Date(s) Skied: Saturday, March 15th, 2008
Resort or Ski Area: Saddleback, ME
Conditions: Packed Powder, Loose Granular, GARBAGE coarse sandpaper crust on Natural trails
Trip Report:
My eagerly anticipated first trip to Saddleback today started out with promise. My buddy and I left Portland at 6:15 am with light snow falling for what would be a long slog to Saddleback. The Highway was in good shape, but route 4 was pretty darn sloppy from Auburn all the way to Rangeley. Total snow accumulation of no more than 2 inches, but apparently whatever county we were driving through had blown their plow/salt budget as the roads were quite greasy with three solid accidents of totaled front ends of cars on the way. There were better moguls than Saddleback had, in the form of frost heaves on Route 4 from Farmington all the way to Rangely, which compounded with the snow made for challenging driving. If Saddleback wants to grow the way it plans, that road will need a lot of work. Arrived at Saddleback at 9:30. Pretty decent timing, only an extra 45 minutes than planned, which was good based on the roads.
Things were looking even more promising with sun starting to poke through. Turned in my ticket New England Ski and Ride free ticket voucher and off we went up the Rangely Double, which to my surprise had a solid ten minute liftline. This would be the case outside of lunch time all the way until 3:30. Our first run went from Gray Ghost, which was beautifully groomed on down to Parmachenee Belle. This trail had a sign at the top saying 'not groomed, moguls'. I was psyched to dig in until fifteen feet into the run with SCRATCH/CRUNCH coming from my skis. There was the WORST crust imaginable and tiny irregular moguls. Worse surface than boiler plate ice, I'd liken it to skiing on very hard extremely coarse sand paper, just scratching and grabbing at your skis. AWFUL. The sun was burning fairly strong though in lower elevations, so I wasn't giving up hope. The summit remained socked in all day with twenty foot visability for the first two hundred verticle feet.
We road the Cupsuptic T-Bar next. First time on a T-Bar in many years and though kinda fun, I was hopin' for a FAST detachable type T-Bar, which wasn't the case. Very slow ride. We hit Blue Devil next which was GEORGEOUS packed powder. Short, but fun run with hero carving snow. Next run we hit was Jane Craig, which was ungroomed and again TOTAL GARBAGE. I was literally skiing it pissed off. I understand niar events happen. I can appreciate a mountain leaving a crusted over trail ungroomed IF there are already established good bumps that will eventually soften. This was not the case, just a flat crusted death track down the mountain. Trust me, I HATE grooming for the most part and wish that 90% of non-gladed terrain at mountains is left to bump up.
Following this run I skied to the lodge and for the first time in my life, sought out the grooming report and highlighted everything on the trail map that was as I couldn't imagine anyone enjoying the trails that weren't. The rest of the day was spent skiing groomers. The lower mountain runs were beautiful packed powder, but got skied off fairly early. The reason? There was only about eight runs from the Rangely Double downward outside of the beginner area that were groomed. There were equally as many left ungroomed pointlessly as they skied horribly. From the top they had groomed Tightline and Supervisor, which was more of a ice / loose granular mix than the packed powder down low. The Top T-Bar was kind of cool to ride, but again very slow. I don't think they should replace it with a Quad as planned. I know they want to make the top accesible to more folks, but they should leave the T-Bar as an insurance policy for high wind days.
So, it was a day spent on groomers, which got boring rather quick, so I found myself skiing the half pipe at the bottome of the runs for the first time in ten years or so, just for kicks. I also for the first time in my life attempted to hit a rail and failed miserably :lol:. Skis shot straight forward in front of me and I had to dive to avoid having my ribs come crashing down on the rail. I've never had an interest in riding rails, did so out of boredom. I actually want to give it ago again someday, maybe start with a flat box as I feel a certain challenge in me to learn how to do it.
My take on Saddleback:
KILLER MOUNTAIN that I would LOVE on a good snow day. Looking into Nightmare Glades, Intimidator Glades and others I was salivating, but frustrated that they weren't skiable, at least enjoyably.
GREAT old school Vibe to the Place, BEAUTIFUL lodge.
Rangely Double deserves attention prior to any new lifts or upgrading others. I'm not saying HSQ, but at the very least a triple. It access the bulk of terrain and if the places gains popularity, the lines will be unbearable on it.
The proposed 9 new lifts and doubling of terrain? Ain't gonna happen in my lifetime. Maybe half will. There just simply will never be the skier numbers to get the return on investment. It's a great place and VERY affordable, but it's literally at the end of the earth. It makes Jay Peak seem easy to get to. Improving route 4 seems more important to me to increase skier traffic than improving the actual ski product.
So, glad I went, though VERY dissapointed with the skiing, but I will be back again when I know it's got good snow as the place is LEGIT in terms of available steeps and classic terrain.
