Sugarbush base area expansion on hold to 2010....bummer

[John Walden]

Nice letter Win. Yes we did have a great season as always. Wife is looking to get a new hip this summer/fall to be ready for opening day in November. I loved the Lincoln Tunnel. Brings back memories of Snowbird this winter.

[Yard Sale]

It is about legitimatizing some more wooded areas and also working to protect sensitive habit areas. We lease a precious asset from the USFS and we both want to make sure that we have a lot of fun skiing and riding without doing damage to the forest. Everyone is a aware that skiing in the trees in happening all over the mountain including in some areas where it threatens some habitat. We want to identify and maintain more areas some that we can get the balance correct.

Well if an over-arching forestry mgmt plan emerges from this to protect some of the more sensitive/damaged areas, that's a pretty good trade-off. Now if that can only be expanded to include the trails like Glade, Sleeper and Lower Moonshine that will be treeless in 5-10 years at this pace.

What is it that causes the thinning/spreading of trails? What could you do to preserve the glade like qualities of trails like Sleeper and Lower Moonshine?

[Tin Woodsman]

It is about legitimatizing some more wooded areas and also working to protect sensitive habit areas. We lease a precious asset from the USFS and we both want to make sure that we have a lot of fun skiing and riding without doing damage to the forest. Everyone is a aware that skiing in the trees in happening all over the mountain including in some areas where it threatens some habitat. We want to identify and maintain more areas some that we can get the balance correct.

Well if an over-arching forestry mgmt plan emerges from this to protect some of the more sensitive/damaged areas, that's a pretty good trade-off. Now if that can only be expanded to include the trails like Glade, Sleeper and Lower Moonshine that will be treeless in 5-10 years at this pace.

What is it that causes the thinning/spreading of trails? What could you do to preserve the glade like qualities of trails like Sleeper and Lower Moonshine?

Two things immediately come to mind. Mind you, none of this is my original thought - all credit goes to Jay Appleton who is edumacated in this field:

1) They have to create regen zones around the existing tree islands. What you typically see on the runs you mentioned is 2-3 relatively mature trees surrounded by grass. There are no saplings or younger trees emerging to take their place. Those mature trees are dying off quickly for a variety of reasons, including the harsh climate, skier traffic with sharp edges, and the fact that the more trees you lose it becomes a vicious cycle, with more wind getting down to ground level. Of course, snowmaking (more on that below) is a notable culprit as well. Those islands need to be protected//fenced off to allow for the growth of new trees that will not only protect the larger, older ones, but will also serve to replace them when the older trees die in the next few years.

2) There needs to be a fundamental commitment on the part of Mountain Ops to avoid blowing snow into the remaining trees that do exist on Glades and Lower Snowball, among others. I know the vagaries of New England wind and weather prevent a full proof system, but surely they can do better job than they have been historically. I can't tell you how disheartening it is to ski those runs after a snowmaking barrage, only to find several of the trees caked in 6-12" of heavy man-made. There is simply too much water in man-made snow for the trees to support it's weight, so you are creating a mini-ice storm effect, with branches and whole trunks snapping like twigs and trees dying off. This phenomenon is not limited to just those runs with tree islands. We can all see the damage wrought by snowmaking on the skiers left of the ever-widening Ripcord and, this year, many locations on skiers' left of Waterfall/Hot Shot. I don't ski North enough to assess the magnitude of the issue there, but skiers' left of FIS strikes me as an area that seems to be growing each year as well.

The failure to create a holistic forestry mgmt plan even on those lands SV owns outright is remarkable, IMO, for an ownership group that seems to "get it" as much as this one does. Surely there are onerous obstacles when the land owner is the USFS, but it is also surely in everyone's interest to see such a plan implemented on their lands as well - it's fundamental to the multi-use doctrine to promote both recreation and a healthy forest.

That's my $0.01 anyway.