Sugarloaf evolution

Very interesting points, Max. I admit that keeping the Rapido with a gondola would be impossible with the actual terrain. Even though they destroyed all my best trails, they would never have enough terrain on the mountain to accomodate all the skiers on top at the same moment. I mean, like at Bromont and Tremblant by example, there is so much chairlifts that you always have many people near you on a run, so it's more dangerous and there is many more chances of incidents. Le Rapido actually do a great job, I think, so even though it's a sunk cost (you'll tell me), I think it should be good to keep it and anyway, as I said before, a gondi is not a good idea for the place. <BR> <BR>Glad to hear that la Dynamique and Youppe Youppe were still skiable late in the spring. I just think to that now, but on the Upper Youppe Youppe, where Challenge / Sous-bois Youp start, the snow there should remain a very long time, as there is snowmaking (I think), there is if I remember a good cliff that hide the trail from the sun. But it's less steep than the Loup-Garou and I'm not sure if people would ski on a nearly flat patch there. <BR> <BR>I'm really happy to hear that there is some other lines than "la Fantaisie" on the backside of the mountain. In a press release at the end of season, the station were talking that there was some possibilities of triple the size of the ski area (which is quite true, with the back side + huge round top + the mountain in front of Sutton. If a corp. would like to build a huge ski area in the townships, this should be the possibility. There is so much potential terrain than they could keep the """gladed""" terrain of Sutton intact with developping more boulevards on the mountain in front of the resort. Some glades on the Backside to reach the valley under the round top which could be some normal trails. Did you ever skied from the top of the "Round Top" the to bottom of the valley (without the coming back from la Fantaisie). I really wonder how high the vertical could be, there !! I think it shouldn't be far from 1800-2000' high. Also, the Missisquoi river looks to be at something like 2400' below the top of round top, on the south side of the mountain. If it's possible to ski there, Sutton could become bigger than Tremblant. I don't think it will happen soon, but if the ski becomes more popular in the next years, we "could" see some big investments.
 
About Saddleback, it's really sad ! I still wonder what happened on the early 70s. Nelsap have a trail map where they shown the double chair T2B coming for the next year. All was planned. The liftline was built, but it never happened as what I see. <BR> <BR>This story look a little bit like Alta (in bigger). They had a quad chairlift, in the late 80s and the early 90s. They had 2 base lodges, about 50 employees and it was becoming bigger and bigger and the early 90s economic recession almost killed them. They lost the quad chairlift that was located just near the 2nd base lodge (on "Slalom" trail to be exact... (the elevator shaft that I posted few pics this season)). It just remains the old double with the old base lodge. The 2nd base lodge is now the house of the owners. <BR> <BR>Sad for Mt Washington. On the cam, it looked enough white today, but almost only Tucks. <BR> <BR>And finally, now it's done, for the merging of No-bulls and liftlines. I'm eager to see what will be the effect when all will work correctly <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":)"> I just hope there will be the more writers and readers at possible. Also, sometimes, the question in the liftlines didn't have answers in correct delays, so that should be correct now !
 
Frank: <BR> <BR>Sorry for the delay in replying to you questions about Saddleback, I've been buzy working outside trying to get some work done in my yard after nearly 14cm rain in one week!!. I know that Saddleback has been up for sale for over one year now, the owner is 74 years old and wants to retire. The story that I read says that he will not be operating the resort next winter, only new owners would be able to save this place from joining the NELSAP list. The resort is up for sale for $2.5 million, with the resort and the land that they own being offered for $7.5 million. I am no expert on this ski area having been there about 6 times in the last 15 years, but I know that it has alot of potential for expansion. The larger problem is that the summit of the mountain has the Appalachian trail running along the top of the summit. The owner has being fighting to expand the resort, but has met resistance because hikers do not want to see lifts and trails on the trail(big deal). So after years of fighting I think that an agreement was worked out to satisfy both hikers and ski management, the problem now is that the owner feels that he is too old to implement a massive expansion. I read that this place could be like the Vail of the east with multiple bowls and trails along the ridgeline. This is a very remote New england ski area, plus it is only about 40 miles from Sugarloaf, which would be a major competitor. I hope that this area does not fade away, but in my opinion the outlook for its future looks grim.
 
I'm not sure if there is some place for 2 major destinations in this market, but with 2 major, this could bring many skiers in the region and makes it become more populated and less far from all (long term). <BR> <BR>Anyway, I hope some real skiers will buy it to expand it wisely !
 
