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The "Sugarbush Thread"

cdskier

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Love this from the snow report: "We have been enjoying laps on the freshly dropped ropes of In Road, Out Road, Out to Lunch, and Heaven's Gate Traverse." Seriously? None of those are exactly trails to hype dropping ropes on nor is anyone lapping any of those...
 

WinS

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It rained, they groomed and it froze. The terrain is what is to be expected. It will get gradually better with grooming and small doses of natural snow this week. I skied yesterday and headed out now. Bad visibility at the top. Rip chord was actiually better where they did not groom. At lease the surface was uniform and not varied with sheets of ice. I cant stand skiing that long runout at the bottom of Ellen so until they open at least North Ridge, you won't see me over there.
Looking at the weather forecast I think you are most likely correct. They did lose a pump as the Mad River which is out for repair, so snowmaking is about 70% of capacity until it comes back. Hopefully only a few days. Next week‘s temperatures look a lot better so I would guess Birch and Sunrise will come in well and so too Rim Run and Elbow. Five lifts got hit hard this summer by lightening (GMX, Northridge, Summit, Inverness and SB). Northridge was hit the hardest and like two summer ago it fried the PLCs among other things. I understand the electrical system is fixed and there are a only a few more mechanical fixes for it to run. Summit is ready for inspection tomorrow. So North Lynx and Summit may be the next lifts when snowmaking allows the trails to open.

We are definitely seeing more intensive weather events and this summer’s lightening strike is another example.

Early turns on Ripcord, Upper and Lower Organgrinder, Snowball, Spring Fling, Pushover and Slowepoke were really nice. Upper Organgrinder was my pick of the day if there early and it was groomed after Ripcord. Loved cruising In and Out Road and Out to Lunch too, CD Skier. 😊. By 10:30am things were getting very firm and crowded.

i hear that Sleeper may be groomed and opened tomorrow.
 

cdskier

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Looking at the weather forecast I think you are most likely correct. They did lose a pump as the Mad River which is out for repair, so snowmaking is about 70% of capacity until it comes back. Hopefully only a few days. Next week‘s temperatures look a lot better so I would guess Birch and Sunrise will come in well and so too Rim Run and Elbow. Five lifts got hit hard this summer by lightening (GMX, Northridge, Summit, Inverness and SB). Northridge was hit the hardest and like two summer ago it fried the PLCs among other things. I understand the electrical system is fixed and there are a only a few more mechanical fixes for it to run. Summit is ready for inspection tomorrow. So North Lynx and Summit may be the next lifts when snowmaking allows the trails to open.
That's some interesting info...and something I wish there was a bit more transparency regarding from the current management team. I feel like this is something you would have told us in a "Win's Word" blog post back when you still owned SB and wouldn't have left us speculating so much on why the effort to open upper ME terrain seemed a bit minimal so far. That helps explain some of the recent snow-making choices at ME too.

Loved cruising In and Out Road and Out to Lunch too, CD Skier. 😊.
LOL!
 

mikec142

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I skied on the 24th, 26th, and 27th at LP. The 27th was the best day. Given the limited terrain I was just pretty happy to knock the rust off and get my legs under me.

One quick thing I wanted to mention. I very much appreciate SB's policy of open the trail and put caution signs up. However, I skied Upper Organgrinder yesterday...the first-third of the trail had me thinking, this is fun, I'm gonna do it again. The bottom two-thirds had me hanging on for dear life. It was a sheet of boilerplate. I also found Ripcord to be bad between lift towers 7-9, but not as bad as OG.

I could use a couple of lessons. Can any of you regulars suggest an instructor who is a great teacher? I'm 51 years old, I've been skiing since I was a kid. I would say that I can get down pretty much anything inbounds, but I might not look the best while doing it. Would love to just improve my overall form.
 

NYSnowflake

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Love this from the snow report: "We have been enjoying laps on the freshly dropped ropes of In Road, Out Road, Out to Lunch, and Heaven's Gate Traverse." Seriously? None of those are exactly trails to hype dropping ropes on nor is anyone lapping any of those...
My thoughts exactly when I read that!!
 

NYSnowflake

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I saw a groomer out on a closed trail on far skier’s right at Mt Ellen around lunchtime today…. Maybe they are going to open a new trail?

Lower organ grinder was too firm for my tastes at 8:30am today but by 10:00 it had softened up beautifully! That was my favorite trail today.
 

shadyjay

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i have really been hating the website lately. so many clicks to get to actual info.
There have been a few days in the past week or so when the lifts/trails page didn't display any information whatsoever on the web site (using Google Chrome). The new interactive map is nice. I miss that feature on the app... now all it gives you is an alphabetical resort-wide trail listing with no indication of whether or not there is snowmaking or grooming on a particular trail.

