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AlpineZone Summit 3.0 at Sugarloaf Mountain, 3/30 - 4/1

Nick

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Well here is the full trip report!

Was beat up on Friday. I woke up at 3:30AM and headed out of the house. Started my journey by driving to Logan Airport to pick up my sister (Ski Stef) and her boyfriend Jimmy (vdk03) at the airport hotel they were staying at (they had arrived the night before from Colorado). I was feeling like crap out of the gate after downing way to much chinese food the night before and was uncomfortably full still.

Rolled into Logan around 5:30 and we threw the snowboard and skis on the roof and off we went. Arrived at Sugarloaf at around 10AM, and it looked amazing
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It's a little deceiving though. From a distance it looked like wall to wall cover on every open trail, but the few inches they had received the day before made many of the trails that were closed look open. They had 19 trails for us to play on the whole weekend, which was amazing, considering the weather, and very much assisted by the snowmaking that Sugarloaf had done.

We went right to the room to change up and drop off our stuff. We got to the mountain around 11AM to get our first tracks in on the day, and met up with Backloafriver, who we skied with until around 4PM.

For the most part, we lapped Hayburner / Kings Landing / Sleuce, as conditions were the best on those trails. Skidder got a little scraped off later, although the sides of the trail were significantly better. Conditions varied a lot - some PP, some crud, some loose granular. Most of the trails weren't edge to edge, and Sugarloaf had the warning signs up - you had to be careful coming over drops because it was possible on the other side was an unskiable area or extremely thin cover.

Hayburner was probably the most fun as they had some rollers that were fun to go up and down on. I spent most of my time working on my carving turns, which need some improvement. There were zero lift lines, so we put in a lot of laps - the first day, probably 15 or so laps. Weather was OK, not as frigid as the year before, but it was cold and pretty blustery. I was definitely rocking the neckwarmer.

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After we called it quits at 3, I was feeling like crap, so I went back to the room and basically passed out for four hours until the Welcome Party at the Shipyard Brew Haus. As usual, Sugarloaf threw an awesome party, great apps, some free booze, Ethan and Brad were very gracious hosts. Unfortunately for me, I still felt like A$$ and was yawning and exhausted the entire day. Got to meet many AZ'ers, some of whom I had met the year before but didn't really remember (a year of posting on the boards has done a lot for name recognition!). Called it quits at about 12:15AM, and went back to the room, had 2 nyquil and passed out, hoping I would feel better in the morning.

Saturday morning, definitely felt much better. DHS, SkiStef, VDK03 and myself all got to the mountain around 10AM. Again, no lift lines. This was a big contrast to the summit last year when Spillway was on wind hold and we spend 20 minutes in the line at each run. We were up and down, mainly lapping the same runs - Totes Road, Kings Run, Hayburner, Skidder a few times, Sleuce. Weather was amazing. Started off with similar conditions but really warmed up in the afternoon - bluebird skies, mid-40's. Snow at the base was starting to brown up a little bit in the afternoon. Got to run laps with many other AZ'ers, which was really a blast.

Around 1, went to Bullwinkles for a couple cold adult beverages. Real nice spring conditions outside, sat on the deck, some music, all in all a great day. On the way out, I lost a ski (single eject?) of one of the rollers on hayburner when I sat in the backseat and just made a nice tumble. I guess I was cut off at that point!

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We called it around 2:30, headed back to the room, changed and retunred to the Widowmaker for the Apres Party. Had 47 AZ'ers show up, which was great! Got to meet a lot of new people and mingle and say "Hi". We did some giveaways (Ski Stef and VDK03 had printed up some AZ hats), and Sugarloaf graciously contributed a couple sweatshirts, T-shirts, and Spillway signs for the giveaway.

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View from the Widowmaker loft. Really bluebird day, almost zero wind or clouds

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VDK03 hitting the food

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Some of the giveaways

After finishing up probably a half dozen beers, then another one with Wjenness at the bar, WaLoaf, Darent, Cheese, Marge, VDK03 and myself all headed over to The Rack to get some dinner. Plowed back a burger and went back to the room, feeling pretty buzzed up, determined to hit the hay early so I could make it for first tracks on Sunday.

