This season I’ve skied several of the night sessions at the Lyndon Outing Club. The LOC is the only place in the Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom that offers night skiing. I hadn’t had the chance to ski there yet this season during daytime sessions. The Outing Club is only open for day skiing Saturdays and Sundays from noon-4pm. Night skiing happens on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights from 6pm-9pm. The last few weekends I had been focused on chasing powder at Burke Mountain. This weekend was President’s day and I knew that the crowds would be too much for me to handle. This meant it was the perfect weekend to spend skiing at the Lyndon Outing Club.
During night skiing, only the face is lit and skiable. Most of the other terrain is off limits and new headlamp skiing is allowed. There are 9 trails at the LOC and most are only skiable on the weekend. These trails range from double black diamonds to greens. I’m a new member of the board of directors and have been trying to promote the hill more on social media, mainly through their Instagram.
Capturing Some Drone Shots
I arrived to the Lyndon Outing Club early so that I could take some aerial photographs of the hill before going skiing. Most of the pictures of the LOC are taken with cell phones, from the same vantage point, and generally only show a couple of the trails. As far as I know, there has never been any drone photos taken of the hill. I spent about 20 minutes flying my drone around the hill to capture as many angels of the different trails that I could. It was very old outside that day and my hands were freezing. I managed to get a shot of the groomer, but no one had started skiing by time I was done. The photos turned out really cool and I plan going back to shoot some more when there are skiers on the hill.
Documenting the Trails
My plan for today was to film all the trails with my GoPro mounted to my helmet, to document and showcase the variety of terrain. I usually film everything the wide-angle mode, but decided for some reason to film everything in medium width mode. I filmed half of the trails by myself and then met up with my friend Dick, to film the other half. I got in twelve runs, which is the most I’ve ever done there.
I Did Not Achieve the Results I Wanted
When I film other mountains, the grooming and trail conditions and generally perfect and my GoPro 3+ footage looks decent. At the Outing Club the trails are very bumpy, challenging and wild, making it an absolutely fun place to ski. Sadly, the medium width camera settings combined with the bumpy conditions made most of my footage look horrible. Some of the runs were salvageable, but I’m going to back to re-video all the trails again next weekend, with adjusted cameras settings.
Trail Map
Suicide (Blue Square)
Face (Blue Square)
Zitz Mark (Black Diamond)
Mixer (Double Black Diamond)
Lion’s Den (Black Diamond)
Apple Orchard (Blue Square)
Bunny Hop (Blue Square)
One of the Oldest Ski Hills in New England
Founded in 1937, The Lyndon Outing Club is one of the longest running ski hills in New England. It is purely volunteer run and truly a gem for the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. I joined the Board of Directors, of the LOC at the beginning of this season to help promote this wonderful historic ski hill. I recommend that anyone visiting the NEK or is skiing at Burke or Jay Peak to visit the LOC for day or night skiing. And while you are at it, make sure and have one of their tasty burgers in the lodge!
Links
- Check out Stoked! Jan’s Ski Blog for more of his skating off-season adventures.
- Visit skilyndon.com for more information.
- You can also follow the Lyndon Outing Club on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
- Follow Jan Welch on Instagram.
About “Stoked! Jan’s Ski Blog”
I’ve spent my entire life living in cities, where I was able to urban, distance and aggressive skate all year long. In December of 2017 I moved to rural Vermont and found myself in the dead of winter, with snow all around me. Winters in Vermont are long and harsh, making skating nearly impossible 4-5 months out of the year. I live 2.5 hours from the nearest city and an hour from the nearest trails, making skating even in the summer much less frequent then I was used to.
Something needed to supplement my skating during the off season, so I took up skiing on January 2nd of 2019. From the moment I put on skis, I was hooked! Skiing gives me the exact same feeling I get from urban skating. Through skiing I am able to replicate the feel of carving around on city streets and playing on whatever obstacles catch your eye. This blog chronicles my stoke on skiing during my skating off season.
– Jan Eric Welch (Founder of bigwheelblading.com)
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