Sunday River 12/17 & Wildcat 12/18

<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 12/19/99. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>This is a tale of two very different ski areas. <BR>SR had by their count 25 trails open, which if you do the math is about 6 ways down from the top. The midweek tickete price was $35 minus $10 for a Mobil Coupon which resulted in a bargain. <BR> <BR>Light crowds, a couple of altrenative trails and a little natural snow made for a good day at SR. There wasn't enough open to make me want to try skiing another day with weekend crowds. The SR snow making was cranking, but I find it hard to believe they can open 70% of their terrain (even with them doing the math) by Dec 25th. <BR> <BR>The next day I went to Wildcat for beautiful views, 10 open trails and $38 lift ticket. Wildcat had much better snow than SR. The base was much deeper and coverage consistant. <BR> <BR>Wildcat also had only one open trail from the summit and a race going on. There were many racers doing laps off of the summit in packs going way too fast for most people on the trails. The summit quad allowed for fast laps for us non-racers and the manmade snow held up to the abuse pretty well. <BR> <BR>The lower mountain had a mix of open trails so the routes could be varied a bit. Getting 2100 feet of verticle from one fast lift ride is always a wonderful thing. Add sunny conditions, some natural snow, fairly light crowds, decent snow and it is a great ski day.