ME Complaint: Can I get an honest trail report this weekend?

[madhavok]

Snow report stated I would be skiing on 111/111 trails (over 53 miles) on Saturday. Wrong. At the very least I know for a fact that Inverness and Brambles were closed. Would Sugarbush actually lose any business if they reported an honest 109/111 trails were open? No it would actually be appreciated.

Besides, I don’t see why Brambles even had to be closed, was it just so the GMVS could poach the POW?

And can they possibly think of a worse way to close Inverness? Someone is going to seriously injure him or herself trying to ski over to Semi-tough. The ropes close Inverness off too narrow and everyone gets funneled together, the snow gets skied off and it’s bad. My suggestion would be to close it off to lift tower #16 and then over to the bottom of the trailhead, after all there is plenty of room.

[shadyjay]

I'll agree! One of the reasons why I can't stand the GMVS. Brambles is a great trail, but problem is its never open because of these folk.
They manage to keep Spring Fling open even with racing taking place, funneling folk on both sides. Inverness is wider and would have plenty of room
to do this, or at least on one side. Yank out the poma and have them hug that side while still providing access to/from Semi Tough & Brambles.

If Spring Fling was the GMVS slope, they'd most likely close any trail that remotely comes close to it

[BushMogulMaster]

Snow report stated I would be skiing on 111/111 trails (over 53 miles) on Saturday. Wrong. At the very least I know for a fact that Inverness and Brambles were closed. Would Sugarbush actually lose any business if they reported an honest 109/111 trails were open? No it would actually be appreciated.


Besides, I don’t see why Brambles even had to be closed, was it just so the GMVS could poach the POW?

And can they possibly think of a worse way to close Inverness? Someone is going to seriously injure him or herself trying to ski over to Semi-tough. The ropes close Inverness off too narrow and everyone gets funneled together, the snow gets skied off and it’s bad. My suggestion would be to close it off to lift tower #16 and then over to the bottom of the trailhead, after all there is plenty of room.

No you can't, sorry.

Here's the deal: the trails were not 100% closed, per se. They were open for skiing, but closed to the public. When the trail report is done properly, it should say 111/111, but the trail list should have the letter "R" next to the trail name to indicate that it is being used for race training a race event. Like it or not, those racers at the hill this weekend are also paying customers.

Personally, if I was calling the shots, I'd list them as closed if they are to be closed for the whole day. But this is the system that the Win et. al. have developed. Maybe he can chime in and tell us a little more about his reasoning.

The Inverness lift was not closed to the public, although the sign at the bottom kind of makes it seem like that. That issue is being taken care of in the very near future, though.

[flakeydog]

I don't mind the racing on Inverness. It is great inspiration to my kids as we ride up the lift and watch the racers come down.

However..... it would be nice if they did a split trail like they did in the old days. When I was a young lad (strokes chin hearing harp music in the background), they ran top to bottom races on Inverness and had rope/fence/ribbon that split the trail. This accomplished 2 things. First, I loved being able to watch the race trailside as it was going on. Second, you could ski Inverness, especially the parts on the far side of the Poma lift. Unfortunately Brambles, back then as well as now was collateral damage. Worth it to have a trailside view of some pretty good racing from time to time. Some of those kids will be doing the World Cup circuit in a few years...

On another note, rediscovering the fantastic woods skiing all over the Inverness Pod. Great low-angle stuff for the kids or just nice cruising through open trees. Much like Eden but longer, no people and a lot more of it!

[skigal]

Are you absolutely sure Brambles was closed or did you assume it because of the race training on Inverness?

I have a frined who is new to Sugarbush and was raving about Brambles on Saturday. She mentioned that Inverness was closed but that they were able to cut across to Brambles, no problem.

I don't ski North a lot but I do know I've seen people get over to Brambles during training (as opposed to a race). Could that be the case?

[ScoobySnack]

I can confirm that Brambles was closed on Saturday (at least in the morning). It was my first time at Ellen this year, and I was hoping to ski brambles and inverness since I had heard they were fun trails (brambles particularly). I went up the Inverness lift a few times that morning (maybe til 11-ish) hoping that brambles would be open, but no such luck.
Not a big deal , but I did have the same thought that noting 100% open was misleading. I think there were little "r"s next to those trails as someone above noted, but I didn't check that out until afterwards. The 100% was what stood out.

[win]

These trails are open, but on certain days they are reserved for racing. If you look at the trail report you will see an "R" is that is the case!