I just e-mailed the administrator at NELSAP asking if they wanted my brochures of Mt Tom in <BR>Massachusets from the 90-91,95-96 and 96-97 seasons. This place is gone since 1998. I am glad I got to ski the place on January 28th 1998 for the first and sadly the last time. I am curious what there reply will be. <BR> <BR>Frank: <BR> <BR>I have some trails maps of Saddleback from 1989 and on, if you are interested I will try to scan them. I do not think that there is a place in this part of Maine for two large resorts. Sugarloaf as of 1995 was drawing 350,000 skier visits per year, not alot when you consider the size of the mountain and the costs associated with such a large resort. This is a very wild and largely unspoiled area of maine with lots of wildlife to see. I for one would not want to see it developed any further, but I do not want to see the mountain close either. I skied Big Squaw ski area in greenville Maine, this is an even more remote location. This is also about as large as Saddleback, and I think also on shakey financial ground. It would be great to have more exposure in these northern locations, but it is a far drive even from Boston and Montreal,sniff.
 
Big Squaw mountain is a ski area that I really would like to try one day. Only problem, this is more than lost in the woods. I even don't understand how they can have enough skiers to have a double and a triple chairlift. <BR> <BR>About Sugarloaf, effectively, it's really not high, 350 000 skiers in the year for a ski area like that. This year, Bromont reached 585 000 skiers and they just have 2 quads + 1 double. Imagine the liftlines.... ouchhhh (luckily, they're open on evening and they got more <B>night</B> skiers than day skiers !!!!!) <BR> <BR>And about Hunter, yep, still a good patch on Eisenhower, about 30% of the size of the Loup-Garou one, I guess. I wonder how it would remain snow if La Reserve was a big player for snowmaking, as actually, it's far to be one. The snow just stick on the mountain. On march 28, there was no snow remaining in the woods at Val Saint-Côme and 3 weeks later, at la Reserve, it was still possible to ski many of the glades of the area. Last sunday, it was in the mid 60s at Garceau and in the mid 40s at la Reserve, even though they're just distanced of 5 miles. If on a day, there is 1 single cloud in the Laurentians / Lanaudiere, it will be over la Reserve mountain chain.
 
Your funny about Big Squaw being more than lost in the woods. This was skied as a day trip from Sugarloaf(a very very long day trip). The chairlifts were painfully slow, thankfully it was <BR>in late March so it was not cold. I do not know if I would ski this place again, it was to far away and the conditions were less than ideal. The really nice thing about the skiing was the view of northern Maine and Mt Katahdin (5267ft) from the summit. Late congratulations for your first June day, maybe next year you will be able to get it lift serviced at Killington. What will you do for A July, August and September day?
 
Very short answer here too <BR>July : Mt Albert ? <BR>August... hmm good question, I don't think to ski (except during night clandestinely on Tenney snowtubing slope ! lol) and for september, euhhhh skiing on grass ? <BR> <BR>No, I give up for August and September. For july, it's to see... same thing for october !
 
frank, while enjoying the great work being put up by you guys , saw your inquiry above about loon.. i basically ski out of loon and the new trails you asked about received the final approval this past winter.. they will not be open this coming winter , but the following for the 04/05 season...it looks like they have retained some old school qualities on at least 2 of em and one of em looks like about about 800 vert of about 20 feet wide, which for loon, would be quite rad indeed... ( could be a rad bump run ) this assumes of course they keep it the way it is... the grown in brush makes it a little hard to gauge if there would be anything of real noteworthy value over there, but 1 or 2 or what looks like 5 new ones ,( which they will call 10 ) look somewhat promising.
 
After hearing that Mammoth will close June 15, I put this season through my ski programs. The website will be refreshed this weekend sometime. <BR> <BR>Summary stats are not unlike Patrick's. <BR> <BR>665 ski days lifetime. <BR> <BR>Average 25.8 per season since the first "serious" year, 1978-79. <BR> <BR>104 ski areas, 87 lift-service (8 East, 73 West, 6 Australia/New Zealand), 6 snowcat, 6 heli, 1 plane, 4 backcountry on foot. <BR> <BR>A half day skied is a day where I skied 2 areas in the same day. <BR> <BR>The top places are, x1000 vert (%) days: <BR>1 - Mammoth: 4,087 (32%) 195 - 8 this year <BR>2 - Mt. Baldy: 961 (8%) 51 - 0 <BR>3 - Snowbird: 770 (6%) 35 - 3 <BR>4 - Snow Summit: 609 (5%) 35.5 - 0.5 <BR>5 - Mountain High: 450 (4%) 27 - 0 <BR>6 - Mt. Bachelor: 387 (3%) 15 - 0 <BR>7 - Heavenly Valley: 344 (3%) 17 - 0 <BR>8 - Squaw Valley: 304 (2%) 16 - 0 <BR>9 - Alta: 264 (2%) 16 - 0 <BR>10 - Kirkwood: 242 (2%) 13 - 0. <BR> <BR>11 ski areas between 100K and 240K. <BR>20 areas between 50K and 100K. <BR>63 areas under 50K.
 
