Sugarloaf evolution

Frankontour · May 31, 2003

As we talked before, it would be cool to have few pages where we see the evolution of the ski areas we now ski. So I begin with Sugarloaf, with a pic from http://www.nelsap.org which shows the mountain before (in fact, they looked to have a little bit cleared few runs) <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2489.jpg" ALT="Sugarloaf before"> This is now a ad with the trail map of the mountain for the 1955-56 season. The pic was really hard to compress, but you can see that the trails were : The snowfields, Old Winter's way, Sluice + Lower Winter's Way, Narrow Gauge and Tote Road. Just to laugh at ASC, that year, surely without snowmaking, they closed on may 15 !!! <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2487.jpg" ALT="Sugarloaf 55-56"> Also, this is a photo of the mountain, via Nelsap, like the first pic, for the 1968 ski season. Not bad at all, it already looked a little bit like today ! <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2488.jpg" ALT="Sugarloaf 1968"> Finally, if you have some other pics to let us see the evolution, let's go, just post them <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT="

"> Me too, I have a ton of ski stuff. Just in trail maps, I have near 2000 (I'll need soon a trail map warehouse). But I don't have lots of things before 1990 unfortunately, so your help would be great !!

Kevin · May 31, 2003

Thanks for the images of my favorite ski area in the east. It sure has come a long way, even from when I first skied it in December 1989. Back then the gondola was still running from the base to the summit. My last trip on the shortened version of the gondola (from the mid station up was in April 1997) after that the gondola was removed. I am going to be taking a trip up to Mt Washington on the weekend of June 14-15th, and then going to snow tube at Tenney. Any chance that you/and or/Patrick want to meet up along the way?

Frankontour · May 31, 2003

When I went to the mountain in summer, I think they just removed the upper gondola, so it was probably in 1997. I have few pics of the gondola T2B but of course, I never got the chance to take it at all <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/sad.gif" ALT="

"> For June 14-15, unfortunately I will be in my big rush of end of session, with a huge work for one of my 2 summer courses, so I don't even think I'll have the time to hike a mountain near here before the 2nd week of july.

Kevin · May 31, 2003

No problem, just thought that I would ask. I told my wife that I wanted to go up on fathers day weekend to go snow tubbing, being together for 10 years she did not even question how I would snow tube in June. My son is 3 1/2 years old and has not yet been to the top of a mountain. He started skiing at 23 months of age but he is still not ready for any big slopes so I think that he would love Mt Washington. In reference to Sugarloaf I have a ski report from april 19th 1997 that has the gondola listed on it, so it must have been removed during the summer. The Wiffletree quad was replaced with a high speed quad and the old lift was used to build the Timberline quad with access to the summit. Sugarloaf is a great place to ski because most of the skiing is on one mountain and you can ski 2600 vertical feet in one run, this is hard to do at many other ski areas in the east. I have not been to the resort since April 1999 as the drive is long enough (465 miles from New York) without a screaming child in the car. I have about 45 days at the area and I really can't wait to go back next year for skiing and snowmobiling. I was at Sugarloaf January 3rd-8th 1998 during the great ice storm which I am sure you remember. Luckily for me there was such a great inversion that the top off the mountain had just plain rain and from about midway down it sleeted most of the time. I remember skiing in 8 inches of sleet on west mountain, quite an experience. When I go snow tubbing I will take pictures and post them if there is interest.

Frankontour · May 31, 2003

THERE IS HUGE INTEREST!!!!!! lol If I had time to go, I would have gone, I think, with may be a little tour to Tuckerman ravine on the way <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT="

"> Good to see that your son follow your traces of skier <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT="

