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The "Sugarbush Thread"

Boxtop Willie

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Joined
Feb 5, 2009
Messages
147
Points
28
Have had the pleasure of skiing the last 3 weekends at Sugarbush...one of the best March's ever, a real treat. Here's an observation I hope someone can explain. I don't think I saw any instructors out free skiing. I've seen patrol, obviously. I've seen the hosts in their green jackets but never an instructor in their blue ones. Given the conditions I would have expected to see at least some. I realize late season the instructor ranks can thin out and the great snow could increase the number of lessons, but to see no one? Seems odd. Are they out incognito?
 

Hawk

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Nov 22, 2016
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113
Location
Mad River Valley / MA
The instructors I know do not free ski with the company jacket. I am not sure if that is a policy but I know they purposely do this.
 

Hawk

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Nov 22, 2016
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Location
Mad River Valley / MA
The party in the plaza on Saturday afternoon was awesome. (2) bands including the Detonators, 4 bars open and really good times. I am so glad they are finally nailing this. I bet there was 1000 people hanging out there from 3 to 5. They should strongly advertise this every spring. It will draw people.
Also did anybody see that barefoot guy dancing and doing the flips on the concrete deck? Wow. I thought he was going to kill himself.
 

tumbler

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Joined
Jan 10, 2014
Messages
1,416
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83
The party in the plaza on Saturday afternoon was awesome. (2) bands including the Detonators, 4 bars open and really good times. I am so glad they are finally nailing this. I bet there was 1000 people hanging out there from 3 to 5. They should strongly advertise this every spring. It will draw people.
Also did anybody see that barefoot guy dancing and doing the flips on the concrete deck? Wow. I thought he was going to kill himself.

The party scene was great, and I agree nice that they are getting it right with that area. Did see the dude doing backflips, as it got chillier he put socks on...
 

WWF-VT

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Joined
Sep 23, 2005
Messages
2,598
Points
48
Location
MA & Fayston, VT
The party in the plaza on Saturday afternoon was awesome. (2) bands including the Detonators, 4 bars open and really good times. I am so glad they are finally nailing this. I bet there was 1000 people hanging out there from 3 to 5. They should strongly advertise this every spring. It will draw people.

All the cool kids were on the deck in the sun at Mt Ellen on Saturday afternoon
 

WinS

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Joined
Nov 25, 2017
Messages
680
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63
Have had the pleasure of skiing the last 3 weekends at Sugarbush...one of the best March's ever, a real treat. Here's an observation I hope someone can explain. I don't think I saw any instructors out free skiing. I've seen patrol, obviously. I've seen the hosts in their green jackets but never an instructor in their blue ones. Given the conditions I would have expected to see at least some. I realize late season the instructor ranks can thin out and the great snow could increase the number of lessons, but to see no one? Seems odd. Are they out incognito?

As most Ski areas do when someone is on free time, they will not be in uniform. This is for Worker's Compensation reasons.
The staff does thin out this time of year but we have actually been quite busy in Ski & Ride with both adult and kids lessons and we are still seeing first timers which is terrific.
 

mtsnow123

New member
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
26
Points
1
Location
Northern Vermont
I remember a few years ago being at the top of the Green Mountain Express at about 4:15 PM with about 30 other freestyle riders waiting for the lift to officially stop spinning. Once the lift stopped, everyone laid down on their chest or side (snowboard vs ski), a countdown commences, and when it hit zero, it was a race to the bottom of the Riemmergrasse terrain park. You could take any run you wanted and involved a lot of dodging other racers. Some people chose to take mogul runs and use the moguls as jumps/landings, or use groomed runs for straight tucking.

It was one of the coolest end of season events I have ever been part of.

Anyone else see this on Ellen closing day in year's past?
 

Boxtop Willie

Active member
Joined
Feb 5, 2009
Messages
147
Points
28
Thanks for the response Win. Seems like insurance issues getting in the way of a good marketing opportunity...the aspirational nature of seeing a really good skiing instructor (one hopes) gracefully coming down a trail. At the area I teach at the Director is always after us to get out an ski in our parkas to drum up business. And thanks for a great weekend. The courtyard at Lincoln Peak and the Deck at Mt Ellen were great places to be.
 

