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Sugarbush, December 24, 2004

B

beswift

Guest
Skied: 12/24/04

Resort or Ski Area: Sugarbush

Conditions: Packed Powder, Patches of ice.

Trip Report:

Despite the rain and fog of the previous day, I had a pretty good day of skiing Sugarbush yesterday. On top of that for the price of $5.50, who would complain? Most of my time was spent at Mt. Ellen which was skiable top to bottom. The temperature at the summit was around 9 degrees all day, so it was the day for fast skiing. The main run of the day was Elbow or Rim Run and Lookin' Good to Cruiser. The cover was o.k. with some loose granular or fresh man-made on top of a hard pack. One hazard you can find at this time of the year here would be the loose stones which are raked up by the heavy grooming that they do. Some are frozen to small chunks of ice. All can rip a serious hole in your base if you catch them right. No expert trails were open and most looked aweful. Upper F.I.S. has good cover, but it was closed prabably due to the slick conditions. The skies cleared for a couple of hours around 10; the views were exciting. Lincoln peak was overly crouded with high schoolers while Mt. Ellen pushed to the limit. There were lift lines at the base lodges but not of much consequence, though. I rode the Slide Brook Express Quad between resorts for the first time. It can be a lot of fun. If you want to smoke some weed (I don't condone it), that's the place for it. The woods are full of snow in the best tree skiing areas so I expect a good season for that. Lincoln Peak didn't have a lot of trails open. I took the Super Bravo Express and came down Murphey's glade and Lower Organ-grinder for one run. Although it's cold enough to blow a lot of snow (and they are), the resorts need a goodly amount of natural snowfall this week. As a bit of a warning, on my way out of Vermont, I stopped on 89 for a minute to take a leak and was approached by a Vermont State Trooper in Sharon. He gave me a sobriety test, ran an i.d. check and went on his merry way. :beer: I drove all the way back to Cape Cod in my red suit, stopping at every watering hole I could, and saw little traffic. This was quite exceptional. Usually that corridor between Concord and Boston would be very thick with it.
 
B

beswift

Guest
Only 38 views on Christmas? Seems like this part of AlpineZone doesn't get the attention it deserves. I find trip reviews rather challenging. One has to put up info that will help people going forward, not so much a tale of one's experiences. On top of that you want to make it interesting. I'ld like to know if someone found my review helpful.
 
B

beswift

Guest
Croud at SB.

Honestly I haven't skied on a Saturday in two decades so it would be hard to estimate the comparison. However, the Parking lots were half full to a third full. The 5 high speed quads seem to me to keep the lines almost inexistent except at the base lodges. These High School kids, though, love to just stand around the lodge with their friends. As I discussed it with a chair companion, there were many of them that were snowboarding and sitting on their rumps in the middle of the trails. We never saw so many of these types. SB North used to have unbearable holiday lines before they put in the high speed quads. Another chair companion told me that now they almost never have them.
 
B

beswift

Guest
Reads.

Wow, this report did get a lot of reads while my power was down. The big storm on the Cape took me off the computer and out in the snow for two days.
 
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