"> lol It won't be long and he'll be super good, if he learned so early. About Sugarloaf, I remember reading somewhere the story of a guy who climbed on the last gondola ride of its history. I think there was something like 2 patrol members after him and that's all, but I don't remember where I read the story and when it was... For the distance from NY to Sugarloaf, I understand that it's quite far. From here, it's just about 200 miles and we never went there in winter even though I dreamed of skiing this mountain many years when I was young ! It's weird, for the inversion of weather and anyway, you really didn't get the best week for skiing. Don't you worry, I remember a little bit of this storm where you didn't have electricity during 3 days (and that was not so bad, compared to 30 days for many people. The ski areas in the townships didn't operate for something like 1 month. Many trails were destroyed in the Townships and even in the Laurentians. I took Tremblant's Lower Ryan and there was big trees fallen down in the trail everywhere. It was extremely dangerous (I think it was something like 1-2 week after the storm). I remember trying to take the Lloyd Langlois at Orford ... ouch... the upper part wasn't so bad, in deep powder, but it was totally impossible to ski the lower part and I had to go right, right and right to finally succeed to reach "Sherbrooke". About the same thing for la Passe de l'Ours. I was pretty happy to see Contour when I finally succeeded to reach it. But... except the fact I was sick for 2 weeks and the storm was just making it worst, the cool thing I remember about this storm is the friday january 9, when there was only 2 hours remaining for drinkable water in Montreal, when they finally succeeded to restart their systems. We were comfortable, skiing in Lanaudiere at Mt Garceau (just beside La Reserve), in the snow + sometimes tiny ice cubes falling (I don't know the name for that in english, (Patrick, I mean some "grésil" do you know the traduction ?). Anyway, that day, there was a total electricity stop at Tremblant and they didn't have choice to evacuate every people one by one in the chairlifts. But on our side, there was just the double chairlift that was running, on diesel and the conditions were in the powder (with a little bit of these ice cubes, ok), so it was super interesting and they had electricity in the base lodge, compared to our house, where the temperature was in the high 40s. There was about 20 persons on the mountain, so it's really one of the most strange & interesting day of skiing in my life. already 5½ years... wow... it passes so fast !!

Kevin · May 31, 2003

My weather experience with sugarloaf has always been 50-50. We did not lose power AT ALL during this ice storm, which was truly amazing. The cable for the television stopped working and the power lines on the access road sagged dangerously low, but mercifully we had electricity. I had trouble to reach my brother in Kirkland by telephone, I could only reach him on his cell phone and with a very poor connection. He had no heat, no light no nothing but cold, 4C in his house. I was out skiing at the loaf with a ski instructor friend of mine and would come back to the condo in the afternoon with my ski suit encased in about 10-15lbs of frozen rain(yuck). I went snowmobiling out from Stratton Maine and the lady at the rental place gave me her cell phone in case I had trouble with getting stuck by fallen trees. The inversion at sugarloaf was extreme with about 50F at the top of spillway and 18F at the base of the mountain with alternating snow, sleet and freezing rain. We were only supposed to stay for 5 days but we could not leave as the national guard in Maine was under a state of emergency and all non emergency travel was forbidden. My first trip to Sugarloaf in 1989 had a temperature in the morning of -37F, my coldest skiing ever. If you do go to Mt Washington later in the year let me know and perhaps I'll come up again. I can never get tired of that place the views are awesome. For skiing though I think that mid-June is it. If there is still some snow I will try to go skiing.

Kevin · May 31, 2003

<IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/your_image.gif" ALT="Cover of Killington trail guide 1987-88"> <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/your_image.gif" ALT="Upper Cascade October 1st 1993"> <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/your_image.gif" ALT="View from Killington Peak February 21st 1994"> Here are three more pics to enjoy, the trail map is to damn big to scan. I have better pics from October 1st 1993 but they are at my parents house and the weather is too fu@$%*& bad to warrant a trip there this weekend.

Kevin · May 31, 2003

I did it again(forgot to reduce the image size(damm it). Here they are: <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2491.jpg" ALT="View from killington Peak February 21st 1994"> <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2492.jpg" ALT="Upper Cascade October 1st 1993"> <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2493.jpg" ALT="Cover of Killington trail guide 1987-88">

Frankontour · May 31, 2003

50 at summit and 18 at bottom.....wowww really incredible, this inversion ! -37 = brrrrrrr is it with the wind chill or without ? The only time I skied at Mad River Glen, with the wind chill, it was near -75F, but I skied below -80 once at Mt Blanc in early 1990s. It was so cold that the heat system of our car just stopped working and it took us 1h to leave the resort, when my father succeeded to see something in the windshield. I can't believe he succeeded to drive home with just a little tiny view of the road, in a storm (yes... it's really weird that it was so cold and snowy in same time). (it's 1h of road, in dry conditions to go there). I still remember they were forecasting minus of -14 to -19 celsius (-19 = about 0F), but back home, it was -35 celsius (about the same thing in farenheit) on our thermometer. You can easily remove few degrees, being 60 miles northern and in the mountains and there was gusty winds over 40mph. I remember have heard -60 to -65 celsius. (-65c = -85F) I don't think I would be able to ski in those conditions now, I like a little bit less the argument that skiing below 0 farenheit = no crowd. Ok, that's still true, but not too often please !! Perfect for Mt Washington, especially as I would need a guide to go there ! Now, I begin to better figure the place, but without being there by myself, I can't be sure to fit correctly all the pieces of the puzzle. Thanx for the pics or K, nice views and nice snow for a oct 1 !

