Ride Delaware ?

I can't believe it is finally happening, especially at that size, scope, and price. It's crazy enough they are building a hotel, but 453 room is massive. That's almost 4 times what I expected it to be. I think it is a hell of a reach, but with some good promos, they should be able to fill a couple rooms year round.

Doug Lyfe 24/7!!!

This is all third party speculation, but word on the street was that the owner of Elk had some property adjacent to the mountain that he was considering developing into condos and there was some type of ingress egress issue with that village, and he wanted to market it as Elk's only slopes use lodging. Take it for what it's worth...

I think it is a combination of price, distance, and terrain that keep the riff raff out. Most of the riff raff is younger folks, who typically like terrain parks, so that is out. Price is higher, although their day ticket price is competitive, so that keeps the riff raff down, and the distance from any large urban center, with other resorts with better terrain parks close to those urban centers, also keeps the riff raff away. Elk, whether it wants to be or not, is the elitist NEPA resort.

Thats not an official statement by any means, but that was the de facto unwritten agreement they were working under up until this point. There wasn't a fuss about it until Elk closed the gate. Once the gate was closed, then the village needed leverage, so they used the snowmaking pond. It only stands to reason that a deal would include this language. However, if Elk can pump enough water out of its other ponds, then it may not need that extra water.

I'm a huge Elk groupie, but their season pass prices are ridiculous. I know they keep raising them because people keep paying for them, but talk about value? It's just not there. Not when you have resorts up north that have more snow, a longer season, and a bigger mountain, for less than what they charge now.

http://m.thetimes-tribune.com/news/judge-rules-against-elk-mountain-in-snowmaking-lake-dispute-1.1488968 Sounds like a catch 22. Judge rules that Elk doesn't have rights to the additional 10 acre pond owned by the village and adjacent to theirs, but does have the right to close the gate whenever it so chooses. Closed gate, no water. Open gate, water. I know Elk will never be confused for a snowmaking powerhouse, but they do make plenty of quality snow. I wonder how a reduction from a 14 acre pond to a 4 acre pond will hurt. Does anyone know if they have property to build another pond?

With them acquiring the resort for much cheaper with refinanced debt, they should have a much easier time making money with a fully functional waterpark and ski area... Wish them all the best!!!

I think your more disappointed that you weren't able to purchase the rights to the moose

Is it still T2B out there or are you uploading and downloading? Love the village out there. Really tough to beat. I was there during Olympic construction, so I bet it's even nicer now.

Microclimate...

Once again, I'm a little late, but since we are down to the end of the season for most of us, especially us East Coasters, I will spread out my remaining two TRs. After a stellar day the previous Wednesday, and with Sugarloaf being the last remaining resort in Maine operating daily, we decided on the obvious no brainer to return. Since it was supposed to be chillier than the past Wednesday, we decided to arrive around 10:30 so that the sun would warm up the snow and put some of the natural stuff in play. Unfortunately, it remained below freezing at the top, and no natural stuff came into play. I tried ducking into the woods, and while edgeable, it wasn't enjoyable, so I ducked back out. They had gone from 5 lifts to 2 since the entire mountain is accessible from those, and in stark contrast to the school vacation the previous week, nobody was there. However, the mid mountain lodge at Bullwinkle's was still hopping. Out of 115 "open" trails, only 24 were groomed, but the groomed snow became very corn like. I would imagine that the ungroomed snow was just a couple degrees away from really breaking loose and becoming enjoyable. It was also tougher because there was less mechanical breakup due to less traffic. Hit the parks a lot since that's what the crew wanted to do. Perfect mid season parks with two rail parks, two pipes, and a 4 jump line with 30-50 ft booters. Amazing park setup for April 22nd. Once again, very few bare spots. Incredible coverage.

Do these new guys have more capital to work with? With a sustainable budget, and not many ridiculous expansions (waterpark), they should be able to run the place at a profit...

