Sunday River 10/17/09

Date(s) Skied: Saturday, October 17, 2009

Resort or Ski Area: Sunday River, ME

Conditions: Hardpack on T2, Soft and Beautiful Lower Sunday Punch

Trip Report:

Day of firsts for me... other than the obvious first day of the season it was my first time skiing in ME, first time skiing in October, and first time demoing because one of my bindings decided to break when I first clicked in so they gave me some sweet Atomics for $25. That delayed my start by an hour... oh well.

Finally got on the Locke Triple around 10:30. At that point it was just T2 so I hit that a few times. Midstation line to go up wasn't too bad... 5 minutes max. The download line was hell... 30 minutes plus. I decided to finally wait in it to go get lunch at 12:30 and with my luck, they decided to open Lower Sunday Punch right when I got to the top of the stairs. Oh well.

After lunch, I lapped top to bottom the rest of the day because lower Punch was AMAZINGLY soft most of the way. A few shady spots were hard, but mostly beautiful LSGR. Thin at the bottom with walking on the last 100 feet, but everything above it was so sweet. T2 was tough hardpack, skied off frankensnow, etc, but it has a huge base and should be good to go for a while unless Indian Summer gives it the finger. Lines were non-existent after lunch which was a huge plus.

Overall, a satisfactory first day. Kudos to the River for getting a nice product down in mid-October. Lots of skiers up there from all over New England. I took some pics (mainly of the still beautiful foliage in the Maine valleys... hell most of the base is still green). Next time out will hopefully be Halloween, likely back at Sunday River seeing as they'll probably be half the price of Killington.

Great to hear that they got top to bottom going!

Really can't complain for 10/17 turns. T2 was rock solid except for the bottom 100 feet or so. Bumps on skiers right of T2, but no real lines, pretty erratic, though what was there was enough to be fun and get the feeling back.

I'll disagree on the 5 minute line to the top. One trip up around noon was a solid 15 to 20 minutes. Day of firsts for me as well. First time out on the new boards, which will take some dialing in as they are definitely BURLY and perform best at speed, which was not really possible given the conditions today. While fun, T2 definitely brought out the inner gaper in pretty much everyone there; survival skiing on solid ice between odd bumps.

I also (mistakenly) went up for my first runs with my new jacket and after a couple was sweating like crazy and needed to go with something lighter. Annoying to have to go back down, but I bought the jacket for frigid January conditions, so I think I'll be psyched with it then. I waited about 20 minutes in the download line and then said screw it and ducked the rope. Punch as Zand stated skied very well for much of it. You had to be on your toes for all the water bars and uneven areas, but I thought to myself, 'Why is this not open?'. Low and behold, next trip up after grabbing a lighter jacket it was open. I did three more runs before having to split to bring something to a customer in Portland. On one lift ride I ended up meeting and going up with AZ's Treeskier....great guy and very good skier.

Only complaint was the lift line for a bit when it was just open up top. As mentioned, maybe I caught it wrong, but I waited a good 15-20 minutes. The wait would have been less than half that if they loaded the chairs to capacity. However, once they opened top to bottom, waits were zero.

Overall, it was great being out there so early. Many thank yous to Sunday River for the mid fall turns. Hopefully I make it back up on Halloween as well.

Crossing my fingers Killington finds a way to open next Saturday as I have a food show to set up for in the evening in White River Junction. It would be great to get in some turns there too........though hopefully not at the $60 they were charging early season last year. Kudos for SR for keeping the prices fair. $25 well spent

^^^^^^^^

Looks like plenty of room!

There really was. There were some choke points getting through the water bars, but most of the run ranged in width of 30-50 feet of skiable snow.

Here's T2

[_youtube]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-uJXtTnkolw&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-uJXtTnkolw&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/_youtube]

(A little helpwith embedding anyone? lol)

Zand said:

Here's T2

[_youtube]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-uJXtTnkolw&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-uJXtTnkolw&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/_youtube]

(A little helpwith embedding anyone? lol)

Click to expand...

Let's see if I can do it now lol...



[borat] GREAT SUCCESS [/borat]