Jay Silveira
New member
<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 11/15/99. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>Sugarbush opened last week, and Sunday was going to be my first <BR>chance for a visit. It was a rather cloudy morning as we left <BR>Burlington, with temperatures somewhere in the 40s. It was canned food <BR>day at the 'bush, and I had chosen a hefty can of YAMS, while E upsized <BR>me with a big can of Baked Beans for the food shelf. I finally obtained <BR>the new Sugarbush map for this season, and it has the three new gladed <BR>trails marked on it: Egan's Woods (skier's left of Stein's), Lew's Line <BR>(skier's right of Downspout), and Deeper Sleeper (skier's left of <BR>sleeper). As we uploaded on the Super Bravo, I got a look at part of <BR>Egan's Woods, and the part visible was about 30-40 feet wide, with tree <BR>spacing about 3-10 feet and underbrush removed. Sugarbush had received <BR>a couple inches of new snow, and the patches seemed to start around <BR>1800'. We had observed snow patches all the way down to around 1100' <BR>when we had passed through Duxbury earlier. <BR>Temperatures were warm, so the ski surface was nice and soft. <BR>They had groomed recently, so initially turns were on corduroy. As we <BR>rode up on the Heaven's Gate lift, we ran into a cloud bank right near <BR>the summit that dropped the visibility to 2-3 chairs. Inside the cloud <BR>at the summit, the wind was howling, making it feel chilly, but I <BR>checked a thermometer and summit temp was around 35 degrees F. After <BR>2-3 runs of nearly empty trails, more people started to appear, but it <BR>never got ridiculous. As the SkiVT boss himself mentioned, we ran into <BR>Wes and co. It was very likely that they were having the most fun of <BR>any group on the mountain, (or at least they were the most vocal) with <BR>whoops and hollers all over the place as they partied their way down <BR>Jester. At around 10:30, it began to sprinkle, and then turned into a <BR>moderate rain. We did a couple more runs and called it a day. It was a <BR>nice change though from simply skiing upper Rime et al. at Killington <BR>for the past few weeks. E and I both agreed that the 1500' of vertical <BR>really let you get into a groove, (vs. only about 560' at Killington for <BR>our past couple trips). It's been a happy progression though, making <BR>for a natural increase and gradual conditioning of the legs. <BR>Organgrinder appeared close to being opened, coverage looked just shy of <BR>adequate. It will be interesting to see what is open next weekend with <BR>good snow making temps and natural snow falling from the recent passage <BR>of this system. There were a number of cars today here at UVM with snow <BR>on them (coming from the east I'm sure). As I look out towards the <BR>Green Mountains right now, the lowest foothills are visible, but beyond <BR>that, from north to south, all I can see is a huge wall of white 
<BR> <BR>J.Spin
<BR> <BR>J.Spin