Sugarbush backcountry?

I ended up going to Wildcat last Friday instead of Cannon since I woke up an hour earlier. I had a lot of fun in the trees, tho some of the trees were super dense. At first I really didn't like how dense they were (I thought it looked impossible) but after a few sketchy starts, I ended up having some success navigating some gnarly trees in moderately steep terrain: I stood above a fairly steep section somewhere off of Pole Cat scratching my head how it was meant to be done as it didn't look like it had enough room to make proper turns; some other people came up behind me and that gave me enough confidence to continue and I was surprised that I was able to control my speed and not crash! I was actually able to make some quick, complete turns; it helps tremendously that my skis have a lot of sidecut even though they are not designed for tree skiing.

Tomorrow morning I am going up to Sugarbush to hit up the backcoutnry. Just trying to gauge how challenging it is and if the trees are super dense or what to expect if anyone knows.
Thanks.

Are you talking about the Slide Brook?

Slide brook is plenty navigable, don't even have a worry.

I'm not even sure; all my brother said was that at Sugarbush you can do a large area of tree skiing that takes you down to a road and then you get a shuttle bus back to the mountain so you don't need fuss with arranging a pick up.

Lions and Tigers and Bears in them woods! But ya that is Slidebrook to the road. It all depends upon where you enter. If through the usual place it is Pretty Wide open, and not to steep. Enter in other areas up higher and it can be real tight and steep!

Bus picks up at 20 and 50 past the hour heading to Lincoln peak from the exit. If you want to go to Ellen the bus stops almost 10 minuets earlier and you have to take a short walk north to the next intersection.


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Thanks guys! Maybe first run I warm up doing the normal enter area, then hike or whatever to the more interesting entrance on subsequent runs. I'm bringing a GoPro this time, so I will have video to share on my return!

Since it has not already been mentioned... but I think most people already know this... from top of Heaven's Gate chair go down the top of Paradise and then keep following the Long Trail along the ridge. Lots of great lines to drop into along the ridge. Pretty soon you get to Church which is basically a pretty significant cliff drop (which can be skied around) and then goes through the woods on a narrow path.

Regardless how ambitious you get with the Slide Brook stuff I would recommend the tree /chute skiing just past Paradise. It only takes a few minutes of flats on the Long Trail to get to a variety of pretty steep and technical terrain.

FWIW there are tighter and steeper woods options without the time suck of skiing Slidebrook

WWF-VT said:

FWIW there are tighter and steeper woods options without the time suck of skiing Slidebrook

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Agreed. slidebrook is nice but not steep or technically challenging.

bdfreetuna said:

Since it has not already been mentioned... but I think most people already know this... from top of Heaven's Gate chair go down the top of Paradise and then keep following the Long Trail along the ridge. Lots of great lines to drop into along the ridge. Pretty soon you get to Church which is basically a pretty significant cliff drop (which can be skied around) and then goes through the woods on a narrow path.

Regardless how ambitious you get with the Slide Brook stuff I would recommend the tree /chute skiing just past Paradise. It only takes a few minutes of flats on the Long Trail to get to a variety of pretty steep and technical terrain.

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basically, there's a bunch of good stuff off the long trail between lincoln peak and castlerock.

Biggest difference between Wildcat and Sugarbush is hardwood vs. softwood. The TB area of Wildcat is mostly pine. Lots of branches sometimes skis alot tighter because of that. Sugarbush has a lot of softwood trees like birch. Nothing to take away from some of the trees at Wildcat but I find Sugarbush to be more enjoyable overall.

MadMadWorld said:

Biggest difference between Wildcat and Sugarbush is hardwood vs. softwood. The TB area of Wildcat is mostly pine. Lots of branches sometimes skis alot tighter because of that. Sugarbush has a lot of softwood trees like birch. Nothing to take away from some of the trees at Wildcat but I find Sugarbush to be more enjoyable overall.

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Say what? You got your hardwoods and softwood mixed up. Birch is sometime a softwood, but most often it's a hardwood, depends on the species, but pine is always a softwood.

