Sugarbush Feb 24th-26th

Date(s) Skied: Feb 24th-26th

Resort or Ski Area: Sugarbush

Conditions: Powder,Crud,Some Ice, Cold and windy

Trip Report: We arrived at Sugarbush Thursday nite with an easy trip. Got dinner and headed to bed knowing it was going to be a POW day on Friday.

Friday morning we woke up to a blizzard. We got dressed had breakfast and headed to the mountain. The conditions were so crazy that walking up from the parking lot you had to have the goggles on just to see where you were going.

We checked my daughter into ski school and headed for the Super Bravo Lift. A warm up run down Spring Fling which was untracked with about 8 inches of powder..very nice!!

Castlerock was not open on Fri and around 9:30 all but Super Bravo Heaven Gate and Gate House Quad were on wind hold...Slide Brook never opened the entire time we were there. We were limited to what we could ski due to all the lifts on hold. But, we could have cared less it was dumping as hard as I had ever seen before.

Runs I remember were Steins which they mowed and was fast. A hell run down Twist with huge ice mogels hidden by the 8 inches of pow that was falling. Murphy's Glade was nice also. We went to check on my daughter who was having alot of problems with the powder now turning to crud conditions. The school decided to take them snow shoeing since they were having such problems skiing.

We finished the day at 3:00 since thats the time my daughters ski school ended. Sugarbush ended the day with 8 to 12 inches. We had a great dinner at John Egan's to end the night.

Saturday we woke up to Sunshine and no wind!! Castlerock was open!! I wanted to demo some skies on Saturday so I headed to the shop. My wife decided to demo the Rossignal B2 148cm. I went with the 3 ski package with the K2 appache Recon 174cm, Volkl AC3 and Volkl AC4 both 170cm. Headed down Spring Fling for another warm up run. We skied a bunch of runs off Lincoln Peak and I really loved the K2 Recon...Very fun ski. I went in and switched over to the Volkl AC3 and headed to the rock. Went down Castlerock Run which was very nice but had alot of hidden rocks and I was on demos so that was it for the day on the rock for me. The AC3 is a fun ski that is very snappy and great in the crud!!

At 12:00 it started dumping again..Hard...We did a bunch of runs off the North Lynx Peak and then went to check on my daughter who was having a great time (Thank God) riding the village double and skiing down Easy Rider. Headed back to the shop for my last demo on the Volkl AC4. At 2:00 the mountain had picked up another 8 inches...conditions were sweet but there was some ice in places due to the high winds on Friday. We skied off Lincoln Peak the rest of the day and again loved the AC4. My wife loved her B2's and when we went back into the shop to return the skis they asked if we wanted to buy them. I laughed and asked how much...Well, he gave us such a deal that I could not say no..Basically it was a buy one get one free deal. I had a real tough time deciding what ski to buy but in the end I went with the K2 Appache Recon with the piston binding. I just loved this ski. My wife of course was in love with her B2's and has never had so much fun skiing the crud.

Ended the day at 3:00 picking up my daughter at ski school who now moved into level 3!! By the way, it was still dumping very hard and the axcess road was a mess with cars sliding off the road into trees and cars backing down the road unable to climb the steep hills to the mountain. It looked like the LIE during rush hour. Due to the road conditions we got take-out and stayed in and went to bed around 11:00 by the way it was still dumping!!

Sunday, I woke up shocked to see that it stopped snowing. Today was a half day since we had to leave a 12:00. We opted to keep my daughter out of ski school and ski with her on our last day. After a few runs we were able to take her up the Gate House Quad and ski PushOver. That was really cool!!( By the way around 10:30 it started snowing again!! )Then by the time we were driving down the axcess road it was dumping!!!...AGAIN!

The ride home was awful due to that construction on the bridge on 91 in Greenfield 1 1/2 in traffic and missed our ferry and had to wait another hour for the next ferry. Almost 9 hrs to get home CRAZY!!.

What a great trip tons of snow. Sugarbush picked up around 22 inches since Fri and we also got killer new boards!!!

