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Let down by my favorite NE Resort.

MadPadraic

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the cozy brown snows of the east
We splurged on a condo at Sugarloaf over MLK weekend. Monday was supposed to be the choice day, but the storm busted.

Sunday night, Sugarloaf decided not to send out their groomers, which resulted in only three trails opening; they still charged full price for lift tickets. Also, Tote Road, the their main blue off the Super Quad, opened late as as result of grooming around 9ish. From what I can tell, Saddleback and Sunday River both managed to have their normal full compliment of lifts and trails running.

Here's what I don't get: why didn't they groom overnight? Does sending the groomers out in the rain endanger the drivers (really good reason not to do it) or somehow hurt the snowpack? By closing time on Sunday, clear ice was the dominant condition so they can't have been too worried about new ice forming on top of existing ice. Also, since they demonstrated that they were clearly able to open trails after a pass of the groomers (e.g. Tote Road), why didn't they work to open more terrain as the day went on? Why stop with just one trail off the quad? It is this last question that really bugs me. It feels like they abandoned their part of the implicit deal between skiers and resort operators: when booking non-refundable vacations in advance, the skiers take on all the weather risk, but in exchange the resorts are supposed to operate at the previously expected level.

As a side note, does anyone know if something is wrong with double runner east? We didn't see it running at all this weekend, which included a period when the Super Quad went down and lift lines everywhere else became 20 minutes plus.
 

MadMadWorld

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That seems ridiculous considering what other mountains in the area did. Did you try to reach out to them on Facebook or Twitter?
 

skiMEbike

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While I don't know the answers to your questions, I believe Monday's conditions were a challenge for most NE resorts (that received the r@!# Sunday night). My understanding is they like to let the water drain from the snow before grooming. Being at Sunday River on Monday I can assure you they did not have their "normal full compliment" of trails open. They only had 6-7 TTB runs from all of their 7 peaks (excluding NPeak). I actually found myself seeking runs on the Tempest chair (which I normally avoid like the plague), becuase lower mountain trail conditions were best (i.e. Wildfire). Bottom line: skiing anywhere (in ME at least) on Monday probably sucked....However it still beats working :lol:
 

Tin

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This is the gamble you take with skiing and staying somewhere with a storm. It is very hit or miss. What was their trail report that morning?
 

joshua segal

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A couple of weeks ago, I was skiing on a day that wasn't so great. There had been an ice storm recently and it was above freezing. Each time the wind blew there was a white noise that emerged from the woods followed by a cascade of snow falling from the trees. Last week on a cold windy day, there was a small line of blue over Mt. Monadnock. As the sun descended from the clouds into the patch of blue, I noticed a squall on either side of the sun. Never seen anything like it before.

From a conditions POV, I remember a PSIA clinic at MRG. There was 4" of fluff on the ugliest ice surface. I stuck it out and came home a better and more versatile skier for the experience.

I have a "Forrest Gump" way of looking at a skiing day: "A day of skiing is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get."

I'd say in my almost 50 years of skiing, I could count on one hand the days I would rather have stayed at home.
 

MadPadraic

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the cozy brown snows of the east
This is the gamble you take with skiing and staying somewhere with a storm. It is very hit or miss. What was their trail report that morning?

We didn't have internet in the condo, so we got our report through the resort TV channel, which was exactly as I described it. The the trails were the condo access task, lower narrow gauge (I think) off of double runner and tote road. To their credit they also seemed to have the bunny slope above the condo trail.
 

drjeff

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Very often when liquid and a freeze up is involved, from a mountain operations standpoint a resort will make choices that have proven in the past to be effective for the overall snowpack conditions, that may limit terrain choices and possibly offend guests in the immediate few hours after the weather event to allow for a better overall snowpack for the guests in the coming days.

For the most part if you've got a wet snow pack, and a forcast calling for an extended run of cold, dry air after the liquid event, most mountain ops folks will want to put as little grooming actions as possible onto that snow, with the exception of maybe a few core trails, until the water can drain for a day or so. Grooming wet snow too quickly, especially before it has a chance to set up, might make some racers happy (think bullet proof world cup hard snow surface) but won't make the majority of guests happy and then lead to some large(r) death cookies when they groom it out again 24hrs later and require more "work" to get a good surface back - it's the same reason why most resorts, unless they're making some REALLY dry snow in REALLY dry air conditions, like to wait a day or 2 if at all possible to groom out fresh manmade snow - getting as much water out of the top layer of snow, especially when there's "base snow" below it, makes for a much better surface in the long run
 

Tin

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We didn't have internet in the condo, so we got our report through the resort TV channel, which was exactly as I described it. The the trails were the condo access task, lower narrow gauge (I think) off of double runner and tote road. To their credit they also seemed to have the bunny slope above the condo trail.


