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The "Sugarbush Thread"

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spring mount, pa
Doesn't the Golden Lion at the base of the access road do an Alpine Zone discount? For dinner, I'd hit up the Mad River Barn or the Hyde Away. Pizza at Blue Stone is pretty good.

Conditions were pretty good today. We missed out on the snow but there's some coming tonight I believe, though there may be some ice and other funk mixed in. Lincoln Peak was skiing really nice. Even Downspout was fun! Nice and soft. Don't know about Stein's - some people were doing it but I didn't get a chance to talk to them. The double-black Ripcord is getting a grooming job tonight so that could be good in the AM. Good coverage on most trails on the Bravo side. Gate House is getting thinner and thinner though Sleeper was fun today and Birch looked good as well. If you want to hit up Mt Ellen, tickets there are $30 through Sunday (see my previous post about conditions there).

spent last week up there for the kid's school vaca...all things considered, it was pretty sweet and major props to shadyjay and his crew for the conditions

my son had a week's worth of lessons with vermont adaptive, which went really well...he went from being tethered with a heavy metal edgie-wedgie/ski-bra device to untethered with a rubber worm tip-connector...one morning his instructor was a guy who was totally deaf...i participated as a sort of translator and it went great...they are an incredible organization and do such a great job and we appreciate the accommodation that the resort provides to them as well.

i tried to get all over as much as possible...did ellen monday, which was exactly as described...nice up top, sketchy down low, and not the best for beginner-type lessons, so we switched over to south for tuesday, which was much nicer...to the extent that it holds up, gatehouse stuff like sleeper chutes was a lot of fun, and i thought ripcord and organgrinder both were holding up really well...birch run was is great shape too...thin and slushy spots existed down low though...the little snow on thursday helped it look nicer anyway

ate at the barn for the first time and really enjoyed it...would recommend

couple scenic shots from the top of heavens gate

1930640_10207558537858874_7492671776369906924_n.jpg


12670787_10207599265677044_7897540586869124151_n.jpg
 

rocks860

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Connecticut
The "Sugarbush Thread"

spent last week up there for the kid's school vaca...all things considered, it was pretty sweet and major props to shadyjay and his crew for the conditions

my son had a week's worth of lessons with vermont adaptive, which went really well...he went from being tethered with a heavy metal edgie-wedgie/ski-bra device to untethered with a rubber worm tip-connector...one morning his instructor was a guy who was totally deaf...i participated as a sort of translator and it went great...they are an incredible organization and do such a great job and we appreciate the accommodation that the resort provides to them as well.

i tried to get all over as much as possible...did ellen monday, which was exactly as described...nice up top, sketchy down low, and not the best for beginner-type lessons, so we switched over to south for tuesday, which was much nicer...to the extent that it holds up, gatehouse stuff like sleeper chutes was a lot of fun, and i thought ripcord and organgrinder both were holding up really well...birch run was is great shape too...thin and slushy spots existed down low though...the little snow on thursday helped it look nicer anyway

ate at the barn for the first time and really enjoyed it...would recommend

couple scenic shots from the top of heavens gate

1930640_10207558537858874_7492671776369906924_n.jpg


12670787_10207599265677044_7897540586869124151_n.jpg

Yesterday pretty much everything on the gatehouse/north Lynx was total slush. There was a tiny strip of snow at the bottom of the hill on hotshot where the green merges in and bare ground all around. Don't see that side lasting much longer. Very nice pics!

Here's another one from yesterday I found
e0b609d62ef0a19b1fd35143bdc9a76a.jpg
 
Last edited:

steamboat1

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Yesterday pretty much everything on the gatehouse/north Lynx was total slush. There was a tiny strip of snow at the bottom of the hill on hotshot where the green merges in and bare ground all around. Don't see that side lasting much longer

Today is the last day for Gate House & North Lynx. Mt. Ellen as well but Ellen will be open for hiking.
 

cdskier

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Today is the last day for Gate House & North Lynx. Mt. Ellen as well but Ellen will be open for hiking.

The fact that ME still has enough snow to hike after today and was still T2B on closing day goes to show how brutal the melt-down in 2011-2012 was.
 

steamboat1

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The fact that ME still has enough snow to hike after today and was still T2B on closing day goes to show how brutal the melt-down in 2011-2012 was.