ThinkSnow

Member
Joined
Oct 25, 2005
Messages
735
Points
16
Location
Bad Liver Valley
I remember a few years ago being at the top of the Green Mountain Express at about 4:15 PM with about 30 other freestyle riders waiting for the lift to officially stop spinning. Once the lift stopped, everyone laid down on their chest or side (snowboard vs ski), a countdown commences, and when it hit zero, it was a race to the bottom of the Riemmergrasse terrain park. You could take any run you wanted and involved a lot of dodging other racers. Some people chose to take mogul runs and use the moguls as jumps/landings, or use groomed runs for straight tucking.

It was one of the coolest end of season events I have ever been part of.

Anyone else see this on Ellen closing day in year's past?
Kinda sounds like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qe3HBqFhTU
 

mikec142

Active member
Joined
Jan 27, 2014
Messages
750
Points
43
Skied at Sugarbush on Sunday and Monday with my 16 year old daughter. Had a great time! We went over the Castlerock around 11:30am on Sunday. The liftie said it was "crispy" but he wasn't sure based on the forecast whether or not it would soften up. We went up anyway and skied Castlerock Run. There is so much snow, but crispy was the right word. Definitely a challenge. We took Slide Brook over to ME for a couple of runs. We had never taken the Slide Brook lift...either having plenty of fun where we were or it wasn't running. Great views. Also fun to ski ME on it's last day. Monday was a perfect spring day and we followed the sun. Started out on Hot Shot and followed it up with Sleeper. Then up to Birch for a half dozen high speed giant slalom runs. Moved on over to Heaven's Gate for a couple of runs on Ripcord and then called it a day as we had to get back to Burlington to pick up my Mom who came with us this time and then head back to NJ.

With Spring sports kicking into high gear for my kids, this was most likely the end to our 17/18 season. Definitely want to say thanks to Win and the Sugarbush crew for making it a great season.
 

djd66

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Joined
Sep 6, 2015
Messages
852
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63
I had Sunny Side up, I had Sunny side down,...I had Sunny all zee vay around!

Hot Dog - my all time favorite ski movie!!
 

cdskier

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Joined
Mar 26, 2015
Messages
6,483
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Location
NJ
Does anyone know why the Sugarbush app and website don't necessarily show the same info? For example on the Conditions section of the app there's an "Important Information" section at the top that currently says "Village and North Lynx lifts are closed for the day due to power outages. CR and HG are closed due to wind damage." On the website from a browser though this "Important information" doesn't show up in the Snow Report. If you click on the "Lift Status" tab it will show those lifts as closed, but you don't get the details that you get in the app on why.
 

Hawk

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Nov 22, 2016
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Mad River Valley / MA
The storm last night was serious. There are trees down and power out all over the valley. I would imagine that they are scrambling today to get power on and figure it out so the reports may be lagging.
 

cdskier

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Mar 26, 2015
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The storm last night was serious. There are trees down and power out all over the valley. I would imagine that they are scrambling today to get power on and figure it out so the reports may be lagging.

Oh I've noticed this in the past, just never said anything. It isn't isolated to this case. Anything in that "Important Information" section of the app never shows on the snow report on the website unless I'm not looking in the right place. I don't know if this is some sort of special field only displayed on the app or what.

And yes, lots of damage in the valley. Per the e-mails I got from GMP, I had no power at my condo from 9PM last night until almost 6am this morning. And then it went out again at 9am and has been out since (unless it never really came back on between 6am and 9am today). Last numbers I saw showed a good portion of the valley still with no power.
 

BenedictGomez

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Joined
Jan 26, 2011
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12,174
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Location
Wasatch Back
We used to do Chinese Downhills at Shawnee during Thursday night ski club, because kids do really stupid things*.



*I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a ton of fun though.
 

TSQURD

Member
Joined
Feb 25, 2018
Messages
74
Points
18
And yes, lots of damage in the valley. Per the e-mails I got from GMP, I had no power at my condo from 9PM last night until almost 6am this morning. And then it went out again at 9am and has been out since (unless it never really came back on between 6am and 9am today). Last numbers I saw showed a good portion of the valley still with no power.

To my understanding, there is no power up village dr., and spotty elseware. Talked to Dino earlier today, Reks lost power last night @9 but got it back around 6 this morning. We lost power (off village) at 9 also but ours hasn’t been back on yet. GMP did switch us to ‘power on’ at one point, so we had to report the outage again. There’s a fair amount of damage around. Lots of trees/branches down, roof damage, etc. They were running a small generator at the top of gate house. According to the lifties Bravo suffered some sort of damage also, but ran all day outside of an hour or so mid day.

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