No Show at Burke and Slave Labor at Stowe November 10, 2011

On Tuesday November 8th our class met at Burke hoping to see the helicopters that would put together the final lift towers needing to be completed for the new chair lift.  However, this ended up being a disappointment as we found out that the helicopters canceled and wouldn't be there until the next day.  We were disappointed about it, but were happy that we were done for the day otherwise and treated it as a day off.
On Thursday the 10th, we took our second trip to Stowe Mountain.  We went to look again at both the lift towers and the ski patrol building as well as to rake leaves out of the drainage ditch on the side of the mountain access road.  It was pretty amazing to see the new lift going through its tests for completion seeing as it was still under construction only a few weeks before then.
After looking at the bottom terminal we got back in the vans and took a trip a little more than halfway up the mountain to begin our unpaid labor.  It really wasn't too bad, but we had to rake and leaf-blow the leaves out of the drainage ditches on the sides of the mountain access road.  For the majority of the time, I used a really bad rake.  It sucked to say the least! It was still fun though and a good opportunity to chat with my classmates and catch up on things.  I did eventually get to use one of the leaf-blowers available and that was actually a good amount of fun! We were done pretty quickly and proceeded to head up to the top of the mountain.
At the top of the mountain we were able to check out the completed top terminal and the Ski Patrol building in the last stages of completion.  I was even able to check out the area underneath the bullwheel in the top terminal, which I didn't even know was possible.  As a group we also spread out hay on the ground around the terminal to help prevent erosion and we also checked out The Octagon restaurant at the top of the mountain.  It was really cool to see these projects completed and I took some more photos from the top of the mountain:

View from the Top Terminal

 View from The Octagon Restaurant

 View of the Top Terminal (left) and Ski Patrol (right)

Once we left the top of the mountain, we took a trip to look at the Pisten Bully groomer-maintenance facility at Stowe.  It was really impressive to see such a good work garage completely dedicated to working on groomers.  I was able to take a look at some of the most expensive groomers that Pisten Bully makes and was even able to check out Stowe's new Cab Cat that is used for cat skiing, where customers take trips in the groomers to areas not accessible by lifts.  I am looking forward to seeing what Stowe will do with their new fleet of groomers in the future.  Much like the first trip, it was both fun and informative.  Here are some photos of the shop and the Cab Cat:

 A Pisten Bully 600 w/o the Winch

The Pisten Bully Cab Cat