The "Sugarbush Thread"

[cdskier]

You can make that hike from the base of the chair in only five minutes longer than it takes to ride the lift? That's impressive. It's almost a mile in length. 15 minutes is a brisk paced mile while walking on pavement in street shoes. Average person does that in about 20 minutes.

Up a steep snowy hill, in ski boots with skis on my back, I would figure closer to 30 minutes

What do you mean from the base of the chair? You take the Heaven's Gate triple to the top of Lincoln Peak, then start down Paradise and cut off onto the Long Trail and basically hike alone the ridge over to CR. Sure the Long Trail has both some downhill and uphill sections and isn't flat...but you're not really hiking up a steep snowy hill.

 

[deadheadskier]

Well, a casual Sugarbush skier like myself who only makes it there every other year or so wouldn't know that route. Probably got 20 days in there in my lifetime. I'm sure others with similar experience at the area also assume you all are hoofing it up from the base of the chair

 

[cdskier]

Sometimes they actually put the details in the snow report. For example this is what they had listed in the report this morning: "The Castlerock area is open for hiking access from 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM via the upper part of Paradise and the Long Trail."

And then sometimes they don't. The report currently on their site for tomorrow simply says "The Castlerock area is open for hiking access from 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM."

I did also see on one of the message boards by either the Super Bravo or Gate House lift yesterday that they said something like "CR open for hiking via Long Trail".

 

[teleo]

Another sb regular who loves that they do the hiking only. When they do it, there is little snow, so if they ran the chair it would be trashed in half a day. Bonus that they kept it til sat this week for us working stiffs. Was the best snow on sat.

They know what they are doing for a group of regulars. I've thanked Win for doing it that way. I could care about the trail #s and understand why some would be upset.

It's really not that much of a hike. Or ski in, hike, ski, hike, ski out to be exact. Heck my friends daughter who is like 8 did it with us. Dad carried her skis, but she did the hike.

 

[HowieT2]

You can make that hike from the base of the chair in only five minutes longer than it takes to ride the lift? That's impressive. It's almost a mile in length. 15 minutes is a brisk paced mile while walking on pavement in street shoes. Average person does that in about 20 minutes.

Up a steep snowy hill, in ski boots with skis on my back, I would figure closer to 30 minutes

ha ha. Nooooo. I'd be dead hiking up. It's a hop skip and a jump across from the top of paradise. Like I said, my wife has done it.

 

[HowieT2]

Well, a casual Sugarbush skier like myself who only makes it there every other year or so wouldn't know that route. Probably got 20 days in there in my lifetime. I'm sure others with similar experience at the area also assume you all are hoofing it up from the base of the chair

True.

 

[rocks860]

Lots of people complaining about stuff they know nothing about. I've never done it personally but I also haven't heard anyone there actually complaining about it either

 

[KustyTheKlown]

its a really easy hike and is totally worth it and as many have stated, saves snow on the castlerock trails and leaves the snow that is there for those willing to do a really easy 15 minute ridge hike.

 

[WWF-VT]

all about snow preservation. Paradise was skied bare from traffic, but castlerock still had plenty of powder at close yesterday. I hiked it twice yesterday. Putting aside the issue of whether it's legitimate to call the trails "open", I and pretty much everyone I know want those trails open, lift or no lift. And I'd prefer no lift, to having the lift run and have it skied off by midday. It's an easy hike. 15 minutes. My wife has even done it, so it doesn't have anything to do with being hardcore.

fwiw-skied paradise woods today. Surprisingly good.

Castlerock trails are open and have snow which is more that you can say for about 80% of the other currently "open" natural snow trails.

 

[cdskier]

Castlerock trails are open and have snow which is more that you can say for about 80% of the other currently "open" natural snow trails.

Hah...they sure are very liberal with their trail opening policy. Upper Lookin Good did not look so good at ME on Saturday! :wink:

Walt's and Semi-Tough had surprisingly good coverage though (other than the ice flows in a few spots on Semi-Tough)

 

[bdfreetuna]

Dude - have you ever even skied Castlerock? Based on you comments,... I would have to say no. FYI - the Caslerock Double is the second newest chair at SB. Personally, I have no issue with them opening CR for hiking only. It did not have enough snow to support traffic of people riding lift - but enough snow for hiking only.

I'm not a lift nerd, I figured it was old because it's slow as hell to load. As for Castlerock, most of the time I ski Rumble and leave the area to avoid waiting 20 minutes for a lift. I've only skied the other runs a handful of times.

I figured it was a longer than 20 minute ridge hike. I find that a little hard to believe, but if that's all it really is then I'll stop complaining.

Castlerock is nice terrain but it's not like it's the best skiing in the Mad River Valley. And Sugarbush is pretty good at opening trails when other mountains would leave them closed, and the woods are never roped off, so it works out.

As for me, I'll never make that "20 minute hike" because there's too many good lines along the ridge to drop in to. Why hike to Castlerock when you can ski steeper woods and chutes on the way?

 

[KustyTheKlown]

agreed that the bravo and exterminator woods and paradise are better than anything at castle rock but castle rock has its charm for sure. and a salute to the sugarbush patrol for their liberal policies. I always want the option to choose for myself if I want to ski something sketch, and they always give that choice to the skier

 

[bdfreetuna]

I always want the option to choose for myself if I want to ski something sketch, and they always give that choice to the skier

Couldn't agree more.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

Well look at that, pigs do fly

 

[HowieT2]

I'm not a lift nerd, I figured it was old because it's slow as hell to load. As for Castlerock, most of the time I ski Rumble and leave the area to avoid waiting 20 minutes for a lift. I've only skied the other runs a handful of times.

I figured it was a longer than 20 minute ridge hike. I find that a little hard to believe, but if that's all it really is then I'll stop complaining.

Castlerock is nice terrain but it's not like it's the best skiing in the Mad River Valley. And Sugarbush is pretty good at opening trails when other mountains would leave them closed, and the woods are never roped off, so it works out.

As for me, I'll never make that "20 minute hike" because there's too many good lines along the ridge to drop in to. Why hike to Castlerock when you can ski steeper woods and chutes on the way?[/QUOTE

The castlerock lift is slow to load because they deliberately spaced the chairs so as not to increase the uphill capacity from the old chair.

There are plenty of good lines off that ridge, but given the lack of base, its safer on the castlerock trails than in the woods. there may be rocks and bare spots on the trails but no snow snakes.

and its not even a 20 minute trip. 15 minutes for me with 2 breaks to refresh myself.

 

[cdskier]

I don't like the look of things on the webcams at the moment. Sugarbush says they had "lots of rain" in the snow report this morning. I think much of that "net gain" from the last storm may have just been undone...

 

[bdfreetuna]

At least it's only Monday. Things can happen before the weekend.

 

[rtjcbrown]

I think Sugarbush's decision to pull the plug on snowmaking earlier than most other resorts will come back to haunt them.

 

[cdskier]

They feel confident that they've built up enough base on the key spring trails. Time will tell... They also had a cooler blow on the pump as they were shutting down the system the last day of scheduled snowmaking so they can't make snow right now anyway.

 

[steamboat1]

They feel confident that they've built up enough base on the key spring trails. Time will tell... They also had a cooler blow on the pump as they were shutting down the system the last day of scheduled snowmaking so they can't make snow right now anyway.

I'm sure if the cooler blew earlier in the season it would be repaired pretty quickly.