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Sugarloaf - Burnt Mountain Opens to Summit

Nick

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http://www.sugarloaf.com/media-room/press-releases/burnt-mountain-opening

Did you guys see this earlier? Meant to post it.



CARRABASSETT VALLEY, Maine - Sugarloaf will celebrate a new milestone on Tuesday, when it officially opens the summit of Burnt Mountain to skiers and snowboarders for the first time in the resort's history.
Part of the new "sidecountry" skiing development that has been the signature piece of the resort's "Sugarloaf 2020" development plan, the opening of the Burnt Mountain summit is a significant milestone for the East's largest ski area.

I think the summit was off by 1 week timing. Sorry guys and gals :)
 

St. Bear

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This is great, and I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but if it takes this long in a big snow year to open up, how much can we really expect it to be fully open in a normal snow year? Will it be like the Slides at Whiteface where it's maybe one or two weekends a year?
 

deadheadskier

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This is great, and I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but if it takes this long in a big snow year to open up, how much can we really expect it to be fully open in a normal snow year? Will it be like the Slides at Whiteface where it's maybe one or two weekends a year?

I'd say more often than that. Probably like a month would be my guess. This is far from a big snow year for the loaf. Well below average prior to the last week. I bet they are 60" behind normal for this time of year.
 

WWF-VT

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This is great, and I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but if it takes this long in a big snow year to open up, how much can we really expect it to be fully open in a normal snow year? Will it be like the Slides at Whiteface where it's maybe one or two weekends a year?

I don't think anyone would classify this season as being a "big snow year" in the mountains of New England.
 

St. Bear

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I'd say more often than that. Probably like a month would be my guess. This is far from a big snow year for the loaf. Well below average prior to the last week. I bet they are 60" behind normal for this time of year.

You're right, big snowfall year would be wrong. What I should have said was "after a big snowfall or series of decent storms".
 

deadheadskier

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You're right, big snowfall year would be wrong. What I should have said was "after a big snowfall or series of decent storms".

I'd still say at least a month would be a solid bet, maybe longer in an average year. Early mid-February through mid-March. That upper Burnt stuff won't see much traffic and get hammered too bad as it's supposedly a 90 minute hike to get up there.

The thing about Sugarloaf that makes something like Burnt make a lot of sense to have is not that they average a ton of snow, but it's because of how well the mountain keeps snow. It may take a long time for the Burnt terrain to open, but once it does, outside of two years ago it has stayed open for quite some time.
 

UVSHTSTRM

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This is great, and I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but if it takes this long in a big snow year to open up, how much can we really expect it to be fully open in a normal snow year? Will it be like the Slides at Whiteface where it's maybe one or two weekends a year?

Not sure I would call this a big snow year for many places. Especially for Saddleback and Sugarloaf. For them it has been a fairly dry winter. Heck up until the last week or two I would guess that many places in NNE would say it has been disappointing for natural snow.......great for snowmaking though. However snowmaking does little for the woods and backcountry.
 

snowmonster

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I'd say a good rule of thumb is that Burnt Mountain will be skiable when the Sugarloaf snowfields are open (backside snowfields and any trail without snowmaking). I've been able to ski the snowfields the past three seasons. Before that, I think there was a two year gap when it wasn't skiable at all. Best bet is to plan a trip to the Loaf in late February/early March. If the snowfields are open, this would be the time of the year to do it.

I've been to the edge of Brackett Basin. Skied Sweeper 2. Right by that is the start of the Golden Road where there's a sign warning you that "past this point is a long traverse to Sugarloaf's most remote glades." I would have pushed on to Burnt Mountain but I was alone and it probably wasn't the wisest thing to do since the route wasn't marked yet. If any of you make it out there, enjoy yourselves and take some amazing shots. I've always wanted to hit Burnt Mountain but that dream is just out of reach now.

REQUEST FROM THE SNOWMONSTER: I'd like to get a copy of this year's Sugarloaf trail map showing Burnt Mountain and the back of the backside snowfields (the new terrain). If any AZer has one in good condition, would you be kind enough to mail one to me? I live on the other side of the globe now so international postage will be required. If you can help out the snowmonster, please PM me. Can't pay you but I promise to buy you a beer! Thanks, AZ!
 

C-Rex

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I'll be there for a week mid march. I'm really hoping we get some more storms between now and then. With a week to play with, a 90 minute hike is no big deal. If I can do it, I'll definitely take pics and probably some gopro footage. I just bought a pair of snowshoes and some collapsible poles so a good deal of back and side country exploration is in my future. So psyched!

Snowmonster, if you don't get one by the time I go, I'll be sure to send you one. I bet if you sent the Loaf a self addressed stamped envelope and requested one, they'd send it. They might even send one if you just shoot them an email and tell them how big a fan you are.
 

Mapnut

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I see on the Sugarloaf trail map that the whole lower half of Burnt Mt. has been logged over, and you ski through areas of selective cutting. On Google Earth it looks like the cutting was done in the downhill direction to facilitate skiing. What does it look like on the ground? (I haven't been there in many years.)
 

ceo

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I was out that way yesterday morning. (I'm now at my desk at work.) It's about 10 minutes of hiking and skiing from the top of Sweeper 2 to the point where the Burnt Mountain hiking trail diverges from Golden Road. I wasn't going to hike up Burnt because a) I was solo and not completely stupid, and b) I was already going to be late picking up my kid from ski school. After that point there's some more traversing before you get into skiable (by me) trees. From that point down it was just freaking awesome, other than the fact that I really should have been doing more biking this winter. Most of the area was denser than it appears on the map, though I did go through some wide-open areas. (I was reluctant to stray too far from the tracks I was following, for the reasons cited above.) I'll write up a TR soon with more details.

I have GPS tracks of that run and of runs I did the previous days on Sweeper 2 and Birler 1. Can post them somewhere if there's interest.
 

UVSHTSTRM

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I see on the Sugarloaf trail map that the whole lower half of Burnt Mt. has been logged over, and you ski through areas of selective cutting. On Google Earth it looks like the cutting was done in the downhill direction to facilitate skiing. What does it look like on the ground? (I haven't been there in many years.)

The cutting you see on Google Earth isn't the cutting they did, I don't believe. The cutting that is very obvious from Google earth is old logging cuts.
 

snoseek

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Didn' they announce some really steep stuff on the backside they were gonna try to open. What's the deal with that? Need more snow?
 

deadheadskier

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I read over on Sugarloaftoday that that terrain opened too; or at least people were skiing it. I think it's referred to as Hell's Gate among the locals.
 
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