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The "Sugarbush Thread"

Hawk

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 22, 2016
Messages
2,463
Points
113
Location
Mad River Valley / MA
I posted this on the covid Thread.

The Sugarbush yearly update was short and to the point this year. As we all here know there was not a lot planned for upgrades this year. The big news was about the new Vermont adaptive sports building and upgrades to the Mt Ellen lodge. I stopped by and this looks pretty cool. they expanded the right side of the building to incorporate the space. Highlights are new bathrooms on all three levels, en elevator for access to all floors, a new huge deck on the back and modifications and upgrades to the rest of the lodge. For the rest of the mountain: They did a bunch of maintanence, restored the gadd brook by removing the culvert and exposing the brook, bought a new groomer and excavator, bought more guns, dug out the Mt Ellen snowmaking pond for more capacity, put new snowmaking pipes on Northstar I think, maybe is was cruiser. One of those that takes all the traffic back down to Northridge chair.

Lastly they did not mention the rules this season for Covid safety. It sounded like the lodges will still be somewhat restricted as they talked about keeping the online ordering and pick up. They did not mention crowd levels in the lodge for warming and hanging out. They did not mention the lift lines. But in an off the record conversation I had with a couple of people, it sounded like they were going to ease or not enforce masks in line, get rid of the empty coral lines inbetween and the singles line might be back. So somewhat back to normal outside and maybe a little easing with the indoor policies. I think it is still a wait and see how the infection levels are come November and what the state publishes for guildlines. It sounded positive.
 

SkiTheEast

Member
Joined
Apr 9, 2019
Messages
51
Points
8
I posted this on the covid Thread.

The Sugarbush yearly update was short and to the point this year. As we all here know there was not a lot planned for upgrades this year. The big news was about the new Vermont adaptive sports building and upgrades to the Mt Ellen lodge. I stopped by and this looks pretty cool. they expanded the right side of the building to incorporate the space. Highlights are new bathrooms on all three levels, en elevator for access to all floors, a new huge deck on the back and modifications and upgrades to the rest of the lodge. For the rest of the mountain: They did a bunch of maintanence, restored the gadd brook by removing the culvert and exposing the brook, bought a new groomer and excavator, bought more guns, dug out the Mt Ellen snowmaking pond for more capacity, put new snowmaking pipes on Northstar I think, maybe is was cruiser. One of those that takes all the traffic back down to Northridge chair.

Lastly they did not mention the rules this season for Covid safety. It sounded like the lodges will still be somewhat restricted as they talked about keeping the online ordering and pick up. They did not mention crowd levels in the lodge for warming and hanging out. They did not mention the lift lines. But in an off the record conversation I had with a couple of people, it sounded like they were going to ease or not enforce masks in line, get rid of the empty coral lines inbetween and the singles line might be back. So somewhat back to normal outside and maybe a little easing with the indoor policies. I think it is still a wait and see how the infection levels are come November and what the state publishes for guildlines. It sounded positive.
Thanks Hawk. Great color there. I'm pretty impressed with the speed that the VT adaptive space is going up. Though still hard to believe they'll get everything done by ski season.
 

Hawk

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Joined
Nov 22, 2016
Messages
2,463
Points
113
Location
Mad River Valley / MA
Ya it will be a great space. I didn't talk about the new Adaptive space that much. It is going to be a great thing for so many people that are challenged by injury or born with illness. It will make things so much easier for this program and bring a lot of great experiences to people who have physical challenges. They had a booth at the courtyard and were giving out info and collecting donations. Hammond said they are still $350k away from thier goal. We will donate to this great cause. Yes lots of work to do but they still have 2 months and a lot can happen.
 

cdskier

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Joined
Mar 26, 2015
Messages
6,492
Points
113
Location
NJ
Ya it will be a great space. I didn't talk about the new Adaptive space that much. It is going to be a great thing for so many people that are challenged by injury or born with illness. It will make things so much easier for this program and bring a lot of great experiences to people who have physical challenges. They had a booth at the courtyard and were giving out info and collecting donations. Hammond said they are still $350k away from thier goal. We will donate to this great cause. Yes lots of work to do but they still have 2 months and a lot can happen.
An e-mail was sent out from Sugarbush on behalf of John Hammond today about the Vermont Adaptive space (and also mentioned the $350K they still need). I definitely think this is a fantastic cause and have been meaning to donate for a while to help them cross the finish line. I finally made my donation tonight.

And if anyone wants to donate, more information as well as the link to donate can be found here: http://www.vermontadaptive.org/sugarbushfacility/
 

witchway

New member
Joined
Nov 17, 2020
Messages
10
Points
3
Has anyone else heard that Jerry Nooney will be in charge of food service at Solitude this year?
 

HowieT2

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 22, 2009
Messages
1,637
Points
63
On Good Morning America this morning they had video of snow from the top of LP showing Heaven's gate.
 

Hawk

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 22, 2016
Messages
2,463
Points
113
Location
Mad River Valley / MA
Yup the front was a little colder then they expected. Dusting looks good.
I will miss Gerry. I thought he did an excelent job. We still use his pizza dough recipe and he turned us on to going to King Arthur to get the right flour. As some know on here, he was a pretty avid MRV mountan biker. we used to run into him going up enchanted forest or revolution quite often. It word was that he was kind of retiring or moving to Florida. I guess not.
 

Boxtop Willie

Active member
Joined
Feb 5, 2009
Messages
147
Points
28
Former Sugarbush VP, Amber B, is now running Solitude. Rumor has it Solitude needed serious help with F&B and she coaxed Gerry to postpone retirement and go help turn it around. He used to run a consulting company that did that kind of work.
 

keyser soze

Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2008
Messages
282
Points
18
I posted this on the covid Thread.

The Sugarbush yearly update was short and to the point this year. As we all here know there was not a lot planned for upgrades this year. The big news was about the new Vermont adaptive sports building and upgrades to the Mt Ellen lodge. I stopped by and this looks pretty cool. they expanded the right side of the building to incorporate the space. Highlights are new bathrooms on all three levels, en elevator for access to all floors,
Bathrooms on all 3 levels. Ridiculous. Bathrooms in ski areas should be in the basement cuz it's fun climbing stairs in ski boots. Seriously, not having to walk down flights of stairs is a good thing.
 

Kingslug20

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Joined
Oct 14, 2021
Messages
2,506
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One more perk of wearing AT boots..stairs are no problem..except if someone wearing regular boots falls on you..
 
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