Mount Sunapee

[loafer89]

Area skied: Mount Sunapee, New Hampshire

Date skied: February 24th, 2008 from 9:30am - 3:00pm

Surface conditions: Machine groomed, packed powder, hardpacked.

Weather: saphire blue sky, no wind. Temperature 19F at 9:30am, 36F at 3:00pm

Warren and I got a bit of a late start due to a late wakeup this morning. We arrived to a very crowded mountain and had to park at the end of the second parking lot on a nice icy incline. The driver next to me was discouraged by how far he had to park and was asking the parking attendant for the best way to Cannon.

Despite the auspicious start, we booted up and hoofed it to the base lodge, I handed in my coupon for free skiing for Warren and we where on our way. Our first run was off of the North Peak Triple and as soon as we got off Warren saw the enterance to Cataract Glades, so guess where we took our first run:



The snow in the glade was very firm, not icy but not very carvable either and not the most enjoyable tree skiing experience but decent considering the rain/freeze of early last week.

We took the Sunbowl Quad up and skied Stovepipe/Williamson Trail which had somewhat icy granular snow on it and if fairly flat and boring, but made Warren Happy. We rode back up to the summit and skied down Upper Ridge into Ridge Glades (firm granular snow) and down to one monster of a liftline at the Sunapee Express.

Warren and I decided to ride up using the singles line and this worked well for the next four runs that we used the quad chair for and minimized the liftline wait to 5-10 minutes. I have never done this before, but was comfortable with it as I could see my son a few chairs ahead of me each time.

Packed powder was found on Skyway Ledges where they had blown snow during the week and the view of Sunapee Lake is very good:



Packed powder was also found on Westside/Chase Ledges and Hansen-Chase with recent snowmaking. Upper and Lower Blast-Off where much the same with some of the best snow on the mountain comprised of the trails with recent snowmaking.

We skied off the North Peak Triple and down Goose bumps and Upper/Lower Flying Goose and both had groomed granular-semi packed powder snow. We skied Cataract Glade a second time to a 20 minute wait at the Snowbowl Quad.
Back to the summit again and down Bonanza/Chipmunk and then on to the South Peak Learning Area.

Warren had a desire to ski every inch of a new mountain for him, so we skied down Explorer into the Calypso Terrain Park and back up to Province /Sunnysidedown trail.

We ended our day by taking three runs in the terrain features on Jet Stream and Pipeline and I skied a box for the first time.

[hammer]

Nice report...sounds like you had to deal with some looong lift lines.

[loafer89]

Originally Posted by hammer

Nice report...sounds like you had to deal with some looong lift lines.

Today was easily the most crowded day with the longest lift lines of the season thus far and after having Saddleback to ourselves last weekend, today felt uncomfortably crowded.

[jack97]

I went there the same day with my daughter and family friends, it was a last minute trip. Lines where long but the mountain has a good way of dispersing the crowds. And I was surprised on how the glades are holding up, no ice, def firm and edge-able.

The only sad part is that they plowed down the bumps on goose.

[hiroto]

I wonder if it is accumulation of tail end of MA vacationer and start of NH vacationer.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by jack97

I went there the same day with my daughter and family friends, it was a last minute trip. Lines where long but the mountain has a good way of dispersing the crowds. And I was surprised on how the glades are holding up, no ice, def firm and edge-able.

The only sad part is that they plowed down the bumps on goose.

I wonder why the plowed them down...real shame. It's not like they need another groomed trail...

[jack97]

Originally Posted by hammer

I wonder why the plowed them down...real shame. It's not like they need another groomed trail...

Last week niar event left the bumps frozen, then they had a 3" of natural. They left the lift lines bumps intact but the surface was variable, some sections had edgeable troughs and others were iced, really had to slow down and feel the surface to get good footing. I figure the bumps on goose was harder due to the pitch and that trail gets expose to wind, any natural dusting would get blown off, so it makes sense to plow them.

The other factor is that they had a big race on sunday about 200 racers, lynx was used and closed to the public. Maybe they wanted to groomed all the trials on the triple for the kids to warm up and to have an extra trail for other skiers.

If they don't re seed goose, I might go to okemo,

[RISkier]

Originally Posted by jack97

Last week niar event left the bumps frozen, then they had a 3" of natural. They left the lift lines bumps intact but the surface was variable, some sections had edgeable troughs and others were iced, really had to slow down and feel the surface to get good footing. I figure the bumps on goose was harder due to the pitch and that trail gets expose to wind, any natural dusting would get blown off, so it makes sense to plow them.

The other factor is that they had a big race on sunday about 200 racers, lynx was used and closed to the public. Maybe they wanted to groomed all the trials on the triple for the kids to warm up and to have an extra trail for other skiers.

If they don't re seed goose, I might go to okemo,

Glad we didn't go to Sunapee on Sunday. Lynx is probably my favoriate trail at Sunapee and when the rest of the mountain gets too busy to tolerate you can usually find some solitude riding the Triple and skiing the trails in that area. I would not have been a happy camper if we'd driven up and found that terrain closed. Increasingly I find weekend crowds at Sunapee pretty brutal.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by RISkier

Glad we didn't go to Sunapee on Sunday. Lynx is probably my favoriate trail at Sunapee and when the rest of the mountain gets too busy to tolerate you can usually find some solitude riding the Triple and skiing the trails in that area. I would not have been a happy camper if we'd driven up and found that terrain closed. Increasingly I find weekend crowds at Sunapee pretty brutal.

That's why I avoided going there around Christmas week...the crowds must have been terrible when the Triple was closed.

[jack97]

Originally Posted by RISkier

Glad we didn't go to Sunapee on Sunday. Lynx is probably my favoriate trail at Sunapee and when the rest of the mountain gets too busy to tolerate you can usually find some solitude riding the Triple and skiing the trails in that area. I would not have been a happy camper if we'd driven up and found that terrain closed. Increasingly I find weekend crowds at Sunapee pretty brutal.

I like the triple and the bumps on goose, sometimes I just do that all day.

What surprised me was that the race was not listed on their event calender. I was there and saw the gates on lynx. We had to park in the third lot when we got in at 9:20, a ski ambassador at the lot told us about the race and the numbers. IMO, totally bush league in sunapee's part.

BTW, we got in entrance at 9:05, but the local police stopped us for speeding...... we were on the tail end of a three car line and just following traffic. The officer stopped us and gave a warning but it was more of the warning to the rest of the cars, we just got picked b/c it was convenient.