Scruffy said:

Say what? You got your hardwoods and softwood mixed up. Birch is sometime a softwood, but most often it's a hardwood, depends on the species, but pine is always a softwood.

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Look I work with technology. Not all of us can be geologists!!!

MadMadWorld said:

Look I work with technology. Not all of us can be geologists!!!

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nor a Taxonomist. As long as you know what type of wood you wake up with in the morning, it's all good

How are the woods skiing at the bush? Did they crusty with a melt down the other day? Or did temps stay cold on the Mountain?

Still nice and soft (but fairly well tracked) as of this afternoon

Scruffy said:

How are the woods skiing at the bush? Did they crusty with a melt down the other day? Or did temps stay cold on the Mountain?

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Stayed cold! Was awesome. Through Saturday, Feb 7th, Sugarbush remained below freezing since before February. I was still getting lost in 4 feet of snow when I'd crash (no thawed/frozen layers of resistance in the snow "pack"). Nothing but powder. Even in areas hit by the sun it was pow.

So basically, I have to give Sugarbush a higher review than the other mountains I skied at in the last couple weeks: Wildcat and Mad River Glen (I skied at Mad River Glen on Friday and Wildcat couple Fridays ago). Snow was better at Sugarbush and the variation in terrain is much better; I'd say Mad River and Wildcat sort of cater to a specific flavor of skiing while Sugarbush offers a very palatable spread of more user friendly terrain; I preferred the groomers, moguls and trees of Bush over the other mountains. Even though I hit the Bush on Saturday, there wasn't a problem of crowds, even though the lines were full, because my brother and I were getting fresh tracks in an area of Slidebrook that I guess people stayed away from because of the lack of maintenance, (there were hardly any fresh tracks to be had at Mad River or Wildcat) but I'd say it was still a bit better than the maintained areas of Wildcat (no misnomer here) and Mad River Glen and while there were a lot of saplings and branches to duck and weave, the trees were much more spacious (and deciduous). Even the marked areas of Slidebrook were still in excellent condition, though I think I preferred the challenge of the non-maintained area we mostly stuck to. Slidebrook is *much* easier than most of the hairy, tight, steeps I was introduced to at Wildcat and Mad River. That's not necessarily a good thing; I kinda wish I had ventured to some of the other more scary areas of Sugarbush woods skiing (there is plenty of it from what I gathered).

We only skied a small sampling of the woods Sugarbush had on offer and it was still more than enough (despite the massive amount of people at Sugarbush compared to Mad River or Wildcat; it defies logic: I think it's because most people there are "family" oriented and feel more comfortable sticking to in-boundary terrain). The lines were long, but the detachable quads move them along fast enough. Plus, we needed rest time between runs. It was a perfect day, even though I crashed numerous times (I could afford to as the pitch we were skiing was very tame compared to the super gnarly steeps of Wildcat and Mad River, but still very technical skiing because of the streams, gullies, logs, saplings and branches). Another great thing about the area of Slidebrook we were skiing was that you didn't need to take a shuttle as it didn't go down to the road, but dumped out near the lift; I mean, does it get any better than this?

I have another redeemable ticket at Sugarbush thanks to my brother. Really hoping there will be another good snowfall this month and I can make another trip (hopefully my knee will heal up in time).

Bottom line: Despite the much greater numbers of people at Sugarbush, the snow and skiing was better than the much less populated Wildcat and Mad River. Still, those mountains have a distinct mystique and beautiful scenery and feel to them that Sugarbush lacks (but I love the cradle-like landscape of Sugarbush). I think 9 times out of 10 I ski at Sugarbush; superior snow and a delicious amount of variety and top notch tree skiing. Next time I'll seek out some of the more challenging woods; wish I had come here first to discover tree skiing, but it was quite a thrill precariously learning tree skiing on the super-tight, steep, gnarly woods of Wildcat.

A final note: despite the higher lift ticket at Sugarbush, my experience was that it is a greater value than the other mountains.

I will be uploading some GoPro footage of my time at Sugarbush (Unfortunately no footage of Mad River or Wildcat)