Kevin · May 31, 2003

Frank: The -37F was the actual air temperature, thankfully with this low of a temperature, the very strong high pressure system overhead meant no wind at all. My digital watch on my wrist stopped working due to the extreme cold. My sister in law had to have here car towed to the garage at Sugarloaf to thaw out a frozen engine block!!. I think that the temperature at night was below -40F. I was just in the last few years that the Allagash region of Maine set a new state record low of -55F(very ouch) The fun part about all this cold weather is snowmobiling on Rangely lake and opening the throttle to go 100+ mph on the smooth ice and snow. As for Mt Washington I have great respect for a mountain that has killed around 100 people in the last 150 years. If I do bring my skis with me I will probably seek a patch of snow in the snowfields, rather than to attempt Tuckermans Ravine alone. If you go to the Mount Washington website you can view a list of fatalities at a list in the hiking resources section. I dont know if you were asking me for the reason that Killington shortened the Sunrise chair, but it was shortened because the base elevation was to low (1010ft). Thats the story that I heard anyway, but that makes no sense because the base of the Skyship is 1160ft. Apparently the combination of low elevation and exposure meant that it was hard to retain snow at the base. This part of the mountain was always the last to open and the first to close. As for the trails serviced by the longer lift, they were mostly quite flat except for The Judge-black trail, Thunderball-black trail and the bottom part of Nor-Easter- also black. These trails were short, but steep and interesting compared with the rest of the mountain. When ASC tried to remove the lift the Sunrise Village condominium owners supposedly purchased the shortened chair to ensure that it would remain in operation and provide access for them to the rest of the mountain.

Frankontour · Jun 1, 2003

Yes, I admit that Mt Wash is not a place to go alone, without equipment and when you don't know the place. Tucks looks to be dangerous for crevasses, especially in this time of the year. The East snowfields look to be less dangerous, according to the pics of Lftgly in early may. I effectively saw the list of fatalities in Tucks, with few french names in that, so I'll wait to have a better equipment before to ski there ! About Sunrise, sad that there was some interesting spots there, cause they lost a big patch of mountain with that. I was really surprised to see a big ski area like K to forsake a mountain side like that ! ASC are really cheap, that's sure ! I would like to know if there is some ski areas in the east that abandonned some mountain sides, in the last year, to continue to operate their main side. (or some ski areas that planned some sides that never went to life) Ok, there is Sunrise at K + the 2 little sides to connect Pico (are they finally going to link all the resort ???) There is the Timberside of Magic (I hope to not mistake in the name). About Loon, did they open the side that have been few years on the right of the trail map ? And do you know other mountains like that ? Oh yeah, now that I think to that, if someone here have some informations about the ski area that was on the other side of Whiteface, a long long long long time ago, I would really like to have infos about it. One of my ski buddies told me it was as high as the actual Whiteface, near the Memorial Highway, but I've never seen references about it... According to him, there was not enough snow on this side of the mountain and so, they decided to forsake that side to develop what is now Whiteface !

Kevin · Jun 1, 2003

Killington should now be called America's 5 1/2 mountain resort!!. I do not know of any mountain that is currently operating that has closed down or discontinued a mountain area. As far as Magic is concerned if you look at The NELSAP website, you will see mention of the Timberline Ski Area and efforts to include it into Magic Mountain that did not succeed. I do not know of a mountain on the other side of Whiteface. I have only skied the place once 13 years ago. I just skied Gore for the first time in January 2002 as a day trip from Killington. Even though New York is my home state, it is a damn big state with lots of ski areas and wilderness. How do you manage to ski 200+ days a year, I thought that I was crazy to ski 30-40 days year round in the mid 90's. How far is Alta from where you live and do you have a season pass. Another question is when you hike up to ski the remaining snow is there anyone at the ski area that may object to such activity? My local ski area, Mowhawk Mtn in Cornwall Connecticut always has a patch of snow remaining on the headwall of there expert trail until around this time of the year, but I never thought to hike up and ski it. I always see this snow when I go kayaking in the late spring. Late season skiing like what you do is harder to do here because the mountains are closer to the coast and warm faster in the spring.