Every ownership group is different. I will give them cred until they start going downhill. I know everyone is different in management, and we have moved forward, but last fall we had this same talk and it backfired. I hope it works out this time. I hate seeing a mountain go out of business and I think Snotage has potential. Lets see how it goes...

I've actually got a couple TRs saved up over the past week, so I will try to roll them out with less detail than normal, but also keep some pics in there to keep the masses happy. Sunday River closed 4/14 for daily operations and had been stating for a couple weeks that if they opened it would be only the Barker Mountain quad regardless of traffic levels. Went in about 11:30 and decided to lap until closing. Parked in the 3rd lot. It was about 55 degrees with nobody there. Great corn snow, not sticky. The change in snow cover during the week was amazing. Most trails still had great cover with some dirt popping through and some of the rock ledges melting out. Top Gun really stood out and had only one runout with snow. Sunday was a completely different story. The last day of the season the mountain offers free skiing for customer appreciation. Considering the turnout was low on Saturday, I figured turnout would be better on Sunday, but not much crazier, so I got there earlier at 10. Boy was I wrong. I arrived to a packed parking lot and access road. I ended up parking nearly a half mile away and walking. The lift foreman were hawking the free lift tickets in the lift line and the line was ridiculous. While it looked super long, it was moving quickly and only resulted in a 10-12 minute lift line, but it was the longest I had ever seen. I ended up taking about 8 runs. I got some insider info that some of the closed stuff skied well, so I ducked a rope to try it out since you could piece your way down to the lift. They had groomed the snow off the maintenance road that runs up some trails, and I thought I had been steered wrong, but there was a 2-3 foot wide path that was skiable to the trail which then had perfect coverage. Even the path back to the lift was decent despite not being groomed for a week. There was one spot you had to hop to avoid dirt, but it was almost insignificant. At the end of the day we did a 15 minute hike over to White Heat which had been closed for 2 weeks but still had perfect coverage. Snow was getting a little crusty in the shade, but what a great last run at SR for the season. Top of White Cap looking at Barker:

Fantastic!!! What would we do without Sno/Montage gossip?

Running the mountain the same way? Or weekly bankruptcy rumors?

Sick pics, sick TR... Spring powder... That's how to end a season... Way to slay it out there JL

Sugarbush hit it's annual snowfall average, but I believe Smuggs and Stowe were both below theirs. Lets hope everybody hits them next season.

SR is about 3 hours from the Bush. I don't think there is a more direct route to SL, so I'd imagine it still takes about 4.5 from there. With SB, Stowe, and K-Mart still running daily, there's no reason to go to Maine. Plus it sounds like you had a great last weekend/first season. I'll have to hit you up next season to try out Smuggs. The healing has been slow but steady, but I got cleared two weeks ago to resume bump riding. I still have some PT to go to get rid of the weakness and impact pain, but hopefully the rest it will get over the next couple weeks will help.

I'm sure he thinks like me in this respect, and if the opportunity presents itself, and he can't make it to VT, but wants to scratch the itch, he will have a gander at a PA mountain...

