against Tampa Bay. Watched the game from the Blue Tooth at Sugarbush, at the time it was still under the old management and still had the rustic VT feel. Actually, it was a great weekend of Skiing. Using Waitsfield as home base the group hit Jay Peak on Saturday (1.5 hour ride), Stowe on Sunday (45 minutes) and then Mad River Glen (10 minutes) on Monday.
As expected when embarking on a weekend like this one—with three old friends from High School—there were going to be some issues.
Saturday was smooth, great skiing and riding at Jay Peak with plenty of night time activity once safely back in the Mad River Valley. The speed bump was hit on Super Bowl Sunday driving route 100 heading north to Stowe. I was the navigator in the fist of the two car caravan. The road was slick and it was snowing. Then all of a sudden there was no one in our rear view mirror! Pulled over and waited a few minutes and cars eventually started passing us, but our friends where nowhere to be seen…
Backtracking stinks, especially when you are on your way to the slopes and it is snowing, but there was no other option, had to respect the peeps. Found our friends on the side of the road with a cop and another vehicle that rear ended them. Bust! The group of four was quickly cut down to three.
Everyone hates to leave a buddy in peril, but at the time he understood that the three of us were itching to ski and we could not help deal with his issue at hand (it was not actually his fault). What are good friends for? He rides…still to this day. The rest of us on the trip ski… Maybe the big man in the sky is trying to say something. We wished him luck, unloaded everything we needed from his now badly dented car, and continued to Stowe.
It was a splendid day of leeward powder stashes and fresh snow in the trees. We made it back to the valley and began pre-gaming for the bowl. Only down note, I smoked my right hip on a snow covered rock (looked like a soft drift) and it is still creaky to this day.
Game Time: Sitting in the Blue Tooth for kickoff. Looking out the back windows and watching it dump. Forecasts were calling for a half foot overnight. Excellent! (said like Monty Burns). The game was a huge Tampa win that the Oakland team has to this day not yet really recovered from. By the final snap retiring to the condo was the logical decision. It was still snowing heavily. Tomorrow = Gem.
Monday morning we woke up to about 8 inches of fresh on the deck! Immediately got on the horn and quickly learned that Mad River Glen was reporting a foot plus up top. Decision was made. The only issue was that it was cold. South Pole—March of the Penguins—cold. The thermometer at our place was dialed in around negative 20°F. There was also a steady wind.
Wow it was COLD! Cold as I have ever cared to ski.
Some of the circumstances that will drive me into the lodge are frozen and fogged goggles that need to be blasted with the boot dryer. BTW—if your goggles are given you fits it is more than likely because they have frozen up around the ventilation holes, making it impossible for them to work properly. This may happen when you are skiing pow pow, specifically snorkeling, or if you work up enough lather to soak your head gear. Your best bet is to spend the 10 minutes inside to get them back in functional order (or have a spare in your bag to swap into action). If you cannot see where you are turning out there, I wish you luck and Please stay far away from me…
On the chilliest of days, mixed with a slight hangover, the cold will also drive me indoors. This does not happen to the Guru often, but it has, and more than likely will again, no matter how many arm circles I do.
In the Base Box the weather station was reporting a wind-chill on top of General Starks Mountain of -43°F. Cold as a Witch’s (body part, noun)! The single chair is a 17 minute ride to summit and they do not give you a wool blankets like they did 30 years ago to keep warm, dress accordingly.
Booting up in the lodge around 10 AM many people were witnessed coming in from the second run with mild frostbite on their face, any skin exposed was in jeopardy. They looked like ball players with the black stuff under the eyes—expect the skiers had a shade of white dead skin against the rest of a very red and cold face.
So what would any logical skier do? Went for a run; Paradise. The traverse across the ridge gave the whole body a nice warm up after the long chair ride. We were not the first tracks, but judging by the amount of pole plants in the foot and a half of fresh snow, there were not many before us.
Conditions were divine. There was snow everywhere. The trees broke the wind. The sun was shining. The skiing was really good. As good as it gets for New England.
By the time we had reached the lower mountain my eyelashes actually froze inside my goggles. My hands were cold, and I did not really even feel my feet (knew they were in poor shape, my boots that leak, another topic for another blog).
The lodge it felt downright tropical. We sat in the sun and got warm. When I took of my boots, which were rock hard frozen plastic, it felt like someone had dumped boiling water onto my toes. I looked at my friend and told him I was going to need a few extra minutes and to go for a run. He stood pat, probably needing the time and warmth just as much as I did. We ended up skiing 5 runs that day, taking a break after each one to get inside out of the artic air.
This was on of the best powder days I have had in the East in memory (getting old, but the bicentennial babies are taking over the world this year). I CANNOT promise you anything, but can tell you this…
It will snow again.
Q: Do you really want to be watching it happen from a computer screen?
A: Negative.
Recommended Course of Action: Take Monday of and head to the hills for the football game and some skiing.
Think Snow,
Go Seabags!
S.G.