Frankontour · Jun 1, 2003

First : Whooops, there is confusion here. Yesterday was my 35th day of the season. Going to university and skiing 210 days in a season would be impossible lol. 210 = from nov 2 to may 30. It's the period between my 1st and last ski day. Effectively, there is full information on Timberside (or Timberline... not sure now, I should check that) on Nelsap. For NY state, imagine QC, it's something like 20x bigger than NY lol. So when we talk of skiing in Mt Albert... ouch, it's 8h of road from Montreal and it's not far compared to going to Ivujivik, on the top north of QC which is farther than going Montreal - Miami. (anyway, there is no road to go there...) it's sad that they don't have mountains, cause they would have snow all year long like Timberline lodge. About Alta, it's 50 minutes from where I live, on I-15 + 5 miles on road 117. I wonder how much Vermont skiers could like it. I'm sure they would say something like : it would be cool, but with 2000' high and in Vermont or Townships ! It's the kind of ski areas where they'll never cut lift tickets (except if you try to break the equipment). It's the kind of place where you always find 1-2 feet of powder in some spots, even 2 weeks after the last storm. There is a really wide choice of trails and off-pistes (about 40-45) and some of them are in the best ones in QC. I don't have a pass for Alta, but since the beginning of the year, the GM don't accept that I pay my lift tickets... cause I'm something like the *official* photograph of the area. But don't you worry, I'm not in conflict of interest, talking of them here, as it was already my best ski area far before getting advantages at the resort and I always talk of this area since 10 years. About the hiking, it really depends of the resort. I often see people on my rides. Not at la Reserve, there is a house near it and there is often some childs playing, but they don't care of me and I don't for them neither. I even e-mailed pics of LG for each time I went after the end of chairlift season. It's really a diehard ski areas, so if that was known that they have so much snow, they *could* think to begin to do more snow, cause as you saw on the 3-4th message of the HUGE conversation on the no-bulls, on april 19, it didn't looked like there was so much snow. So, they could build walls of snow like Killington and with that, I can tell you they could operate until the St-Jean (our national fest : june 24) But for your answer, yep, there is some ski areas that really don't want you to do that. They have big gates and I usually don't go there, respecting their decision. Generally, when you see people of the resort, they will ask you : "hey, where's your lift ticket ??", but they laugh a little bit and let you pass without problem. I didn't knew that Mohawk Mountain did snowmaking so much. To really worth some runs, it must have over 600' long. Less than that, it's really too short. If it's a big pitch, it could be less for sure, but not something like 150' long, this is wasting time. In fact, 150' could be good if you want to break a record or something like that, but don't think to really have some fun with that ! lol ! Finally, this is my tally of ski days by mountains this winter : Counting in my 35 ski days : Ski La Réserve : 8 St-Sauveur : 7 Alta : 6 Val Saint-Côme : 3 Orford : 2 Shefford : 2 Blanc : 1 Avila : 1 Tremblant : 1 Burke : 1 Glen : 1 Garceau : 1 Belle Neige : 1 Total : 35 Second destinations (hike after a ski day) or just Not counting in my ski days : Ski La Réserve : 1 Le Massif : 1 Val Saint-Côme : 2 Chantecler : 1 Gabriel : 2 Avila : 1 Total : 8 So, it's something like 43 if you count my bonus in second destination ! If no, it's 35 and the official count is 35 !

Frankontour · Jun 1, 2003

Hep... talking of pics of Alta, this is my best "completely NOT succeeded" pic of skiing in my life. When I saw it into the little screen of my camera, I almost flushed it. Hmm... good idea to wait a little bit, it finished #10 of my top 10 best ski pics of the 2002-03 season !!!! (especially in better resolution) <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2494.jpg" ALT="Sh**, Damn sun !!... euh... thanks Sun !!"> Oh, by the way, that time, they didn't have significant snowfalls from over 2 weeks, I think (early feb).

Kevin · Jun 1, 2003

Thanks for the explaination of skiing days. Now I don't feel so bad with my pitiful total of 7 days, my all time personal low for skiing since 1983. This year was tough with a new house+mortgage+3 year old son+poor weather on just about every weekend (read lots of snow on Long Island, over 6 feet)This was my first year ever of no skiing in Vermont. Next year I hope to get at least 15-20 days again. But lets take the 1997 ski year for example: (I skied more but I dont have dates on all the tickets) January: 4-8th Sugarloaf 20th- Mt Sunapee February 18th: Hunter Mtn March 23rd: Cammelback April: 19-21st Sugarloaf May: 31st Killington June 1st: Killington July: No Skiing August: 29-30 Timberline Lodge September 1st: Timberline Lodge October 26th: Killington November 29th Okemo December 13th & 28th Mowhawk Mtn This is as close as I have come so far to skiing every month in a single year. Maybe this year you will succeed in doing so. The point is were does the old season end and the new one begin.

