The places you knew as a child aren’t often as big as you remembered them. Whether it’s the backyard pool where you first learned to swim or that hill you used to bomb on your skateboard, the scene is usually smaller than the version that lives in your head. But that hasn’t been the case in my return to Stowe Mountain Resort, VT.

Rolling up the resort’s service road in the shotgun seat of Ralph Kucharek’s trusty gray Toyota Tacoma, I decided to keep my expectations in check. I thought back to the couple of times I was lucky enough to get this far north as a grom. Stowe is roughly 35 miles east of Burlington, which is nearly five hours by car from where I grew up in Albany, NY. That meant weekend trips were out of the question, and I only got to ride here a total of four days during two choice vacations. At the time, it rocked my world. The memory that sticks out most is my brother and I braving the biting cold on a painstakingly slow chairlift. My fingers were never quite the same, but that freezing ride was worth it because it led us to endless lines with untouched powder throughout sustained glades of quality, all things that are much harder to find further south in the Green Mountain State. But I’ve been to a lot of amazing places since then: Mt. Baker, WA, Whistler-Blackcomb, BC, Jackson Hole, WY, and more. I wondered if Stowe would still hold a candle to my memory of it, or if it might pale in comparison given my experience in grander locales.

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