Sugarbush, VT 12/19/99

<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 12/21/99. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>On Sunday I returned to Sugarbush with my friends E, Mango, and James. The temperatures started out cold, Burlington was around 11 F <BR>when we left in the morning. The sky was perfectly blue, not a cloud at all, and the morning light on the white peaks at Sugarbush South was brilliant. Since I had seen them blowing snow like crazy yesterday on Birch Run (North Lynx Peak), and the guns were now shut off, we headed up there for our first runs. The trees at the top were still all plastered with snow, and everything looked great. We hit the trail and found great soft snow (soft for manmade), ice free and ready for turns. Since we arrived early, there were no people yet and the skiing was excellent. As an added bonus, the lower half of Morning Star was open on natural snow. After a few runs on Birch Run, Mango had to leave, and we finished off with a Morning Star. There was untracked on the sides <BR>of Morning Star, although it was a bit crusty below the newest few inches as others have mentioned. In the sun, the temperatures had <BR>jumped up, and we headed for the car to drop layers before heading over to Super Bravo. The latest trail count I saw was 44, and there is <BR>starting to become a good assortment of options at Lincoln Peak (I'm not sure if they got hurt by rain on Monday). From the summit, one can take Jester or Organgrinder, and from Organgridner hit Spillsville, much of Ripcord, and lower Paradise. On the mid-mountain, they had options including Murphy's Glade, Birdland, as well as parts of Domino, Lower Organgrinder and Lower Jester. We did a couple runs on Ripcord, which had all natural snow, but of course plenty of rocks around as well. It <BR>was good solid natural skiing though; best use some skis that don't mind a few dings if you want to really go at it on the natural trails. Our favorite part was the lower section of Ripcord where it flattened out a bit. The skier's left had excellent coverage, with cut up crusty powder, but no rocks. <BR> <BR>We did some more video recording, and with the clear blue sky against the bright white, the pictures came out great. We shot footage on Birch Run, Morning Star, Downspout, Organgrinder and Ripcord. The first run was a synchronized skiing triplet of James, Mango and E, in which Mango managed to hit the skis of both his partners, and he eventually even crashed and lost one of his own skis. We found that using the LCD window can be a bit tough in full sunlight, but in that case the viewfinder came in handy. Temperatures were in the 20s, so the 1 hour battery lasted about 20 minutes or so before it was done, but that was just about the full amount of recording we did for the day anyway. We used Motorola talkabouts for communication, which worked much better than using hand signals or trying to shout. You can set them to scan, and other conversations will pop up as well. It was <BR>surprising how many other groups were out using them. Over the weekend I probably heard 5 or 6 different groups communicating and coordinating <BR>their movements. It seems like they would be especially useful for a large group of varying abilities. <BR> <BR>Best air of the day award - Mango for his "Eddie the Eagle" impersonation on Birch run. Video analysis revealed a good 5-6 feet of <BR>daylight below the TAILS of his skis <BR> <BR>Best line of the day - James on the middle portion of Morning Star. 2 Nice airs and a great flow. <BR> <BR>Best crash of the day - Erica on Lower Pushover AND Lower Downspout. In both cases she basically fell off the left side of the trail into the powder. Unfortunately neither of these were caught on film but one required a lengthy and delicate extraction procedure. Erica gets bonus points for finally learning to smile during her crash.