Hey Frank: <BR> <BR>Check out www. sugarloaf.com, still some snow hanging tough on the mountain. I chated with Marc until 11:15 last night, this live discussion is alot of fun and new for me. Good luck if you go up to the "quebec glacer"
 
Hello folks ! <BR> <BR>Hmm, I enter in a big rush, so I won't write here really often, but I try to come once a day, cause it's just too much interesting ! <BR> <BR>Funny to meet "MaxSutton" this evening at the BBQ of our accounting firm. We're about 40 students to begin this year at the firm. We're 3 quebec regular writers here and 2 of them are beginning the same year in the same firm without knowing themselves before. WOW ! (don't even wonder what have been our main topic of conversation <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":)">) <BR> <BR>Thanx Joegm for the infos on the future side of Loon. I hope it will be enough interesting in 2 years !! <BR> <BR>Good Kevin if you liked the chatroom. Me too, when I went on that board the first time, it was my first time on a "public board". I hope next month I won't have problem and will stay there from 9 to 11 or more ! <BR> <BR>About the Quebec glacier, if you talk of La Reserve, finally, I broke my lap top, today, so I lost all my day for repairing & all... so I won't have time to go there tomorrow unfortunately. And if you talk of Mt Albert... gonna see that after my courses ! <BR> <BR>So, I think I can officially say that I'm now ready to wash my ski boots and ski pants (which are really brown actually !!!)
 
Wash your ski stuff you say!!! <BR>Well I might do the same, no ski partner and rain for this weekend again, so Mt.Washington is being postponed for another week. <BR> <BR>Time for stats: <BR>This is the summary of my season if I don't go back skiing: <BR> <BR>ski days: 38 (3 longest - record 41(90-91)(avg 28.1 since 1981-82) <BR> <BR>lenght of season: 119 (Jan5 - May3) (2 lowest - record min 71*(82-83) (avg: 168.8) *this year if I discount 82-83 when an injury terminated my ski season in January. <BR> <BR>season / ski days avg. 119/38 = 3.13 RECORD YEAR beats 3.85 (01-02)(avg: 6.13) This means I skied during this season on average every 3.13 days. Note for those who don't know, I was on parental leave from work since November. <BR> <BR>Second best month: March**: 14 days (record:15 in Jan91). <BR> <BR>Frank; here's my monthly totals: <BR>Jan: 12 <BR>Feb: 8 <BR>Mar: 14** <BR>Apr: 5 <BR>May: 1 <BR> <BR>Tony, <BR>I believe that early this month you were the one taking about ski season lenght - I do you calculate you ski season when you go skiing in the Southern Hemisphere? I haven't gone i, yet. I was just wondering? <BR> <BR>Distribution of ski area skiied (very different from Tony): <BR>total 66 (618 ski days in 22 seasons) <BR>Quebec: 31 areas (Laurentians/Lanaudiere: 13) - 392 days (63%) <BR>Eastern US: 12 areas (Vt: 7) - 162 (26%) <BR>Western Canada: 7 (Alberta: 5) - 31 days (5%) <BR>Europe: 16** (France: 13) - 33 days (5%) <BR> <BR>** This March I skiied 13 days in 9 new areas (Trois Vallées has 4 areas). My wife and daughters visited her family in France. We stayed one month, but she was kind enough to let me go ski crazy for 13 days. <BR> <BR>I did at least two things on my 'to do' list (see other discussion). <BR> <BR>Another record, although I don't keep track of vertical in my stats, is longest vertical descent (one run) 2100 meters on two different days at two different places.
 
Tony, I have two questions related to this paragraph: <BR> <BR>"After hearing that Mammoth will close June 15, I put this season through my ski programs. The website will be refreshed this weekend sometime." <BR> <BR>1) From what I understood Mammoth would often make to July 4th. Do you think that Intrawest has change the previous closing policy or is the closing realistic due to the snow conditions? Is this issue similar to what we have notice here in the East? Intrawest does even try to push for late closure (ie. Tremblant) or ASC is less committed to close as late. You might've contributed to the Killington discussion (or Cannon) - is so, I don't remember. <BR> <BR>2) Are your ski stat on the web? Is so, where?
 
I am still planning to go up to Mt Washington on fathers day weekend, but the weather on weekends as of late has been less than ideal. Right now the summit is in the clouds so I can't see how much snow is remaining. If there is any chance for something reasonable to ski on I'll give it a try.
 
