Sugarbush, VT, Friday 2/10/06

[billski]

Date(s) Skied: Friday 2/10/06

Resort or Ski Area: Sugarbush

Conditions: pri: Packed MM Powder, Loose powder, 2ndy: FGR

Trip Report:
Good Golly Miss Molly. What an awesome day, start to finish. Spent the entire day at Lincoln Peak.

Pictures (and video from grooming operation ride) are here in the gallery: http://tinyurl.com/ahbgy

Packed, loose MM trackable powder everywhere, nary a scratchy spot on the groomed trails. Ski patrol was pretty liberal in opening marginal terrain. Their philosophy is "if we can do a rescue on it safely, we'll open it". They mark each trail appropriately at the top so you know what you are getting into. Got this direct from the source.

Just a great day all around. Bluebird, no wind. FAST snow all around. Upper mountain was a lot of fun. Jester was a cruiser's dream. Organ Grinder was a lot of fun. Small-ish crowds, no liftlines. Castlrock was closed, heavy duty snowmaking.

Great Nastar course, got about 8 runs in. Well done. Course is really intimidating looking up from the base lodge.

Big new base lodge under construction.

SB is a real skiers mountain. They just have a lot to do and a really well organized.

Now another highlight happened after the lifts closed. At 5PM Warren "my man" pulls up in a groomer cat at the base for and hour's working session. I hop on board. Straight up organ grinder. I took videos. One is posted in the gallery. I got cranky messages from the web site when I tried to add more. Simply amazing. I was looking for a headrest it got so steep, my neck got sore. It was a blast. Got to see sunset from the top. Awesome in a cat. These things can burn 80 gallons of biodiesel by 10pm. Turn around, the best part of going down was when we got to a precipice. Unlike skis, you go straight out for a bit, then drop straight down. Ath this point, I was STANDING on the bar in front of the windshield. So cool. But man, the tracks and transmission just grabbed right on. Cool cabin too - stereo, plenty of heat, remote control spotlights. What a trip. We went over to Birdland, which is a narrow steep black. The groom it with a winch. Attach the groomer to a tree topside and winch their way up and down. Got videos of it. I don't know what was more fun, going up or going down. It got less dramatic the darker it got.
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Here's the evidence.
http://www.iabsi.com/public/ski/imag...5676-winch.MOV
beware! 16MB file size.

This 'cat has a winch cable tied to a strut behind the cab. Look carefully. Just like still photos of we all take of the slopes, you don't get the true perspective of the pitch. It's some of their steepest terrain. You really should go up and see it for yourself.
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If I can post more, I will. It was definitely the best apres-ski time I've ever had! Recommended.

Oh, and by the way, if you get the cat on the wrong angle on some boiler plate, they WILL do the same thing as skis!

Stowe 2/11 report to follow.

[thetrailboss]

Yes, definitely put the videos on somewhere!!

Awesome report!

[billski]

Originally Posted by thetrailboss

Yes, definitely put the videos on somewhere!!

Awesome report!

There is definitely some file size limitations here. I need to know what they are. They are limiting me to some pretty short clips. If these limits cannot be raised, I'll see if I can stuff them somewhere else. Sorry.

[eatskisleep]

I think snowpics.net has a 20mb size limit.

[billski]

Originally Posted by eatskisleep

I think snowpics.net has a 20mb size limit.

the ones I'm trying to load are 4-6Mb. I think it's limited around 2Mb

[Skier75]

Sugarbush on a Friday!!! Oh, yeah, done that! Gotta love the slopes with no crowds. Sugarbush is a great, fun mountain too!