This was the last weekend of operation for the Heaven’s Gate Triple so I thought it prudent to use my voucher for Sugarbush before Lincoln Peak closed for the season. Sunshine and warm weather combined for a fun day despite the lack of quality bumps.
Organgrinder was pretty much it for a full bump run. Ripcord had occasional bump lines. Stein’s Run had horrific widely spaced mounds in between hard pack icy crust. But my most enjoyable runs were down Lower Organgrinder.
“For the Record” seems to be the standard trip report for spring skiing this year. Despite incredible spring base depths and most major resorts going later than average and/or scheduled, weekend weather has not been weekend warrior friendly to say the least. Most spring weekends have been split between bad and not as bad. Occasionally, the weekend splits with a sunny day and rain. Back to back sunny spring days in any given weekend has yet to happen.
Sugarbush closing weekend was better than average at Lincoln Peak with top to bottom skiing. Most years, Sugarbush only has Stein’s or perhaps Spring Fling after skiing barely tolerable coverage on Snowball. Off the summit, Ripcord, Organgrinder, and Jester were skiing to the always horrid Downspout. The bumps on Ripcord absolutely sucked with huge gaps between the irregular mounds. Organgrinder was much better with mostly tight lines. Jester was beyond thin coverage and in the “guaranteed base damage” aspect. But being the only way to go top to bottom, Jester was mandatory.
With prepaid vouchers in hand, it was “use it or lose it” time regardless of conditions. And conditions truly were not worth the drive to ski Spring Fling and Stein’s off the Valley House Double. Meanwhile, skiers at Wildcat were enjoying a foot of fresh due to the storm moving faster than anticipated. Suffice to say, this was probably my worst call of the season on a destination.
My hopes were high as I skied off the lift and down Snowball to Spring Fling. Two inches of fresh provided a creamy surface. Skier’s left on Spring Fling was untracked and surfy and skied extraordinarily well. However, halfway down Spring Fling, the creamy new snow transitioned into sticky wet snow on top of frozen cat tracks necessitating careful skiing that was better where the new snow had been cleared down to the base. I lapped Spring Fling a few times chewing up what was left of the untracked surfy snow on upper Spring Fling.
Eventually, I tired of dealing with the wet and manky snow on lower Spring Fling and opted to try Stein’s which was bumped from top to bottom.Conditions were extremely variable on Stein’s with better turns where traffic had already slid off the new snow. An extreme amount of effort was put forth for minimal enjoyment. My knees were rather sore after my run down Stein’s and I knew that would be my only run in the bumps for the day.
I took the lift back up for one more run down Spring Fling. The mountain was empty with no more than fifty people on the mountain including the lift operators and patrol. Sugarbush had planned on staying open one more weekend, but with so little snow at the base and so little demand, it makes sense for them to close up shop this weekend.
The MogulSkiing.net held Bumpapalooza East 2010 at Sugarbush this Saturday. Rave reviews of epic spring bumps on Friday yielded way to an overnight freeze and a generally cold and windy Saturday. Temperatures at the base were above freezing but the same could not be said for the temperatures at the Glen House. Winds had all summit lifts at Sugarbush off line though the GMX and Northridge were not effected.
The bumps started out hard, firm, and unforgiving. The groomers were much the same. After our first run, I began questioning the decision to drive five hours round trip for a bump day when temperatures were unlikely to soften the snow very much. But every run seemed to get better.
We cycled Lookin Good and Witch Way in the morning. Lookin Good never skied very well but Witch Way was significantly better every run as traffic loosened up the firm snow. At noontime, we stopped for lunch at the Glen House in hopes of things softening up after an hour break. Unfortunately, this was not to be the case as winds increased at lower elevations and temperatures remained stable at just barely above freezing at mid-mountain elevation.
After our lunch break, we began hammering Cliffs which was a little tricky on the first pitch but occasionally yielded very good lines on the lower two thirds of the trail. My preference was for the slightly lower angle bumps on Witch Way. During one excellent run down Witch Way, I could not suppress a huge toothy grin as I finally found my rhythm and a great line that I hammered quite well.