So you knew there were 3 trails open and no grooming was done prior to buying your ticket? If that is the case sorry but it's on you. Should have drove to Saddleback.
 

skiMEbike

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My unscientific formula (yet surprisingly accurate) for figuring out the amount of "real trails" a mountain has open....Take total reported trails open divide by 3 and then subtract the number of lifts. SRiver reported 59 groomed trails which equates to 59 divided by 3 - 11 lifts or 8 (which in reality was 7). And you always round down to give you the least amount of trials.
 

thetrailboss

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Bummer. As said, with grooming and mountain ops, they have to be careful in "thaw/freeze" conditions. Ideally they need the temps to freeze before grooming a slope after a rain/thaw event. Or else you run the risk of having groomed ice in the morning. I'd bet that the groomer ops were at the shop all night waiting for the magic temperature and it never came or came very late in the night (or right before opening).

From what I saw online, the storm was nasty--tracking too far inland.

Sorry you got stuck.
 

wa-loaf

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You would have been skiing frozen corduroy, which kind of feels like skiing over a cheese grater. They probably just wanted the trails to freeze up before sending the groomers out to break it up.
 

machski

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This is the gamble you take with skiing and staying somewhere with a storm. It is very hit or miss. What was their trail report that morning?

The trail report stated 124 trails that morning. Under the daily report there was a note that patrol may (in reality did) limit the skiing to groomed only trails. Given VT saw mostly snow Killington North and their trail counts held or increased, Sugarloaf was at the least a bit deceptive with their announced conditions and terrain offerings monday (it should also be noted they tried to dance around the fact they got mostly rain in the daily report text).
 

BushMogulMaster

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I can't speak directly to this situation, since I have no idea what all of the circumstances were. But to answer one of your questions: grooming during/after rain if a deep freeze is expected is a terrible thing to do to the snow surface. The pressure of the cat, combined with the rotary action of the tiller, finished with the smoothing action of the combs, brings all of the moisture to the surface, instead of letting it drain out. Have you ever used a float on wet concrete??? Same idea. Hence, when temps drop, you get an ice-skating rink, as the water on top freezes. BUT... if you give the water time to leach through the snowpack, the resultant surface will be hard, but not solid ice. A competent groomer should be able to make a decent skiing surface from it.
 

tmcc71

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Another sugar fail example. They are slipping. I'm a passholder, but only go in spring due to their exposure to wind, and lately, poor lift maintenance. It's not all weather related folks
 

Bumpsis

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So you knew there were 3 trails open and no grooming was done prior to buying your ticket? If that is the case sorry but it's on you. Should have drove to Saddleback.

From what MadPadraic originally posted, it sounded like he might have bought a condo/lift tickets deal. And yeah, that's always a crapshoot since you never know what the weather will do, especially if you buy one of those a good week ahead of your arrival.

Unfortunately, the full risk is on the buyer. The only silver lining here is that at Sugarloaf, there are some other options, so it's not a total loss. You can go XC at the outdoor center and if that is not a good option (snow conditions, few trails open, etc), there is some really good hiking. You can rent snow shoes at the Outdoor Center and explore the Burnt Mountain, for instance. It's like taking the tour of the Brackett Basin but from below.

Granted, that's not the same fun as skiing/riding but you can have snow adventure of a different kind.
 

SkiFanE

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Planning to ski at SL (and all of Maine) in January is a dice-y decision. Period. You never know what you're gonna get. I pretty much assume January will suck (honestly..it does every year...our memories are just bad) so any day that doesn't is a bonus. Sunday was fabulous. Monday sucked.
 

tmcc71

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I had a sugarloaf fail thread from my new years eve disater there. For some reason my thread was deleted. Probably due to sugarloaf being the golden child on this forum for some reason or another. You're not alone in your disappointment of Sugarloaf this season, trust me. My weekend was broken lifts, wind-holds, icing......The place is just too dependent on wind mid season. Late season is great there, mid season, not so much. Mid season powder days...with no upper lifts spinning, nearly every time I go.
 

xwhaler

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Hoping things improve for the Summit....2 weeks from this Friday. Need snow to crush Western Maine.
 
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