US Alpine Championships - What will it do to the skiing?

[scootertig]

I know that the US Alpine Championships are scheduled to be at Sugarloaf in mid-March (19-26 or so). I have planned to trip to ski in Maine over that weekend, and can't really move it. I had hoped for a Saddleback/Sugarloaf weekend...

Should I plan to ski somewhere other than Sugarloaf that weekend?

Or will the chaos be contained to the main race run?

In a perfect world, I'd not ski the day at all, and would just watch the race, but I've only got so many ski days available, you know?


aaron

 

[highpeaksdrifter]

I know that the US Alpine Championships are scheduled to be at Sugarloaf in mid-March (19-26 or so). I have planned to trip to ski in Maine over that weekend, and can't really move it. I had hoped for a Saddleback/Sugarloaf weekend...

Should I plan to ski somewhere other than Sugarloaf that weekend?

Or will the chaos be contained to the main race run?

In a perfect world, I'd not ski the day at all, and would just watch the race, but I've only got so many ski days available, you know?


aaron

The US Championships where held at Whiteface a couple of years ago. I really enjoyed it, but I’m there every weekend anyway so crowds and runs being closed was not a big deal to me. It was worth it to me to see Bode and the other members of the ski team race.

Had I been making a special trip to ski there I would have gone on a different date. While exciting it does interfere with the normal ski flow of the mountain, crowds are larger, lots of non skiing spectators lining the courses, snow cats bringing people up and down, foot traffic where you don’t want it, bigger crowds in the parking lots, cafeteria, bar, etc.

 

[kbroderick]

The competitions will be limited to Narrow Gauge, but there will be a lot of folks in town for the events. I'm thinking about trying to get over there for the weekend to do some spectating; the schedule is at http://www.ussa.org/magnoliaPublic/ussa/en/events/alpine/major/usalpinechamps.html if you're interested. With the downhills on Saturday and the Super-Gs on Sunday, I'd expect it to be a good time to watch (although I don't know what spectator access to Gauge is like).

 

[skibum9995]

I was at Sugarloaf this past week while they hosted Easterns. Skiing the mountain isn't really affected by the racing. The DH start is on Gauge Ext just below the summit but you can still access the whole mountain by using the crosscuts. They are monitored by course workers who will let you cross when it is safe. There is a pretty good chance I will be there for some or all of the events.

 

[billski]

Any mountain of decent size, (Loaf fits in there) will handle it just fine. The trails that are closed are your biggest impediments. Often times at competitions, racers come just to race and that's it. In and out. Crowds do gather, usually around finish lines, but even these crowds just aren't that big. The organizations usually have their own venues, tents, food, ceremonies, etc. set aside that shunt most of the participants and don't tend to congest the lodges too much nor the restaurants. Now, I could be entirely wrong about Sugarloaf, but that's my $0.02 based on having been skiing at resorts during major comps.