Stratton

Stratton mountain is a great family ski resort. I was just recently there on a week-long ski trip. They have everything from little bunny hills, to double black diamonds (the most challenging). They have a great ski school for 3-year-old kids and for adults who want to learn skiing, or just want to refresh their memory on how to ski. There is a racing team at Stratton. It is a part of the Stratton Mountain School. The Stratton Mountain School is a school for grades 7-12. It is located near Stratton Mountain. While I was there, I saw the racing team practice. They looked pretty good, but people do come from all over the country to go to school there and be part of their ski team.

Currently at Stratton there are 58 trails open. There is a 19” base which is a mix between natural snow and man-made snow. The forecast for today is snow. This will help their number of trails open. A few weeks ago it was really warm at Stratton, and it rained. Te rain melted the snow. Luckily, it was after the holiday ski rush. They had to close a lot of their trails because there wasn't enough snow. There weren't many trails open before it rained so Stratton only had a few trails open.

I went there over the holidays, and I have to say, it was very good snow, even after it rained. It snowed for only a few hours over the four days I was there. It rained for a day, but I didn't go skiing that day. I thought that it would be either really icy or all the snow would melt. The next day, I went to the mountain and while I was on a lift, I was talking to someone who was skiing the day it was raining, and they said that the snow was actually pretty good. I realized that I was wrong, but I did enjoy a day off from skiing. On my last day, I managed to find a good double black diamond that wasn't too icy. I took a video of it (below) as I was skiing down. It was called Grizzly Bear. There are a lot of trails at Stratton that have “Bear” in them because their logo has a bear on it.

Stratton is celebrating its 50^th season. Started in 1961, it is probably the best mountain you will go to that has been operating for 50 years of more, aside from maybe Whiteface Mountain in New York, which held the winter olympics twice. Now back to Stratton. On New Years Eve, there is a “Torchlight Parade” where a bunch of people hold flares and ski down a trail on the mountain. I was staying in a house in walking distance from the mountain so I could see the skiers from the house. There is also a firework show. All this happens before 9 o'clock because Stratton is a family mountain.