I vaguely recall one time they surprised everyone and blew on it early in December. Maybe somewhere in the 3-5 years ago range? But yea, usually early on it is only open if natural snow allows. Other trails are more important. So I'm not surprised at all either that they don't make snow on it this early.
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The "Sugarbush Thread"
- Thread starter thetrailboss
- Start date
I vaguely recall one time they surprised everyone and blew on it early in December. Maybe somewhere in the 3-5 years ago range? But yea, usually early on it is only open if natural snow allows. Other trails are more important. So I'm not surprised at all either that they don't make snow on it this early.
That’s the plan. Probably Thurs or Friday.
Pushing Valley House Traverse,, Jester and Downspout out now and snowmaking on lower downspout, lower jester and coffee run to have two ways down. If we had not had those warm days and rain they would have been open now.
ktrerotola
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Just received an interesting email from Alterra welcoming me to the Ikon Pass this season and outlining the benefits. I AM a Sugarbush passholder, but have never purchased Ikon. I am, however, signed up for promotional Ikon Pass emails, but this email is clearly targeted at current Ikon passholders.
Win: Might this be a pre-closing treat to SB passholders... Ikon privileges this season? Or simply a segmented trigger email gone wrong?
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KustyTheKlown
Well-known member
lol. i'd say the latter.
Slidebrook87
Active member
Probably going to head to K-Mart this weekend. 10 trails may be fun for a few hours, but it gets old pretty quickly.
KustyTheKlown
Well-known member
assuming you are on ikon, this is the one weekend where stratton will be a better bet. killington skied well last week, even the woods, and will ski well again and will have more terrain open this weekend (maybe even superstar pod if they've been able to soften it from the race conditions). but, stratton just got a 2 foot dump, and the woods should be more in play there than at k. for me, it's magic opening day saturday and stratton trees sunday. no brainer.
i agree that 10 trails including greens gets boring fast. i get where sugarbush was coming from with getting gate house open early, and i suppose my ikon visits don't really matter to their bottom line, but they did lose out on the food and beer money i would have spent there, by not having anything interesting open in november at any point.
i agree that 10 trails including greens gets boring fast. i get where sugarbush was coming from with getting gate house open early, and i suppose my ikon visits don't really matter to their bottom line, but they did lose out on the food and beer money i would have spent there, by not having anything interesting open in november at any point.
Slidebrook87
Active member
Yeah, we would go to Stratton, but we’re staying at Sugarbush. Killington is easier for a day trip. I skied at Stratton for a few years, but I’ve never skied Killington other than late season Superstar.
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KustyTheKlown
Well-known member
interesting. lots to love at killington. i grew up skiing it with my family every year, and went thru a phase where i was pretty anti and would only ski it late and early season. that's changed over the past few years and i fell back in love with a lot of the terrain. your best bet for tree skiing at this point in the season are the glades on snowdon and between snowdon and rams head. some good unmarked tree skiing also on the north ridge between powerline and ridge run, accessed from ridge run. you can also get to cooper's cabin over there, out of bounds skier's left at the very top of ridge run, which is a fine place for a beer and a toke and a backpack sandwich, and some light tree skiing will take you back to ridge run. the trees between east fall and royal flush may be skiing well. not sure how the julio/anarchy/juanita glades are doing, but the bottom gets very steep so they do need a good amount of snow to even be poachably ok.
if you are ultimately driving back to the NYC area, hit stratton on sunday and shorten your final drive home? that is my general move. ski noVT saturday, stay cheap in rutland, ski soVT on sunday, starting and ending early, home by 7 in brooklyn. this weekend no need to noVT with magic in the game.
if you are ultimately driving back to the NYC area, hit stratton on sunday and shorten your final drive home? that is my general move. ski noVT saturday, stay cheap in rutland, ski soVT on sunday, starting and ending early, home by 7 in brooklyn. this weekend no need to noVT with magic in the game.
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Beauty, thanks!
As I have said before, the snowmaking plan is fluid depending on where temps fall. You can’t just jump around, so we are looking at 48-72 hours periods when deciding where to focus. Our trail system requires a lot of land guns which need to be moved around which also takes time, so you do not want to be doing this more than necessary. Usually North Lynx and then Stein’s will be last at LP. But that can change based on conditions. We also try to plan so we make snow on a trail like Hot Shot on a weekday rather than a weekend since the land guns are blowing beneath the lift. There really is a lot that goes into a snow plan other than just hitting a switch. Add to this that we are all understaffed in snowmaking, and we have to be thoughtful in planning shifts.
Some trail expansion coming tomorrow. We will be turning Bravo, Heaven's Gate, Gate House and Welcomes Mat. We will be skiing on a combination of trails with snowmaking and some natural trails which patrol accessed today and believes they are ready to go. They will get skied in rapidly and will be "Windblown" conditions meaning there will be drifts that are deep in spots and very thin cover elsewhere, so "go slow until your know." Tomorrow we will be top to bottom via Valley House and will be down by the weekend or earlier via Downspout, Jester and Coffee Run. Check the ski report but likely opening Birdland, Murphy's, Ripcord and Organgrinder. Snowmaking temps were marginal toda, but we have a couple of good days and nights before we get another rise in temperatures on Sunday lasting for a couple of days and with showers unfortunately before it cools down again. Likely to see this up and down for the next week or so.
KustyTheKlown
Well-known member
cool, glad to see y'all expanding terrain. maybe next weekend, but the forecast is ugly right now.
STREETSKIER
Active member
Upslope tonight will help also sounds like I should bring some rock gear. To shred the gnar natch pow waxing!!!!
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nhskier1969
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Hah...showers right on schedule for when I'm next back up there of course (I'm coming back up sometime on Sunday).
Yes, a number of years it has been open early on natural snow. However in 2017 they actually started blowing on it November 20th and had it ready for the weekend after Thanksgiving (I knew I wasn't crazy so I just looked back through this thread to find the discussion about it to make sure I'm not actually losing it). To be fair, I thought it was more than only 2 years ago. I guess time flies!
Excellent!
KustyTheKlown
Well-known member
wasn't sure the best thread to post this, but FYI mad river glen opening this weekend. just practice slope, but its nice to see them opening up.
Yes, it is. Hopefully they can have another long season like last year. Matt has been blowing snow whenever he can.
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