Did they open today?

According to the latest report, the temps have fallen below freezing at mid and summit stations.

http://www.sugarbush.com/summarystats.aspx

They did open. I didn't go out to see, but heard (and believe) the skiing was quite good.

I'd already decided to turn it into a chore day, but there were many times that there was no rain at all.

Now it is snowing. There isn't much yet, but it is early.

Hoping for a real dump! We need it!

Most of the cars are white.

All I have to say about last weekend is ouch, the conditions were awful. This was in no way Sugarbush's fault, I think they did a great job scrambling to recover. Gate House was very skiable by monday, but most of the mountain was closed for most of the day because of wind. That was allotta driving for the conditions we got, I was REAAALLY praying for the dumping that never came sat. night... Anyway, my hats off to the folks a Sugarbush for making the best of a bad situation. I hope it stays cold enough this week to get the mountain back into shape. I'll be doing my snow dance.

One thing that does irk me is the blatant lying on their site about the current weather conditions and base depth, its just not right to be dishonest to us like that.

lincoln peak was decent sunday, waterfall had some good snow.


mount ellen only had what 3 trails open, and inverness was perhaps the worst open trail ive ever seen, so if you didnt head over to lincoln I could see how you thought it was horrible.

I was also irked with the mis information. First I want to say thanks to all the mountain staff that busted their butts to make anything skiable. It was nice on Monday to take a few turns.

My complaint is about the snow phone. I know, I have already compained about the web site on an earlier post. I called the snow phone on Sunday morning [my internet was down] and the voice was talking about the glorious 4 inches of powder that fell overnight and the temps are going to be 16 at the base and 0 at the top. It never got above 2 at the base and that tracks with the weather forecast. They also stated that there could be wind holds [ honest and accurate ]. I was lucky and could look out my window and know I was not going further than the Paradise for my coffee and paper. I feel the message was more than misleading for someone who had to drive to the Valley. I know this is not a typical day trip resort, but there is a huge difference in weather from Burlington to the MRV on any given day.

Like I have said before I usually go to the Mad River Glen site for the accurate condition report.

Start the snow dance.

I also listened to the snow phone on Sunday. 6AM report was promoting a great day with new snow. I am located 4 miles from Lincoln Peak so I drove up to take a look. At that point it was 5 degrees, 30+ MPH wind gusts and horizontal snow blowing off from the Saturday night coating. Conditions looked marginal and my assumption was that the Super Bravo would be on hold.

8:45 Snow Phone report was more in line with reality including a listing of all the chairs on wind hold.

Can someone help me understand how MRG can be reporting 3" of new this morning while SB has nothing? The radar looked pretty impressive for about 6 hours last night after the front came through. What gives?

Tin Woodsman wrote:

Can someone help me understand how MRG can be reporting 3" of new this morning while SB has nothing? The radar looked pretty impressive for about 6 hours last night after the front came through. What gives?

...with their reports. Perhaps the folks at SB, hungover due to recent weather induced depression, haven't looked up from their coffee's yet this morning.

... it might be around somewhere, but nobody knows where?

It was really windy up here, last night!

As for how conditions are... surprisingly good.

Bravo had the snow groomed into a solid base, but it isn't ice. Almost everyone agreed that what we needed over there were more skiers. (Yes... and snowboarders. )

As for Gatehouse, it was very good. The base is solid, but almost all of of all of those trails were quite good.

Almost everyone did the same thing. Start on Gatehouse. Try Bravo. Finish on Gatehouse.

We really need snow from the real snowgun, but most of the stuff on Bravo will be able to be worked up. With what is on Gatehouse and a little help from the little guns I think the weekend looks ok. And that is not what I expected to find.

Kudos to SB for closing the summits BUT offering a discount day ticket.

No easy task reopening those trails, esp on Ellen.

The good news is that if we can survive the weekend, we are FINALLY entering a more favorable weather pattern. Not a huge amount of new snow on the horizon but consistently colder temps. By this time next week we should hopefully see, if not a complete turnaround, at least dramatically better conditions.

Has anyone been on any of the bumps trails? Stien's, the Mall, Rip, etc? Is it going to be worth the trip tonight?

Volkl Skier wrote:

Has anyone been on any of the bumps trails? Stien's, the Mall, Rip, etc? Is it going to be worth the trip tonight?

Well considering the thaw/freeze, you'd have to be a lunatic to try and jump onto a bump run. Mall is closed. Stain's hasn't been groomed, so that can't be pretty. Rip is open, but groomed. I think you need both snow and skier volume to create bumps. Doesn't appear that SB has gotten much of either since the last rain storm.

Volkl Skier wrote:

Has anyone been on any of the bumps trails? Stien's, the Mall, Rip, etc? Is it going to be worth the trip tonight?

It's been raining and freezing with virtually no snow since before Christmas - so you can expect those runs to be mint.

Well, I didn't say mint, I said worth it. I was out there skiing them when the froze after xmas and they weren't that bad.