Resort or Ski Area: Saddleback, ME
Conditions: Packed Powder, Loose Granular, GARBAGE coarse sandpaper crust on Natural trails
Trip Report:
My eagerly anticipated first trip to Saddleback today started out with promise. My buddy and I left Portland at 6:15 am with light snow falling for what would be a long slog to Saddleback. The Highway was in good shape, but route 4 was pretty darn sloppy from Auburn all the way to Rangeley. Total snow accumulation of no more than 2 inches, but apparently whatever county we were driving through had blown their plow/salt budget as the roads were quite greasy with three solid accidents of totaled front ends of cars on the way. There were better moguls than Saddleback had, in the form of frost heaves on Route 4 from Farmington all the way to Rangely, which compounded with the snow made for challenging driving. If Saddleback wants to grow the way it plans, that road will need a lot of work. Arrived at Saddleback at 9:30. Pretty decent timing, only an extra 45 minutes than planned, which was good based on the roads.
Things were looking even more promising with sun starting to poke through. Turned in my ticket New England Ski and Ride free ticket voucher and off we went up the Rangely Double, which to my surprise had a solid ten minute liftline. This would be the case outside of lunch time all the way until 3:30. Our first run went from Gray Ghost, which was beautifully groomed on down to Parmachenee Belle. This trail had a sign at the top saying 'not groomed, moguls'. I was psyched to dig in until fifteen feet into the run with SCRATCH/CRUNCH coming from my skis. There was the WORST crust imaginable and tiny irregular moguls. Worse surface than boiler plate ice, I'd liken it to skiing on very hard extremely coarse sand paper, just scratching and grabbing at your skis. AWFUL. The sun was burning fairly strong though in lower elevations, so I wasn't giving up hope. The summit remained socked in all day with twenty foot visability for the first two hundred verticle feet.
We road the Cupsuptic T-Bar next. First time on a T-Bar in many years and though kinda fun, I was hopin' for a FAST detachable type T-Bar, which wasn't the case. Very slow ride. We hit Blue Devil next which was GEORGEOUS packed powder. Short, but fun run with hero carving snow. Next run we hit was Jane Craig, which was ungroomed and again TOTAL GARBAGE. I was literally skiing it pissed off. I understand niar events happen. I can appreciate a mountain leaving a crusted over trail ungroomed IF there are already established good bumps that will eventually soften. This was not the case, just a flat crusted death track down the mountain. Trust me, I HATE grooming for the most part and wish that 90% of non-gladed terrain at mountains is left to bump up.
Following this run I skied to the lodge and for the first time in my life, sought out the grooming report and highlighted everything on the trail map that was as I couldn't imagine anyone enjoying the trails that weren't. The rest of the day was spent skiing groomers. The lower mountain runs were beautiful packed powder, but got skied off fairly early. The reason? There was only about eight runs from the Rangely Double downward outside of the beginner area that were groomed. There were equally as many left ungroomed pointlessly as they skied horribly. From the top they had groomed Tightline and Supervisor, which was more of a ice / loose granular mix than the packed powder down low. The Top T-Bar was kind of cool to ride, but again very slow. I don't think they should replace it with a Quad as planned. I know they want to make the top accesible to more folks, but they should leave the T-Bar as an insurance policy for high wind days.
So, it was a day spent on groomers, which got boring rather quick, so I found myself skiing the half pipe at the bottome of the runs for the first time in ten years or so, just for kicks. I also for the first time in my life attempted to hit a rail and failed miserably :lol:. Skis shot straight forward in front of me and I had to dive to avoid having my ribs come crashing down on the rail. I've never had an interest in riding rails, did so out of boredom. I actually want to give it ago again someday, maybe start with a flat box as I feel a certain challenge in me to learn how to do it.
My take on Saddleback:
KILLER MOUNTAIN that I would LOVE on a good snow day. Looking into Nightmare Glades, Intimidator Glades and others I was salivating, but frustrated that they weren't skiable, at least enjoyably.
GREAT old school Vibe to the Place, BEAUTIFUL lodge.
Rangely Double deserves attention prior to any new lifts or upgrading others. I'm not saying HSQ, but at the very least a triple. It access the bulk of terrain and if the places gains popularity, the lines will be unbearable on it.
The proposed 9 new lifts and doubling of terrain? Ain't gonna happen in my lifetime. Maybe half will. There just simply will never be the skier numbers to get the return on investment. It's a great place and VERY affordable, but it's literally at the end of the earth. It makes Jay Peak seem easy to get to. Improving route 4 seems more important to me to increase skier traffic than improving the actual ski product.
So, glad I went, though VERY dissapointed with the skiing, but I will be back again when I know it's got good snow as the place is LEGIT in terms of available steeps and classic terrain.