Having HG Traverse now open may not seem like much, but it does give you an alternative to Heaven's Gate (via Middle Jester or Lower OG). I've gotten a turn or two on that trail in the past... many more than on In-Road, Out-Road, or the dreaded Reverse Traverse. Out to Lunch has some fun turns on it too, and I've gotten a few groomed runs on it. I used to live in the village so it was a good "last run".

At North, I'm kind of surprised not to see Northridge Expressway open or having snow made. That's a good backup trail to get to more of the "main face" if wind or other issues have GMX on delay. And Brambles too... love that trail!!!
 

ducky

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I could use a couple of lessons. Can any of you regulars suggest an instructor who is a great teacher? I'm 51 years old, I've been skiing since I was a kid. I would say that I can get down pretty much anything inbounds, but I might not look the best while doing it. Would love to just improve my overall form.
Terry Barbour, the former ski school director, is perhaps the best and has beautiful form and would be my choice. It is hard to go wrong with any private lesson instructor though.
 

ss20

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A minute from the Alta exit off the I-15!
I could use a couple of lessons. Can any of you regulars suggest an instructor who is a great teacher? I'm 51 years old, I've been skiing since I was a kid. I would say that I can get down pretty much anything inbounds, but I might not look the best while doing it. Would love to just improve my overall form.

I can't give one...but I have a question for you that may help regulars on this site give you a recommendation. Do you want a drill sergeant or do you want someone with a more relaxed pace (but still educational/valuable)? When it comes to intermediate+ level adults, there's a ton of different preferences. I've had people (almost always males) that almost demand a new drill/feedback/demo literally every 500 feet down the mountain. I've also had adults who want to spend more of our time with me taking their picture against the scenery than actually skiing, and giving instruction when they want. Not saying you're the former or the latter...but if you're the type that wants to be viewed, analyzed, videoed, and scrutinized there's an instructor for you. If you want to take a couple runs and get some good feedback/things-to-try while riding the lift up and have a mostly quiet instructor on the way down... that's (usually) a different instructor.

Give a few more details on your expectations and I'm sure the regulars can give their opinion. There's lots of good instructors for advanced skiers...lets help find you the one that best fits you!
 

cdskier

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There have been a few days in the past week or so when the lifts/trails page didn't display any information whatsoever on the web site (using Google Chrome).

I've had that happen a few times in Safari on my iPhone. Usually reloading the page a couple times "fixes" it. The "content" for the snow-report is pulled via javascript by the Sugarbush site from an entirely different site that simply hosts the "live" data (presumably it is used to host the dynamic data for all the Alterra resorts using this platform). If the content from that 2nd site isn't pulled quickly enough by your browser or for whatever reason that other site gives an error or something like that, you'll get the "blank" data issue on the SB website.
 

SkiTheEast

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Terry Barbour, the former ski school director, is perhaps the best and has beautiful form and would be my choice. It is hard to go wrong with any private lesson instructor though.
Maybe I'm a bit out of the loop but I thought T-Bar was the current ski school director. Who's in that role now?
 

ducky

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Maybe I'm a bit out of the loop but I thought T-Bar was the current ski school director. Who's in that role now?
Joey Carey from Killington is the new director. Terry is still available to teach but is pursuing his career as a contractor. ss20 makes a valid point but I'd say most instructors can fill both roles.
 

tumbler

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If they are going to keep the same Bravo corral setup as last year they need to have someone organizing when the lines go. They had a person at HG which helped a lot. If no staff for Bravo go back to the alternating funnel down to one lane.
And we need snow!
 

WinS

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If they are going to keep the same Bravo corral setup as last year they need to have someone organizing when the lines go. They had a person at HG which helped a lot. If no staff for Bravo go back to the alternating funnel down to one lane.
And we need snow!
I am surprised. There was someone yesterday. What time were you there? The staff comes in at different hours. The corral manager might be scheduled to start at 9am as the line usually does not need someone until then, but the crowd seemed to come in earlier today. I did not ride Bravo after 8am so don’t know what it was like later.
 

TSQURD

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...but the crowd seemed to come in earlier today...

Did they ever.

The lifties at HG this morning were great. Lots of positive energy, keeping it upbeat and seemed to be having fun and kept the line flowing smoothly.
 

tumbler

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I am surprised. There was someone yesterday. What time were you there? The staff comes in at different hours. The corral manager might be scheduled to start at 9am as the line usually does not need someone until then, but the crowd seemed to come in earlier today. I did not ride Bravo after 8am so don’t know what it was like later.
9:30-11:30.
 

cdskier

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9:30-11:30.
I just looked at the webcam for the SB lift line. I took a quick look at 30 minute intervals from 9:30 to now and see someone managing the lanes at every point where I checked... Maybe you were just unlucky a few times when the person had to walk away for a couple minutes for some reason?
 
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