Thanks for sharing your great trip. Love the photos!!!

I'll second AllSkiing. Me and my friend/co-worker Damian skied Sugarbush on Sunday. I skied pretty much every run at the Bush, but didn't make it to Mt Ellen since the Slide Brook wasn't working (or whatever the excuse du jour was). It was pretty cold - maybe zero at the top with gusty winds.

There was some nice windblown powder off of the Lynx chair to start the day.
Then I went over to Heaven's Gate and skied Organgrinder and Spillsville (and a very brief tree run that I decided was NOT the place to be during a low snow year). Spillsville was nearly thigh-deep powder, so I naturally had my Colorado instincts kick in and went flying off the cattrack... only to find that the powder concealed the bulletproof glazed ice moguls underneath. Organgrinder was in better shape and quasi-groomed, and Ripcord's troughs were filled with windblown snow that made it pretty decent.
My lone run on Castlerock and down Middle Earth really should have involved crampons rather than dull-edged skis. It was pretty brutal and the two feet of new snowfall was nearly all blown or scraped off. The run also involved going over frozen waterfalls and a few unfrozen stream crossing. Not good times.
I forget the names of the trails (Moonshine and Twist, I'm pretty sure), but our favorite runs of the day were off the Super Bravo Chair, heading down Jesters, under the double chair (which wasn't running) and then dropping in. The snow there was the best on the mountain and the semi-gladed areas were fun to ski through, with little kickers here and there.

Also, the clam chowder at the Mushroom was great.

blacknblue said:

I'll second AllSkiing. Me and my friend/co-worker Damian skied Sugarbush on Sunday. I skied pretty much every run at the Bush, but didn't make it to Mt Ellen since the Slide Brook wasn't working (or whatever the excuse du jour was). It was pretty cold - maybe zero at the top with gusty winds.

There was some nice windblown powder off of the Lynx chair to start the day.
Then I went over to Heaven's Gate and skied Organgrinder and Spillsville (and a very brief tree run that I decided was NOT the place to be during a low snow year). Spillsville was nearly thigh-deep powder, so I naturally had my Colorado instincts kick in and went flying off the cattrack... only to find that the powder concealed the bulletproof glazed ice moguls underneath. Organgrinder was in better shape and quasi-groomed, and Ripcord's troughs were filled with windblown snow that made it pretty decent.
My lone run on Castlerock and down Middle Earth really should have involved crampons rather than dull-edged skis. It was pretty brutal and the two feet of new snowfall was nearly all blown or scraped off. The run also involved going over frozen waterfalls and a few unfrozen stream crossing. Not good times.
I forget the names of the trails (Moonshine and Twist, I'm pretty sure), but our favorite runs of the day were off the Super Bravo Chair, heading down Jesters, under the double chair (which wasn't running) and then dropping in. The snow there was the best on the mountain and the semi-gladed areas were fun to ski through, with little kickers here and there.

Also, the clam chowder at the Mushroom was great.

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Sounds like I made a good choice taking castlerock run. It had alot of rocks but no frozen and unfrozen waterfalls:lol:

Nice pics, nice report.

Slide Brook is one of those lifts that the resort loves to hate. It was put in during the height of ASC's power and, well wealth...kinda. :roll: It takes a lot of $$$ to run and they claim that few people use it, so they don't run it on weekdays, etc. I still feel that since they've built it and advertise it, they should run it, but others differ. We've had the discussion ad nauseum, but I still feel that if they are going to say that they have "113 trails open," then they need to run the lift so that one can ski all of those trails. Otherwise, make it clear that "one side has x runs, and the other has y runs open." It was likely that the wind prevented it from opening. Weather conditions are almost always worse on Ellen--snowy, windy, cold. Would you want to ride in all that? :wink:

Great report! I'm sooooo glad you guys hit it on the right weekend. I know your Killington trip got kind of skunked. Looked like some great conditions!

blacknblue said:

I'll second AllSkiing. Me and my friend/co-worker Damian skied Sugarbush on Sunday. I skied pretty much every run at the Bush, but didn't make it to Mt Ellen since the Slide Brook wasn't working (or whatever the excuse du jour was). It was pretty cold - maybe zero at the top with gusty winds.

