Sugarloaf - Burnt Mountain Opens to Summit

[Bumpsis]

I was out that way yesterday morning. (I'm now at my desk at work.) It's about 10 minutes of hiking and skiing from the top of Sweeper 2 to the point where the Burnt Mountain hiking trail diverges from Golden Road. I wasn't going to hike up Burnt because a) I was solo and not completely stupid, and b) I was already going to be late picking up my kid from ski school. After that point there's some more traversing before you get into skiable (by me) trees. From that point down it was just freaking awesome, other than the fact that I really should have been doing more biking this winter. Most of the area was denser than it appears on the map, though I did go through some wide-open areas. (I was reluctant to stray too far from the tracks I was following, for the reasons cited above.) I'll write up a TR soon with more details.

I have GPS tracks of that run and of runs I did the previous days on Sweeper 2 and Birler 1. Can post them somewhere if there's interest.

I can add a bit more to this. I was up on Burnt Mt about a week ago (2/21), just a few days after they officially opened it. I went up there on snow shoes, following the hiking trail that starts behind the condos and gives you the option of either hiking up Burnt Mt or XC onto the XC trail system.

I went up fairly high on the Burnt Mt (looked like well above the level of King Pine base). I lost the hiking trail blazes at that level, but did find the markings for Golden Road, so I saw quite a bit of what's on the downhill map shown as skiable terrain.

Some of what I saw looked like really well spaced glades and that would be a pleasure to ski, especially in good snow. However, there was also a lot of just woods, pretty tight and still with good deal of underbrush. Skiable?? maybe, but I wouldn't get in there unless I spent a lot more time expolring around for good ways to get down.

The place is big but if not familar with it, one may end up doing a lot of traversing, looking for lines. Otherwise you may just descent way deep down the mountain where it's quite tight and having to hike out through the deep. That really would not be fun.

My approach to getting to know Burnt Mountain would be to snow shoe up with my skis on my back (I have no randonee equipment), following one of the logging roads that seems to straddle the area's boundry, locate potenial lines for descent and perhaps on subsequent excursions, explore the connections (from below) up to where you can come down from Sugarloaf Mt - possibly following the Golden Road. Alas, that's not in the cards for this year.

 

[Bumpsis]

REQUEST FROM THE SNOWMONSTER: I'd like to get a copy of this year's Sugarloaf trail map showing Burnt Mountain and the back of the backside snowfields (the new terrain). If any AZer has one in good condition, would you be kind enough to mail one to me? I live on the other side of the globe now so international postage will be required. If you can help out the snowmonster, please PM me. Can't pay you but I promise to buy you a beer! Thanks, AZ!

If nobody comes through for you send me PM. The map that I have is current (2013/2014) but is a bit ratty. I can send that to you.