shipyardcreek
New member
Top half skied real nice. Bottom half not so much. With skier traffic, the more frequently skied runs should improve. Down low the untracked snow is heavy.
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The "Sugarbush Thread"
- Thread starter thetrailboss
- Start date
ktrerotola
New member
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2019
- Messages
- 19
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Thanks for the intel. Went back today. Really nice up top, but definitely got slick by the bottom. Last half of run out was like a luge track.
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STREETSKIER
Active member
The "Sugarbush Thread"
Fantastic skiing and riding not that crowded silky soft groomers lately ,woods are pounded out 3-5 tonight should freshen it nice see you there !!my plan up hg long trail to church for warm up then castle rock poop chute etc
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Fantastic skiing and riding not that crowded silky soft groomers lately ,woods are pounded out 3-5 tonight should freshen it nice see you there !!my plan up hg long trail to church for warm up then castle rock poop chute etc
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Skied Saturday and Sunday of the holiday weekend. The intention was to ski both days at Sugarbush, but we were staying in Burlington and major accidents on 100 and 100B closed the roads on Saturday and we ended up at Bolton Valley. For the most part on what should be the busiest day of the ski season, the lifts at BV were ski on. I think that we waited 4 chairs at one point on the Timberline and Vista lifts. As an aside, I wonder if the road closures on Saturday made SB and MRG less crowded.
Sunday we skied Lincoln Peak. The Gate House lines were some of the longest I've ever seen there. There was a Sugarbush employee giving out free cookies on the line. I think that's a nice touch and probably alleviates some tension. There were five of us in my crew, and we elected to do the singles line pretty much all day. The singles line at Gate House was long (as expected) but it moved at a decent clip.
The singles line at Bravo, VH, HG, and NL were short to non-existent. I get if you have little kids or have some sort of aversion to talking to others, but the singles line really makes crowded days much better.
Even with the lines (to be expected on the busiest ski weekend of the year) I found that the mountain didn't seem crowded. There was a run on Paradise where my crew of five were the only people on the run. We split up at one point and my daughter and I did Castlerock run and maybe saw 2-3 other people other than ski patrol.
I would say that conditions were a little bit scratchy which was a bit of a surprise because it was all powder and packed powder at BV the day before, but my gut says that on Friday night, SB got some mixed precip whereas BV remained all snow (who knows). Either way, there were plenty of stashes in the trees at SB and for the most part the groomers were edgeable. Downspout being the one exception. It was really skied off.
I would say that over the past five years, my skiing days at SB have only gone up. And it's pretty cool to discover stuff that I hadn't experienced before. Little things like the fact that the PB&J sandwich at Allyn's is epic. A couple of weeks ago I did a solo trip up to SB. While riding the Castlerock lift with a fellow solo skier, I lamented the fact that I rarely get a chance to do the off piste stuff like Slidebrook or the trees that aren't on the map because I'm often with my wife (she's not up for that stuff) or when not with her I'm solo and I don't want to do anything unfamiliar if I'm alone. The guy (Peter) said, hey I'm gonna do the woods on skier's right off of Middle Earth, so join me. The guy was like a skiing ninja, but I had a blast trying to keep up and now I won't be as intimidated next time.
Can't wait to be back next weekend.
Sunday we skied Lincoln Peak. The Gate House lines were some of the longest I've ever seen there. There was a Sugarbush employee giving out free cookies on the line. I think that's a nice touch and probably alleviates some tension. There were five of us in my crew, and we elected to do the singles line pretty much all day. The singles line at Gate House was long (as expected) but it moved at a decent clip.
The singles line at Bravo, VH, HG, and NL were short to non-existent. I get if you have little kids or have some sort of aversion to talking to others, but the singles line really makes crowded days much better.
Even with the lines (to be expected on the busiest ski weekend of the year) I found that the mountain didn't seem crowded. There was a run on Paradise where my crew of five were the only people on the run. We split up at one point and my daughter and I did Castlerock run and maybe saw 2-3 other people other than ski patrol.
I would say that conditions were a little bit scratchy which was a bit of a surprise because it was all powder and packed powder at BV the day before, but my gut says that on Friday night, SB got some mixed precip whereas BV remained all snow (who knows). Either way, there were plenty of stashes in the trees at SB and for the most part the groomers were edgeable. Downspout being the one exception. It was really skied off.
