Sunday River 11/10

[Geoff]

I drove up from Portsmouth, NH early and parked in the front row nose-to the Barker Lodge. I forked over my three cans, got my voucher, and paid for the $20 day ticket. The first hour was a complete cluster-F as the triple either crawled or stopped completely. At one point, the liftie walked away as I was loading and I got the chair slammed into my calves. I don't know who operates Sunday River these days but that lift needs a competent supervisor and trained staff.

The skiing surface started out pretty tricky. It was plenty cold enough to have blown velvet but, instead, they'd blown rock-hard sludge. If you ventured to skier's left where it was unskied, you got a lunar landscape of ruts and chunks. I was skiing on a rather abused pair of Salomon Xtra Hots and I was kinda wishing I'd brought something with more grip. The surface gradually improved as it got skied and as it warmed up and softened. I lasted three hours when the jillion teenagers on twin tips and snowboards showed up. I'm used to Killington fall skiing where it bumps up by 10:30 and these low skill people pretty much self-select. At Sunday River, you have low skill snowboarders doing windmill falls in front of you with yahoos on twin tips doing gorrila turns behind you. I got my ten runs and bailed out when I got concerned about my personal safety.

 

[MonkeyBrook]

Odd, first negative report I have heard. But I guess you are entitled to your opinion. I was there Sat and Sun and didnt not have the same experience. I found the staff very friendly and the snow great for early November. Nothing you can do about the crowds when you are pretty much the only show in town. One suggestion and I agree with you on teh windmilling teenagers...SR should have patrol out on trails slowing people down at the crucial intersections. I am sure it is only because of the early season and they might be a bit under staffed.

 

[Vortex]

It was early season indeed. Alot of bugs have to be worked out. I was happy to just get out again. I quit early also, but that was my plan all along.

 

[Skier75]

Sounds like I'm glad I wasn't there. I hate when all the ya-hoos get out there early and ruin it for others. I'm waiting a while longer.

 

[ga2ski]

Geoff,

I see some of your concerns (some of lifties are out of practice when it comes to bumping the chairs) but i thought the snow was decent for this time of the year. As for the bumps, I found plenty to ski, sure if the trails had been as packed as the old opening days as K there would have been more bumps. Not sure if you skied on Sunday, but the snow much better. Sounds like you left early on Saturday when the crowds arrived.

I supposed you could have gone to Killington (Oh wait it was closed.) or stayed home and raked leaves.

 

[Geoff]

Geoff,

I see some of your concerns (some of lifties are out of practice when it comes to bumping the chairs) but i thought the snow was decent for this time of the year. As for the bumps, I found plenty to ski, sure if the trails had been as packed as the old opening days as K there would have been more bumps. Not sure if you skied on Sunday, but the snow much better. Sounds like you left early on Saturday when the crowds arrived.

I supposed you could have gone to Killington (Oh wait it was closed.) or stayed home and raked leaves.

I actually did go to Killington from Sunday River. I had some social things I needed to do. It's ski season. The leaves stay on the ground until May.

I was planning to ski 10-ish runs and bail out regardless. That's been my Killington early-November routine for decades. Get out at 8:00 and leave when the entire world arrives at 10:30 or 11:00 and go do something else. Everybody I talked to in the early part of Saturday was on the same kind of game plan. When it's 1 1/2 ways down, I also get pretty bored after a bunch of laps. I've skied better. I've skied worse. It's New England in November and I have low expectations.

As far as lift ops, they pulled something that I've rarely seen before in 40-odd years of skiing. As I was loading on the lift, the liftie walked away. He shouted over to the chick liftie who was checking tickets to man his station. As you'd expect, the chair crashed into the back of my legs. If something had happened, there was nobody attending the lift to hit the kill switch. I presume the new operators at Sunday River still have some ASC malaise to unwind. At Killington, ASC pretty much abandoned supervision and quality control. You don't restore that in a few days.

 

[riverc0il]

The mid-station lifties were working their tail off on Saturday, great effort. The base terminal of the Locke Triple had a terrible liftie. The chair crashed the back of my legs three times. I normally can get a hand on a chair to help slow it down by those side poles (Borvig, I think?) make grasping the side to self slow very difficult. I expect more effort bumping the chair even for a slug liftie and opening day doesn't count. That is about the only negative thing I could say about Saturday aside from the scraped slide for life at the end of Cascades and $3.79 Gatorade (first time in my life I walked back to a soda cooler from the check out because of sticker shock... that is a 300% mark up, I know what those things cost...).

 

[bvibert]

As far as lift ops, they pulled something that I've rarely seen before in 40-odd years of skiing. As I was loading on the lift, the liftie walked away.

That's just not acceptable at all!

 

[Geoff]

That's just not acceptable at all!

That's what I thought.

In her defense, the chick liftie sprinted over and almost made it as the chair came crashing into my calfs. I chalk it up to those years of ASC malaise. It will take a few months to sort out the problems and ASC certainly didn't pay for any kind of quality control in their last years.