[skibum1321]

For what it's worth, Brambles was open in the afternoon on Saturday (probably around 2ish). During racing, you wouldn't be able to ski Brambles because it funnels back into Inverness before the bottom of the race course.

[jkvt]

I'll agree! One of the reasons why I can't stand the GMVS. Brambles is a great trail, but problem is its never open because of these folk.
They manage to keep Spring Fling open even with racing taking place, funneling folk on both sides. Inverness is wider and would have plenty of room
to do this, or at least on one side. Yank out the poma and have them hug that side while still providing access to/from Semi Tough & Brambles.

If Spring Fling was the GMVS slope, they'd most likely close any trail that remotely comes close to it

One of the reasons that trails are closed during training is for safety. It happens all too often that as "Joe skier" is making his/her way down next to a race course adrenaline gets the best of them and they get the hankering to give it a try and slide on into the course. Not understanding that someone may be skiing down on them at 40mph or faster. I have seen some horrific crashes and some super scary near misses caused by this. This scenario does not apply to everyone and I would say most likely not to folks on this list. But for safety of both racer and public precautions are taken to close race courses.

jkvt

[MntMan4Bush]

I think that no one questions the fact that for safety reasons a trail should be closed down and everyone understands there are times this needs to be done for racing or whatever reason. I'm not sure that was the original issue. I think that MH may have been referring to the fact that it's a bag job for a mountain to boast 100% being open when not all the trails are open to the public. Sure 100% of the trails have cover and are ski-able, but not to the general public. It's a questionable practice at best whether it's widely used by all mountains or not. Personally I think it is a bit under handed. It's kind of like when at the start of the season the number of open trails is padded by having trails like Panorama open. I technically challenging trail for sure, but come on?

Of course I may be speaking out of turn for MH, but if that was his point I'd have to agree. Having fine print, an asterisk or an r next to a trail name is a bit of a cheek. Either you can ski on it or you can't.

[shadyjay]

There is one good thing with the racing (despite the $ it contributes towards the mountain):
It generally keeps the "public" trails in the I-Pod quiet, espec with the sign at the bottom saying "Inverness closed for racing".
It's a nice little solitude on a busy day. Or any day for that matter.

The early season deal they used to do when there were only a handful of runs on the upper mtn, and Elbow would be closed for racing. That basically cut your runs in half.
Its less painful with the mtn being 100% "skiable", 99% open to the public.

[ScoobySnack]

Good point on the racing and/or sign keeping people away. I had semi-tough and walt's trail pretty much all to myself on a Saturday of all times.
Both were nice little trails as well, especially with them wide open.

[madhavok]

Exactly. My gripe is with the inaccurate snow report & lift / trail report.
Both reports boast to the targeted audience (being the general public) that the mountain is 100% open, 111/111 trails & over 53 miles of open terrain. When in reality its not 100% open for the reader (again being the general public). Sure you can call a trail “open” because it is in ski able condition but that’s deceiving when it is actually closed to the majority for whatever reason. Besides how can you honestly call a trail “open” when it is roped off with a sign that reads “closed”?

Aside from that point I have the following suggestions:
First Brambles could easily be kept open to the public by simply shifting the race course uphill.

And secondly the way Inverness is roped off plain and simply bad. There is ample room to close Inverness without causing the narrow funneling going to Semi-tough. Give skiers a wider path to Semi-tough by closing Inverness to lift tower 16 and then over to the bottom of the trailhead. Problem solved!

[jkvt]

Exactly. My gripe is with the inaccurate snow report & lift / trail report.
Both reports boast to the targeted audience (being the general public) that the mountain is 100% open, 111/111 trails & over 53 miles of open terrain. <snip>

Just playing devils advocate...because I totally understand where you're coming from...was the trail closed all day? or just while they were training. I know they usually are only there in the mornings. Not much help I realize when you go to a trail find it closed for training and then head off to other turns.

jkvt

[madhavok]

Exactly. My gripe is with the inaccurate snow report & lift / trail report.
Both reports boast to the targeted audience (being the general public) that the mountain is 100% open, 111/111 trails & over 53 miles of open terrain. <snip>

Just playing devils advocate...because I totally understand where you're coming from...was the trail closed all day? or just while they were training. I know they usually are only there in the mornings. Not much help I realize when you go to a trail find it closed for training and then head off to other turns.

jkvt

Someone reported they were opened around 2pm.