Sunday River closed midweek operations this past Sunday the 14th, so I decided to take the 1.5 hour trip north to take advantage of my New England Pass and the deep snow that Sugarloaf had gotten this season. I would not be disappointed. I Woke up around 6:15, threw my gear in the Jeep, and went over to my friends place to pick them up about 6:55. The thermometer on my car read 47 degrees. They decided to cook some pancakes for breakfast, so we didn't get to our next pickup point until 7:45. By the time we got his gear situated, it was about 8:05. We stopped at the McDonalds in Rumford for some coffee, a breakfast sandwich, and an Orange Hi-C. Following an uneventful trip, and a pit stop just outside of the Sugarloaf access road, we arrived there somewhere around 9:45 to 42 degree temps. We booted up in the 3rd parking lot, and since we had just missed the shuttle, we decided to walk. I was surprised to see so many cars there on a Wednesday. We hopped on our first chair at about 10:30. Normally I would consider this late since I try to get to the mountain when lifts open, but the first thing I noticed on the way up the SuperQuad, was the amount of ungroomed closed terrain with an iced glaze on top. Most of the open mountains have reduced their grooming budget, so this is no surprise. The sun was out and was only blocked by a few intermittent clouds, so I figured that it would soften up quickly. It was a little windy and chilly up top, and it was clear that it had gone below freezing up there. We headed to the right down to the Timberline lift, and headed up. I don't have a Sugarloaf trail map, and I can't remember the trail names, so don't look for a ton of detail in that regards. We decided to take a cruiser top to bottom. Sugarloaf has a 2,500' + sustained vertical, so the cruisers there have good speed and pitch. I was amazed at how much snow is there. They have about as much snow as we had at SR 3 weeks ago. Amazing what an hour farther north will do for your snowpack. The trails that were groomed had seen enough sun that they were super soft, edgeable, and super creamy. They had a surprising amount of ice flows to dodge, but next to no bare spots, so it was pretty easy riding. On our way back up the quad, we noticed that patrol was opening some of the lower elevation ungroomed stuff, so we decided to hit that. It was a little firm on the top, but once it saw some traffic to break up the top layer, it was soft and sugary as well. After a few laps on that lower mountain stuff, we headed to the Spillway quad and went to the top just below the true peak. We wanted to take Timberline, but it was on wind hold, and would remain so the rest of the day. We talked to a patroller that told us that there was a groomed path to skiers right, but most of the trails off it were closed still because they hadn't softened up. We went that way, but they had closed the groomed trail so that they didn't have to close all the trails off of it. We ducked the rope and stayed on the groomed trail back to the Spillway. When we got to the top, patrol was just dropping that rope and we went that way again, this time hitting ungroomed terrain. We found a pretty narrow mogul run that had well shaped soft bumps. It may have been an old lift line, because it was straight as an arrow. That was a bunch of fun, and it didn't push my ankle too much. After lapping that 3 times, we decided we were ready for some lunch. We headed down to the mid-mountain lodge which is on skiers left on the outside of the mountain, and the place was hopping. They had a grill and beer stand set up outside, and the deck was packed. We went inside to use our credit cards and go to Bullwinkle's Bistro, and it was packed to. The cafeteria was relatively dead. Come to find out, it is Maine's school vacation week, so they had a good turnout. After a Geary's H.S.A and a turkey club, both of which were delicious, and decently well priced for a mountain bistro, we headed out to lap the mountain some more. It was about 45 degrees mid-mountain, and by now everything was open. We went up the SuperQuad again and hit several tree chutes off of some ungroomed trails. Coverage was pretty fantastic, but the chutes were tight. Afterward we hit several cut glades that were the ROTD for me. I don't know why, but nobody but my crew was in there. The snow was soft and forgiving, the trees well spaced, and coverage was practically midseason. I didn't see any bare spots until I got to the very bottom of the mountain. Our last run was a t2b run off Spillway down some moguls. It was getting challenging at the end of the day since the sun was dropping, and all the bumps in the shade started to harden up. It was pretty trivial overall, but it deserved to be noted nonetheless. I was hoping to hit the new Brackett Basin, but it wasn't open early, and with only the lifts in the middle of the mountain open midweek, it was tough to get back to lifts after you exit. Overall, it was a fantastic day. It's tough to beat good snow, good temps, good food, and good friends. We left about 5 after a parking lot brew and pulled into home around 7 since we took the scenic route that loops around and goes by Saddleback. I am thinking of going back up on Friday if the weather conditions allow. If it weren't 1.5 hours away and I didn't have PT, I would be there every day. I think we arrived right at the right time too. If we had gotten there earlier, then nothing would have softened up and terrain would have really been limited. I'll have to remember that if I go Friday.

Glad to hear you got to put the new house to good use this year. I can't wait to get up to Sugarbush next year to use our place.

Or pics if a TR is too much effort...

The people, the trail layout... I dunno lol