Frankontour · Jun 1, 2003

wow... you just missed july ! effectively, it's tough to say where's the end of the season. In fact, I think I have an answer for that. If we take the lift-serviced season in North America, it finishes on ± sept 1 and the season begins in ± sept 15. So I think even skiing in New Zealand, I would say that any day before Sept 1 count in the season before and any day after sept 15 counts in the next season ! Between Sept 1 and Timberline's reopening, good question... I think I would probably count it in the season before. By the way, I don't know how it is on that point in USA, but here, we often see some retreated that ski over 100-150 days by winter. This year, St-Sauveur made a party for a guy of 90 years old that ski each day of the ski season since many decades. They say he's still in the good skiers of the place. Just like Herman Smith Johannsen (Jack Rabbit) that skied up to 108 years old (my dream). <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT="

"> I wonder if there will be a better skier than him in the next million of years ??

Kevin · Jun 1, 2003

There is a guy at Sugarloaf who has skied every day of the length of each season at the resort since about 1984. I can find out more about this but I believe that he has about 2600+ days of skiing. I get tired just thinking about him. My personal best for length of season is from October 1st 1993- June 1st 1994 242 days if my math is correct. I"ll just be happy to start skiing alot more starting next season. My past skiing was more a conquest of how many resorts I could ski in a year and skiing at as many ski areas that a state had. I have skied just about every major resort in new england, and most of the small ones, even two that no longer exist. I have had alot of fun reading these posts for the past 3 years, but only felt the need to comment when the subject was made about the length of a ski season and extreme early and late season skiing. What would we all do if there was no resort like Killington to uphold a 42 year tradition of early and late season skiing?

Kevin · Jun 1, 2003

Frank: The man at Sugarloaf is Paul Schipper, and as of late February of this year(his 80th birthday) he had 3,641 days of continuous skiing at sugarloaf since 1981. You have a long way to go!!!!!!!!

Frankontour · Jun 1, 2003

I just hope that this would mean that another ski area would take the place of Killington ! I admit 42 years of #1 is really impressive. More, I think he can sleep on his 2 ears for 4 years, cause the new government here wants to cut in the expenses everywhere actually and they just said NO for the help of the project of 350M$ at Mont Sainte-Anne. So we can forget about the development of Mont Orford (yeahhhhhhhh !!!!!) (ouffffffffff (relief)) although they will have problems of chairlifts for real, now. But how could I accept that they scrap all my best trails or that they become so much crowded than unskiable unless big storms. Hmm, I'm far of where I began, so that's it, Killington can sleep, cause the new government won't reduce the electricity cost for the ski areas (which is 3x more expensive than for normal entreprises), so Mont Saint-Sauveur won't have the possibility to make the same amount of snow than in the past. With the actual technology and a normal cost for snowmaking, MSS could beat Killington any year easily. (I even don't talk about la Reserve that could beat Killington of 1 month if they wanted and have the money for it) The guy at Sugarloaf is a real mad (I would like to be like him !) 2600 times... soon he will pass in days the number of vertical feet of the resort ! I hope you'll succeed to do more ski in the next years. I admit that 7 times is rough times, but with a new house, mortgage and child, it's a little more complicated to ski

My record of ski areas in 1 year is in 1997-98. I skied 20 times, in 18 different ski areas. I went 4 times to Tremblant (find the error lolol). Ok, not so complicated, I just skied once at Avila / St-Sauveur which are linked with multi lift-tickets

Frankontour · Jun 1, 2003

Imagine... skiing each day of the year, it's 10 years ! I hope my retreat will be like that ! hehehe ! Actually, I'm at 292 ski days in my whole life (soon 300 !!) so I'm a little bit far from 3641. I wonder where I'm going to do my 300th. Garceau ? Don't know, but I did my 50th, 150th and 200th there, if I don't mistake, so it would be cool, although this is not my #1 best ski area like in the past... far from there. I think la Reserve could be a great choice. Orford won't be interesting so early in the season, Massif du Sud probably neither. Alta probably won't be open (except if they finally decide to cut the grass during fall). More, from la Réserve, we have a nice view on Mt Garceau, so it would be an optimal place, as it looks to be a super place for early snowfalls (it's a shame that I didn't heard they were skiing on natural snow on oct 26, with 12-14" of snow on la Croque-Mitaine

Sugarloaf evolution

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