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Pico 12/18 and Sunapee 12/19

medfordmike

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Jan 26, 2013
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Thursday I returned to Pico after being their opening day. Conditions were still very good snow wise. They received about 3 inches up top which helped keep things nice. The trees particularly around Outpost were still very nice. Light crowd and lifts were ski on all morning. They have really resisted the urge to groom most of the mountain which was nice to see. Visibility was a bit bad and flat light was nearly everywhere in the morning but the conditions more than made up for it.

Friday I used up a free pass at Sunapee. I have a house close by and while it is not a favorite of mine they are very good at what they do and they know their core audience well. Definitely could see how the earlier storms really favored mountains a bit to the north. The base was hard packed with a layer of granular on top. Not terrible conditions but the Killington area really made out much better. The new (to them) quad in the sun bowl area opened today. I took a couple of laps on the two runs open back there. The first two trips the lift started and stopped a lot. By the third run later in the morning it seemed to be running smoother but it still stopped more than once each trip up. I am sure they are still working out the kinks. When they do it will be a better option back there than the old lift.
 

podunk77

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Feb 17, 2012
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They have really resisted the urge to groom most of the mountain


I don't mean for this to sound as snarky as it probably will, but I've never known Pico to have much of an "urge" to groom anything. I was just checking out some pictures on the Harvey Road website of some terrain served by the Knomes Knoll Triple, and it looks like a fair amount of trails off even that novice lift are left untouched.
 

medfordmike

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Don't think you sound snarky at all. As some of the trails get more use I can see where some of the intermediates and lower mountain trails might get groomed. But this is my first year there with a ski pass in many years so my surprise maybe more due to inexperience with how they do things :smile:.
 

bdfreetuna

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keep the faith
Pico is a great mountain with lots of awesome and varied bump runs. Lots of fun tree areas too. Unlike some areas, many of their trails are never groomed at all. I'm going there tomorrow.. thanks for the report!
 

steamboat1

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I was just checking out some pictures on the Harvey Road website of some terrain served by the Knomes Knoll Triple, and it looks like a fair amount of trails off even that novice lift are left untouched.
I'm pretty sure they don't run the Knomes Knoll triple anymore. There was even talk of it's removal several years ago. Pico only grooms 49'er off the summit regularly. Upper Pike & KA see an occassional grooming. Sunset 71, Giant Killer & Summit Glades rarely if ever see a groomer. Sometimes they'll groom Bronco off the Outpost chair but that's it over there. They do groom most of the lower mountain off the Golden Express regularly. B-Slope over at Little Pico gets groomed regularly for racing but I don't think A- Slope ever saw a groomer. Glad to see Pico getting some love on this website. My only beef with Pico is that the Summit chair is often closed because of wind & without that lift there really isn't much else to ski at Pico. Back in the day when they still had the Birch Glade chair & the summit poma you could still access the upper terrain when the Summit chair was down, not anymore.
 

podunk77

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I'm pretty sure they don't run the Knomes Knoll triple anymore. There was even talk of it's removal several years ago.


That's what I thought -- someone on this forum even questioned whether it was still a viable lift -- but the pics I'm referring to were from February of 2014, so they must've run it at least once last year. Here's the link if anyone's interested... http://nyskiblog.com/forums/#nabble-td4036975

It's behind a pay wall, but I found another article online in which the director of Pico said as recently as 2013 that they were "thinking of" night skiing off the Knomes Knoll Triple. I guess that tells you something about marketing. As a teen back in the 80s I used to "think about" Christie Brinkley seducing me, but I knew it was never gonna happen! :D
 

steamboat1

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That's what I thought -- someone on this forum even questioned whether it was still a viable lift -- but the pics I'm referring to were from February of 2014, so they must've run it at least once last year. Here's the link if anyone's interested... http://nyskiblog.com/forums/#nabble-td4036975

It's behind a pay wall, but I found another article online in which the director of Pico said as recently as 2013 that they were "thinking of" night skiing off the Knomes Knoll Triple. I guess that tells you something about marketing. As a teen back in the 80s I used to "think about" Christie Brinkley seducing me, but I knew it was never gonna happen! :D
Those pics are Little Pico not Knomes Knoll. Shame they don't run Knomes anymore because although it's short there are some nice shot's in there, a few actually
 
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