SugarBush, VT - Powder weekend

sweet pics!  thanks for sharing.

next time, ski during the week and you'll have no waits to get on the lifts.  also, there used to be a T2B gondola but they tore it down a long time ago....sucks b/c i hate needing to take two lifts to get the a summit as well. 

I was there on Sunday too. Marvelous conditions. After "warming up" on Ripcord, Organgrinder and Paradise I yo-yo'd Middle Earth four times before a late lunch... after which I could barely walk!

If you're thinking of "upgrading" the Castle Rock double... HANDS OFF!!! The reason those trails stay fresh and fun is that they're uncrowded. Like the trails off the single chair at MRG, the terrain there can only handle so much traffic.

As regards a summit lift, Sugarbush is a naturally bifurcated mountain. IMO there isn't much terrain on the bottom half that a top-half skier would want to ski, or vice-versa, and the the present lift layout segregates them pretty effectively. Organgrinder (black) and Jester (blue) are the only top-to-bottom trails that maintain a similar challenge all the way down. Once I'm up the Heaven's Gate chair I really don't want to ski below it except to head for Castle Rock or to call it a day. Likewise, except for Jester, most lower mountain skiers would have little reason to visit the summit and quite a few would be terrified if they ended up there.

Thanks for the tasty pics.

Me and my buddies were there on Tuesday and the conditions were AMAZING!!!!

The only times we were on the trails was to get from the lifts to the trees, there was untracked, knee-deep powder EVERYWHERE!!!!!

Hell, even the majority of the trails had powder mines all over the place..... Oh man, I wish I lived in VT

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xtremity 

OK,

 

so I'll let the pictures do most of the talking, but basically Saturday and Sunday were both awesome powder days. Sunday was unreal with 15" of fresh and Blue Bird Skies. 

 

 

 

So, basically the conditions were PERFECT !!

 

However, I have to say that I think Sugarbush needs many improvements. Someone needs to invest a-lot of $ into this mountain, It has great potential. This was my second trip to sugarbush and in comparison to any other VT mountain it's not ran well at all.

 

1) 3 double chair lifts ? come on can we upgrade this 40 yr old stuff. I would barely have considered this weekend crowded, but to get to the top on any double was a 40 minute wait.. They need upgrade the double to quads and the quads to six. I'd also add a summit lift so you don't have to take 2 chair lifts to get to the top.

2) They have so much terrain in the trees with great potential but they don't clean it up. do they just take the entire summer off?  They need to hire someone from Jay Peak to teach them what glades should look like.

 

 

I 

Those pics look awesome and I wish I could go back after going there last year.

As far as the doubles go, one is the Castlerock one, which needs to remain as a low capacity double so that the natural snow and no groomers policy can remain.  Otherwise the skiers/riders would strip the snow off too fast.  Another one is the Valley House, which seems to be extra capacity for the Super Bravo when needed.  The lifts (at least on Lincoln where I skied) were fine IMO and do not need the investment that Smuggs probably does, which probably has way too little lift capacity for its acreage.
 

Sweet looking conditions. Sugarbush is a scenic mountain.

I'll third the opinion on the Castlerock Double. Also, it is a fairly new lift; 10 or so years old. Or have I lost track of the time?

I'll also have to disagree with the OP wrt to the glades at Jay Peak (vs @ Sugarbush.) Some (but not all) of the Jay glades are way over-thinned.