Pat... effectively, the Tuck begins to look really brown... <BR> <BR>June 6, 2003 <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2520.jpg" ALT="Tuck 2003-06-06">
 
Skistats on web <A HREF="http://bestsnow.net/vertfeet.htm" TARGET="_top">http://bestsnow.net/vertfeet.htm</A>, updated last night to include 2003. <BR> <BR>The 5 season length stats I posted did not include Southern Hemisphere. Southern seasons: 4 days between August 23 and Sept. 3 in 1982, 5 days between July 19 and August 2 in 1997. <BR> <BR>Marc Guido asked the Mammoth closing question by e-mail: <BR> <BR>From: First Tracks!! Online [mailto:<A HREF="mailto:newsdesk@FirstTracksOnline.com">newsdesk@FirstTracksOnline.com</A>] <BR>Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 3:09 PM <BR>To: <A HREF="mailto:tony.crocker@transamerica.com">tony.crocker@transamerica.com</A> <BR>Subject: Fwd: MAMMOTH SETS CLOSING DATE FOR JUNE 15 <BR> <BR> <BR>Isn't this earlier than normal? <BR> <BR> <BR>My Response: <BR> <BR>No. The rule of thumb, if there is one, is to go for 4th of July if it was a big snow year, and close Memorial Day if average or worse. Interim closing dates were perhaps more common in the 1980's. <BR> <BR>My rule or thumb was that if base depth reached 150 inches (average max is 133) they would go for 4th of July. As you know this was a strange season. The max was only 114 inches, achieved way back in December. Even with the record April they were still at only 84 inches at the end of the month. But they only lost about a foot of that the first 3 weeks in May. But now it's warm and they have lost 3 feet in the past two weeks. <BR> <BR>It did not even occur to me that they would try for 4th of July this year until I saw them building that halfpipe at the bottom of Climax. It took a week of work and was not open on Memorial weekend. I didn't think they would go to the trouble if it was only going to be there one weekend. They decided it was worth it for 3 weekends. <BR> <BR>Dave McCoy will be 88 years old in August. Though he's not involved in day-to-day activities, I'm told he's still pretty fit and pretty sharp. I also heard that he retained some measure of control over the ski operation even though he sold all the developable real estate to Intrawest. So I could believe that the closing policy is still under his control, and his past history is to run as long as possible (July 28, 1983 and August 13, 1995). He also has a reputation of looking out for the locals, as evidenced by the past decade's project of bringing a junior college to Mammoth. <BR> <BR>So the real question is: will the closing policy change when Dave McCoy is gone? I'm inclined to be optimistic for a few reasons: <BR>1) The SoCal market (still 85% according to Joani Lynch) expects the late closings, and supports it with $, at least on the 2 big holidays. You can see substantial skier traffic in some of my Memorial pics. <BR>2) Intrawest runs Whistler until first weekend of June, so they are obviously willing to do it if it doesn't cost much. Furthermore, they extended the closing date when they took over better-exposed Whistler from their prior closing date when they only owned Blackcomb. <BR>3) The $399 Value Pass program was introduced after the Intrawest purchase. Part of the hook to get people to buy them in April is that they get to use them for the late current season as well as the next year. <BR> <BR>I wouldn't read that much into the Tremblant example. Surely you can see the light-years difference in the quality of late season skiing.
 
Thanks for the reponse on Mammoth. August 13, WOW!!! <BR>I wasn't saying that we could compare Tremblant's closure days with Mammoth, but simply that Tremblant now closes earlier - even if the mountain could remain almost 100% open. We are not talking a small area where they do not get the traffic. Tremblant made it to June in 97, but for the last few seasons they close on a fixed date around the 3rd weekend in April. <BR>Intrawest seems to think that closure day is not important, we're #1 in the East anyway!!! I previously mentioned this in the crazy Killington discussion - that maybe the difference between Intrawest and ASC. They maybe not willing to loss money by closing later. <BR> <BR>Anyway, I am happy that you feel that Intrawest hasn't negatively affected closures at Mammoth or Whistler.
 
About the Mammoth closure, if they close on mid-june will be good, after 2 years of closing few weeks before that ! I was scared a little bit to see the season end on may 30, 2001 and june 2, 2002. Ok, for eastern skiers like us, it's really late, but compared to august 13, it's really early. <BR> <BR>If they close 2 weeks later this year, it's that they didn't fixed a end-of-season date for each years like Mt Bachelor does, by example. <BR> <BR>and for Tremblant : no comment, cause I'm better not to do, but I can understand those who say "I.S.S."
 
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