Stowe Derby 2007
"Stowe Derby -- what do you mean you've never done it?!!"
screamed the banner over Main Street in Stowe. Not having the strongest downhill skills, I'd always been a little too chicken to try. At Mt Mansfield's cross country center, watching one February as collegiate racers screamed down a hill, trying to make the last corner down to the brook 4 abreast and putting on a spectacular wipeout.... was the whole race like that? Then last winter, my wife goaded me into riding the Tollhouse chairlift, and I survived the descent. So I drove up to Stowe on a Friday night at the end of February.I lucked out with the weather. The conditions in the Stowe area were the best of the past several years, with over 3 feet of snow having fallen earlier in the month. Race day morning, the temperature was +1º, painfully clear and sunny. Riding the Lookout chairlift up to the start, I could see all the jumbled mountains of Smugglers' Notch, and clear across to New Hampshire. But I tried to avoid looking directly down, yikes!! The mogul field on the upper part of the lift line looked particularly intimidating, and someone was stopped in the middle, casually adjusting his bindings. I managed to debark from the chairlift without decapitating myself, just below the summit of Mt Mansfield. Alpine skiers glided down past the chairlift. It seemed that the signs for the all trails except the Toll Road were black diamond or double black diamond.
My wave of 5 skiers went off at 10:20. 100 meters into the race, I fell on the first corner, which wasn't actually a terrible corner. I jumped up and kept going, checking some speed. At a couple of sharp, fast corners, spectators watched and cheered my and other racers' wipeouts. There were a couple of flat sections on the Toll Road where you have to ski to keep momentum before the next drop.
After several minutes and a couple more falls, I recognized the lower part of the trail I skied the previous winter. I went around a hard downhill right turn; then I passed the beginning of the Peavey trail and hurtled down towards the cross country center. I made the right turn into the woods and down to the brook. It'd been an exhilarating ride, but also almost a relief to begin the brutally steep climb away from the brook. Now we were on the Stowe Derby trail, undulating up and down and headed into town. I worked my way past some people who had beaten me down the Toll Road and was passed by a couple of others.
Everyone I'd spoken with about the Derby over the years talks about the Toll Road, but nobody said anything about the narrow, plunging downhills on the Derby trail. The corners at the bottoms were churned into sugary powder by the racers who'd passed before me, and they ate me up. The last monster downhill spat me onto the edge of a corn field for the final, basically flat kilometers into town. I worked with a high school kid from suburban Boston, as we took turns drafting one another. He beat me over the last bridge and I couldn't close the gap to the finish. In a way, it didn't matter: great day, great race. If you can, you should try it at least once!