I would say that over the past five years, my skiing days at SB have only gone up. And it's pretty cool to discover stuff that I hadn't experienced before. Little things like the fact that the PB&J sandwich at Allyn's is epic. A couple of weeks ago I did a solo trip up to SB. While riding the Castlerock lift with a fellow solo skier, I lamented the fact that I rarely get a chance to do the off piste stuff like Slidebrook or the trees that aren't on the map because I'm often with my wife (she's not up for that stuff) or when not with her I'm solo and I don't want to do anything unfamiliar if I'm alone. The guy (Peter) said, hey I'm gonna do the woods on skier's right off of Middle Earth, so join me. The guy was like a skiing ninja, but I had a blast trying to keep up and now I won't be as intimidated next time.
Can't wait to be back next weekend.
ThinkSnow
Member
Curious- was the Wilderness chair running?
Another factor could be skier traffic/volume. I'm sure traffic at BV is much lighter which would help preserve the surface better/longer.
Oh yeah, the pb&j at the gatehouse is awesome too.
Hawk
Well-known member
Please do not groom Castlerock. It is not supposed to be groomed.
gladerider
Active member
i drove up to SB on Friday from NNJ. the roads were clear. the sun was out the entire way up. arrived at 530pm. went to grab a dinner at the thai restaurant on the access road. coming out of the restaurant i realized it was raining pretty hard. i knew that was the forecast but i thought we got lucky. oh well.
on saturday, my crew spent most of the time in the woods left and right of the castle rock lift line. the top half of the mountain had fluffy snow. deep snow. the bottom half had some crusts below a few inches of powder but was not that bad at all. considering the fact that we had like an hour of so of rain friday night, the damage was minimal i thought.
Welcome back. This is great. We can debate a new issue. I agree that CR should be rarely groomed. However, once or maybe twice a year grooming CR, Middle Earth and/or Cotillion can really improve the experience for all. The times I have loved it is just before a 6” plus storm. Flattening icy moguls and then have it mogul up again with fresh snow is something we think makes for a great experience. It also allows a number of our skiers who can no longer enjoy hard moguls to get a run or two on Castlerock.
nhskier1969
Active member
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- Feb 1, 2016
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+1
I like this strategy as well. As soon as I saw tumbler make his post this afternoon I knew it would spark some debate! :lol:
Last year when it was flattened in the spring worked out well too. Was so much fun to see it go from flat in the morning to nice spring bumps by the afternoon!
Yes and the glades off of it were glorious.
Hawk
Well-known member
I can understand the philosophy and why it is done but I do not agree that the experience I better for everybody. Once it is groomed every Intermediate skier on the hill goes there and the line get even bigger than usual. Also I think that the originally formed bumps have a better shape and spacing. Once they put a groomer on it, they form more spaced out and have no even pattern. This has been documented. Just go and ski Mad River so see the difference. Not earth shattering but this is my opinion.
This was the point of my post. Rarely groom just to get rid of the huge icy bumps and reset before a strorm.
Agreed. Hawk is not wrong, but imho the benefits outweigh the costs.
machski
Well-known member
I get the whole Panic Bump Spacing issue after a groom, but at the same time, until spring or a very moist, dense dumping, how do ice bumps get any better? They really don't is the answer, they just sit there basically unskied (or super little traffic). So while I get the whole great spacing, don't ruin the spacing thing, I also get it from the resort's side of things that if they can make a better overall experience for more guests, than do it.
Hawk, you just have to get your whole crew and their extended crews up to CR morning after and be the first ones to ski it. Then you can start the setup the way you want the bumps
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Hawk
Well-known member
I don' know. I am not a fan of grooming. I ski castlerock every weekend and there are only a handful of days that it is bad enough that I will not ski it. There are plenty of groomers on the hill. Remember what the sign says, "for experts only". You shouldn't have to dumb down castlerock so that the unskilled can ski it. it's just how I fell. Myself and most of the people that I ski with feel the same way. But im not going to loose sleep over it because it is not my call. Ill just ski rumble, lift line and the woods and leave the groomers to those others.
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