Sunday, got up and made it up about 2 minutes late to the first lift.

Some pics from Skyline:
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VDK03

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Marge, DHS, VDK03, and Ski Stef rocking the awesome 80's sweater

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I Think this was down Tote Road

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Panorama shot

First tracks was great, less frozen than last year. We did some laps with Brad and Ethan, Brad was rocking some Tele's. Started down skidder which was just a speed fest.

Great day again, we just lapped the same runs. Cheese was impressive; pulled a 360 coming down Hayburner (I think?) off a tiny little 1' lip. It just got better as the day went along with the snow softening up and warming up to the point where jackets were unzipped and every vent you had was open. We called it around noon, but even with the early departure we had still put in I think over a dozen runs in the morning. No lines to be seen.

All in all, a great weekend. Had we had last year's snow with this year's weather, it would have been unreal!

Oh yeah, and if you didn't read about it yet, I had a little incident loading the conveyer on Skyline.
 

bvibert

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WTF where are the Saturday updates?

You guys can't leave us poor suckers hanging like that!!
 

vdk03

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Killer weekend, trip reports and pics coming soon.

Sent from my C771 using Tapatalk
 

Madroch

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Unacceptable response time on the TR's- some kind of warning has to be issued...
 

deadheadskier

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Perfect weather all weekend and what was opened skied really well. Sugarloaf really did a fantastic job putting out a great surface given the recent Atomic meltdown. Had they not made snow, it wouldn't have been anywhere near as good.

Fastest recorded speed of the weekend I heard was 53mph
 

Cornhead

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Nick, thanks so much for hooking me up with the first tracks today. I've never done it before. I did feel a tad elitist, but got over that quickly. So awesome to have the place to yourself for an hour, I got five runs in before 8:30. Cheese, I felt bad I didn't ski Skidder with you first thing in the morning, I wanted to take a warm-up lap.

I'm spending the night in Rutland. I'm considering skiing Kmart tomorrow. Highwaystar, you gonna be there? It may snow a little overnight.
 

Cornhead

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Kinda weird, all my pics are the same as my solo trips, all scenery. There is one shot with some AZers in it, but they're too far away to recognize. Eat your hearts out, those who wish they were still skiing.

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MOOSE!
 

Cheese

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Cheese, I felt bad I didn't ski Skidder with you first thing in the morning, I wanted to take a warm-up lap.

"No friends on a powder day" and as many found out yesterday, "No friends during first tracks." We had 4-5 runs to carve up the fresh corduroy before they unleashed the buffing general public so that's what we all did. You did the right thing choosing the trails you wanted to track out first.

:beer:

Nick,

Great job setting up this trip! This was my first trip with the AZ skiers and riders and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Thanks to the AZ members and the Sugarloaf staff for an awesome spread of free SWAG, free food, free drinks, free skiing, free first tracks and of course free laughs. The memories of this trip will hopefully get me through the warmer months and I very much look forward to the 2013 AZ Summit.
 
Last edited:

Nick

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wanted to add, really nice meeting so many of you guys. As VDK03 said, "So nice to see so many smiling faces" .... (yeah we gave him a hard time for that).

BTW, here he is driving in goggles. The epitome of cool. :lol:

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xwhaler

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We had a great time this wknd. Thanks to everyone that helped put this on especially Nick and Ethan and everyone at the Loaf. Really awesome value and my group of 14 all really had a blast and can't wait to come back next year. We prob did more drinking and chilling at the health club all wknd than actual skiing but that's ok too. My legs are pretty beat after 24 days this yr.

Love the King of Spring sweatshirt I got...I was proudly wearing it Sat night and yesterday on the way home. Conditions were fast and firm and coverage better than expected given 2weeks ago. Certainly they have enough if it stays cold at night to go another couple weeks.

If this is it, it was a great season and certainly the AZ Summitt was a great way to cap it. We'll be back next year for sure!
 
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