I have to make this short and sweet, as I'm running out the door. Yesterday was much better than should have been expected due to the rain earlier in the week. New snow that fell on the night of the 25th dressed things up nicely, especially on the upper mountain where all of the lifts were on wind hold on the 26th. Not a cloud in the sky all day, and the temperature held just above freezing. We spent the whole day at the Lincoln Peak area. We had planned to ride Slide Brook after lunch to sample Mt. Ellen, but it was down for a while at that hour, and we opted to stay at South instead of riding the bus. <BR> <BR>I was with the wife and kid, so while much of the day was spent cruising, we took a couple of other runs just to keep the blood flowing...and my muscles painfully sore today. First run of the day was on Paradise, which was delightful cut-up chowder. Where it was untracked to skier's left in the woods, though, it was heavy wind slab that proved difficult to negotiate. <BR> <BR>I had wanted to take them up to North Lynx, but it was inexplicably closed. We therefore spent most of our time on the Gate House Express and Valley House express quads. <BR> <BR>Lower down, the bumps were firmer, especially on the couple of mogul runs to skier's right of Stein's and The Mall. <BR> <BR>We finished the day on Castlerock Run, as Rumble was closed. It was the hardest thing that my kid has ever skied, and he did so beautifully. At 3 pm and after only 3 hours of sleep the night before, honestly, it kicked my butt. <BR> <BR>The best thing were the holiday crowds, or lack thereof. While the Gate House lodge was packed all day, the mountain and liftlines were wonderfully empty compared to what they could have been. We never had more than a 5-minute line all day on any lift...on the Saturday between Christmas and New Year's. My guess that Sugarbush would be as reasonable as possible with respect to holiday crowds proved correct. <BR> <BR>Finally, kudos to the Sugarbush staff. I was positively amazed at how friendly each and every resort employee was, without fail. From the parking lot attendants to the cafeteria folks, everyone had a smile on their face. No fewer than five employees commented to me about how beautiful a day it was. I was impressed.