Stowe

Our last trip to Stowe consisted of trail work on the access road. Our class used rakes and leaf blowers to clean out the culverts on both sides of the Stowe access road. This job wasn't too fun in comparison to the other projects are class has participated in this semester, but I feel that we generally all came together to get the job done cleaning the road. After the manual labor was finished, we took a trip over to the Maintenence building. This building, more like warehouse, houses the entire Groomer fleet, vehicle maintenence, and snowmobiles used by Stowe. I was able to step into a retrofitted Piston Bully Winch cat, which was turned into a guest transport cat equiped with a cabin with seats. This was the first type of Piston Bully machine I have ever seen with a detachable cab on the back. It was really cool. Seeing the new and old Piston Bullys at Stowe made me crave stepping into a groomer this season even more.

Chilli Cook Off

Lyndon State held its annual Chilli Cook off over at the Lyndon Outing Club on November 5th 2012. As well as the cook-off, the LOC put on it's first organized skate jam at the new skate park it installed over this past summer. My group was in charge of sustainability of the event and for future use of the LOC. Our group, along with certain members from trail and building maintenence teamed up to construct a recycle and deposit bin, which is a perminenet structure at the LOC. The bin came out great and contains old cross country skis as trim and decoration. Both the Chilli Cook off and Skate Jam went very well. There was no trash left outside by the lodge and skate park, which really shows that people are becoming enviromentally aware and not littering as much. The Outing Club also put on a ski and skate movie premier as well as a bonfire for all to enjoy later that evening. The fire was created from old wood that was being thrown out and was effectively managed with both shovels and water. All in all. The Chilli Cook off and First annual Skate Jam were both a success.

Burke

Last weekend our class went over to Burke Mountain to install the seat pads on the Willoughby chair. This job consisted of a lot of repetition, but our class made it a fun game by racing against the load and unload side of the terminal. This also was nice because our work got done faster. This was also the first time I operated a lift. It was pretty cool being able to watch the lift stop and go and know I was the one in control. At the end of the day I was once again satisfied for being a mtn. Rec major because of the intense amount of in field experience that we do on a weekly basis.

Bretton Woods

Our class took a ride over to Bretton Woods and the Mt. Washington Hotel two weeks ago to check out their operations at the hill and over at the hotel. We met with many different higher level managers within the organization from sales/marketing to operations. I personally liked being able to check out the inside of the snow making operations and lift services seeing that I have little experience other than class time spent working with these two disciplines. I feel that the more I am involved in constructing projects, such as the recycle bin that was built at the LOC, and LOC cable splice, I am more interested in operations. I am still focused on getting involved with events and ski school to start off given that that is where my experience lies, but I also want to be involved in operations wherever I end up interning/ working this summer and next winter season.