There was some nice windblown powder off of the Lynx chair to start the day.
Then I went over to Heaven's Gate and skied Organgrinder and Spillsville (and a very brief tree run that I decided was NOT the place to be during a low snow year). Spillsville was nearly thigh-deep powder, so I naturally had my Colorado instincts kick in and went flying off the cattrack... only to find that the powder concealed the bulletproof glazed ice moguls underneath. Organgrinder was in better shape and quasi-groomed, and Ripcord's troughs were filled with windblown snow that made it pretty decent.
My lone run on Castlerock and down Middle Earth really should have involved crampons rather than dull-edged skis. It was pretty brutal and the two feet of new snowfall was nearly all blown or scraped off. The run also involved going over frozen waterfalls and a few unfrozen stream crossing. Not good times.
I forget the names of the trails (Moonshine and Twist, I'm pretty sure), but our favorite runs of the day were off the Super Bravo Chair, heading down Jesters, under the double chair (which wasn't running) and then dropping in. The snow there was the best on the mountain and the semi-gladed areas were fun to ski through, with little kickers here and there.

Also, the clam chowder at the Mushroom was great.

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I have heard that alot, that the 'shroom is the place to eat...

ALLSKIING said:

Sounds like I made a good choice taking castlerock run. It had alot of rocks but no frozen and unfrozen waterfalls:lol:

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I skied Middle Earth and found it similar condition-wise to Castlerock Run. Lower Castlerock Run actually was the one with a little creek to get by. I really liked both of them though. Yeah, there were rocks, but when doesn't Castlerock have rocks? I had lots of fun up there. Rumble was a bit more of an obstacle course, but still had enough coverage to ski. Another couple storms and everything should be in great shape.

blacknblue said:

There was some nice windblown powder off of the Lynx chair to start the day.
Then I went over to Heaven's Gate and skied Organgrinder and Spillsville (and a very brief tree run that I decided was NOT the place to be during a low snow year).

Click to expand...

If you weren't in the trees in some secret area, do you mind sharing where? I skied upper mountain woods off of Paradise and found the coverage to be very good. Still some rocks, but probably less so than trails on Castlerock. I was impressed with how much of a base they had in those woods actually, and took a run there on Sat. and 3 more on Sunday. Perhaps you had some bad luck with the tree area you selected.

kcyanks1 said:

If you weren't in the trees in some secret area, do you mind sharing where? I skied upper mountain woods off of Paradise and found the coverage to be very good. Still some rocks, but probably less so than trails on Castlerock. I was impressed with how much of a base they had in those woods actually, and took a run there on Sat. and 3 more on Sunday. Perhaps you had some bad luck with the tree area you selected.

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Could be. It did appear (from the chairlift) that the coverage was better skier's left of Ripcord and my skiing partner did have better things to say about the terrain/conditions over there. I think I just got unlucky dropping in where I did (b/t Organgrinder and Spillsville). It wasn't horrible, but I wound up submarining some stumps and branches and whatnot that were lurking juuuust beneath the snow surface. Low snow years make me nervous in the woods.

blacknblue said:

Could be. It did appear (from the chairlift) that the coverage was better skier's left of Ripcord and my skiing partner did have better things to say about the terrain/conditions over there. I think I just got unlucky dropping in where I did (b/t Organgrinder and Spillsville). It wasn't horrible, but I wound up submarining some stumps and branches and whatnot that were lurking juuuust beneath the snow surface. Low snow years make me nervous in the woods.

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Part of it also could've been that I stuck to lines where there were tracks .. I'm a little more comfortable knowing others have gone a route I'm taking, even if it means giving up some first racks. So things like that might've been uncovered in my cases. Though I will admit I did encounter a coupel of roots/branches as well. Overall I was happy (going back the 2nd-4th times wasn't an attempt at self-torture or anything ).