Think I went to Utah that April because VT. was washed out. Utah definitely wasn't anywhere near washed out although Alta closed my last day there. Utah or Summit County might be in the cards again next month.
 

nhskier1969

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Today is the last day for Gate House & North Lynx. Mt. Ellen as well but Ellen will be open for hiking.

Skied today, lots of Fun with the Family. I was skiing down Skiers left on Spring Fling today and couldn't help but notice how deep the base is. I know this is the normal closing weekend for Ellen, but I am surprised they are going to try to keep the North Lynx open longer. When skiing over there today, the only problems you see are the runouts on Sleeper and Lower Hot Shot. Still tons of snow on Hot Shot and most of Waterfall. Birch Run is still very wide and and pretty deep. Why aren't they just move some of the snow around and keep them open for Pond Skimming Weekend? Birch seems much deeper than Jester or Organgrinder.
 

cdskier

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Birch seems much deeper than Jester or Organgrinder.

I find that somewhat hard to believe. Birch was much thinner than OG last weekend. Birch may look like it has good cover, but it will go quickly with the exposure (and lower elevation compared to OG). And if they can't maintain the lower GH area runout trails then it doesn't matter anyway how much snow Birch has.
 

cdskier

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cdskier

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The skimrv site has been blocked for me at work by our proxy servers for at least a year or longer now. The vendor they use for web filtering has it categorized as "Suspicious". I could submit a request to have it recategorized, but I don't really have a valid business justification for needing to access the site from work so I just visit on my iPhone at work if I want to check in from there.
 

nhskier1969

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So we all just went thru the worst ski season ever but of course we won't have the distinction of saying that. Sugarbush is going to break the all-time worst snowfall season on record.
 

shadyjay

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The site itself seems fine to me once you tell your browser to ignore the warning...no idea why it got flagged. I suspect maybe at one point an ad was on the site that maybe slipped through and had a virus and that caused the entire site to be flagged. Only thing I can really think of. I'm on there everyday and never had an issue.

Both Microsoft Edge and IE running on Windows 10 on my computer show no security warnings. Google Chrome (which I use most often) gives me the "Deceptive Site Ahead" warning, which pops up twice.
 

mr magoo

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So we all just went thru the worst ski season ever but of course we won't have the distinction of saying that. Sugarbush is going to break the all-time worst snowfall season on record.

Man up. Store your stuff properly. Enjoy the next season and double down on skiing when it is time. There is no crying in skiing!
 

cdskier

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So we all just went thru the worst ski season ever but of course we won't have the distinction of saying that. Sugarbush is going to break the all-time worst snowfall season on record.

With the snow showers in the forecast Saturday night through Monday I think they stand a good chance of not setting a new record low. Apparently they only need 2 more inches to avoid setting that record (which was previously set in 79/80).

While many are considering this the worst season ever (I'm still on the fence personally), it is still definitely going to last longer than 2011/2012. That year did have a solid period of around a month or so of good skiing mid-season before the massive March meltdown though.
 

slatham

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My recollection from 11/12 was that there was "average" skiing at Christmas, good skiing over MLK and Presidents, and a legit dump in early March where Magic for instance was 100% open (vs never having ANY natural terrain officially open this year). While it was a quick and early death, I think the overall quality of skiing far surpassed this season. But my reference point is So VT, not the "Bush.

Regarding snowfall in 79/80 - was that also measured at the Summit? Not sure its true apples to apples. For a more accurate comparison, look at the Mt Mansfield snow stake, where 79/80 was in the 48-52" range in late March vs 35" as of today's Stowe report. And 79/80 also had more snow in the second half of December vs this years 0-4".

Either way abysmal year!
 

cdskier

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I actually have the number of open trails and snow totals in a spreadsheet and graph on my home computer for both 2011/2012 and this season. Was interesting to see the similarities at many points in the season. I don't recall the specifics on Christmas, MLK, and Presidents though. I do think Presidents fell in the good skiing category that season, but not sure about the other 2. Was also interesting that SB had to close for several days after their opening day in 2011 due to warm weather. At least this year once they opened they were able to stay open.

And yes this year there is a huge difference in how "good" the season was between Sugarbush and points north vs K and points south. N VT at least got some snow and was able to get a decent amount of natural terrain open for some periods. S VT suffered with many natural trails never opening at all.

I would hope since SB is the one providing the comparison to the 79/80 snowfall record that they are comparing summit snowfall totals in both cases. The Mansfield snow stake would give a better indicator of how much snow stuck around, but not necessarily how much fell.
 
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