Sunday River 22-23

[deadheadskier]

I get that the Locke download situation sucks, but I also think Jordan has too much terrain to cover for day 1. Between that, no lodge, crappy parking location and the longer drive over to Jordan, it just makes little sense to me to have the season start over there.

 

[machski]

I get that the Locke download situation sucks, but I also think Jordan has too much terrain to cover for day 1. Between that, no lodge, crappy parking location and the longer drive over to Jordan, it just makes little sense to me to have the season start over there.

I think if they want to be in the first to open race, they have no choice other than Locke. Gun spacing is far too wide in Jordan for a rapid assault and open, not to mention the length of runs. However, they will pivot once Jordan is ready, put public over there and racers on Locke. But if you saw this morning, they already started making snow on lower DD and AmEx. This season it looks like they will have temps on their side, so a high chance the West and East are linked across Aurora and Spruce by Thanksgiving weekend. That has been the goal since the snow making upgrades have been put in.

 

[thebigo]

few pictures from today

 

[machski]

Did you adventure ski down below the midstation?

 

[machski]

Jordan opens Friday with all three primary runs open. Rogue and Lolla will be fully groomed, Excalibur will be whale skiing.

 

[kbroderick]

Jordan opens Friday with all three primary runs open. Rogue and Lolla will be fully groomed, Excalibur will be whale skiing.

Rogue was 10/10 first thing and still pretty darn good after that; I don't know if it was the timing of the groom or the time they spent, but the surface was incredible. Excalibur was really fun adventure skiing. I went out thinking I'd grab a few runs to encourage my legs to be ready for more volume in December, and I ended up with 10.

 

[machski]

They are pushing hard. By Thanksgiving it looks at a minimum it will be interconnected from Jordan to Locke and Barker. Spruce Triple may only serve the amount interconnection if temps don't cooperate as I do not think they have done anything more off the top of that than Sirius to this point.

 

[Riverveteran]

Lack of interconnect at this point is just sad.

 

[LoafSkier19]

I agree. Although it sounds like more terrain is about to open up based on the mountain report today.

Still, I think they need to revisit this opening strategy. I think it results in too much snowmaking resources needed to try and connect Locke and Jordan via the crosscuts instead of focusing on actual downhill trails to ski.

 

[Newpylong]

It certainly is an extremely inefficient rollout. Akin to Killington opening North Ridge first then trying to connect to Bear at the same time. Or Okemo main mountain and Jackson Gore. Or Gore and the Snow Bowl, etc and so on.

The Killington style rollout makes far more sense - expand to adjacent pods one or two trails at a time and be able to use that parking immediately. Also better skiing, less traversing.

 

[thetrailboss]

Is this type of rollout typical for Sunday River?

 

[LoafSkier19]

Since Jordan 8 was installed, this has been their plan.

Before that, it used to be roughly Upper Locke, lower Locke, Barker, Spruce/Southridge/North, white cap, aurora, Jordan, Oz in priority.

This pic was posted on their socials a few days ago. Shows what their gameplan for expansion is:

 

[thebigo]

When deciding where to ski this week I was shocked loon is offering more acreage than SR. The old locke, barker, spruce, South ridge rollout was a better approach.

 

[jimmywilson69]

That's pretty spread out... They have the fancy hotel at Jordan, so that is definitely driving the decision over there.

 

[thetrailboss]

That's pretty spread out... They have the fancy hotel at Jordan, so that is definitely driving the decision over there.

Sounds like it is the fancy lift that is driving their decisionmaking.

 

[2Planker]

They have the fancy hotel at Jordan, so that is definitely driving the decision over there.

?? It might have been Fancy 30+ years ago when it was built....
Definitely not anymore...

 

[jimmywilson69]

LOL

well its still there and along with their fancy new lift driving the decision to push out that far.

 

[oldfartrider]

They got get a jump on building the Igloo.

 

[machski]

It is but tomorrow Barker 6 comes online along with Kansas/Cyclone/State Fair loop off Jordan. Thursday Chondola and Aurora come online interconnecting the resort with at least one TTB off each lift. Yeah, still a bit too much Terra n to jump straight to. I know they like to get Jordan open (and I hey are dumping $$ into that hotel for sure), but it takes a while for terrain growth. Plus, if I were a Summit Owner I'd be pissed as White Cap is last in line now to expand to. At one time, WC got skiing 2+ weeks ahead of Jordan. Now Jordan is skiing more like 5-6 weeks ahead of WC.