# Sugarloaf 4-17-10  ......don't call it a comeback



## deadheadskier (Apr 17, 2010)

*Date(s) Skied: *  Saturday 4-17-2010

*Resort or Ski Area: * Sugarloaf

*Conditions: * Pow, dumping all day

*Trip Report: *

Unlike the rest of New England, winter never really left Sugarloaf.  Scoping out the trail report mid-week, they were still advertising 50+ trails open where as ther remaining few holdouts only had a handful.  Last I was there was for the AZ summit, which was mid January hard snow conditions.  Today?  Mid-January POW conditions.  

Today was a real treat.  Espiecally because up until about 48 hours ago it looked like rain.  Figured I'd take some runs, but mainly chill with some beers and reggae.  By last night, the forecast had my stoke meter pegged.  At first I was thinking that spring snow can be hazardous if it's just a little as chances are you're bound to hit no base areas following the melt out.  Not the case today.  Some bottoming out, but my bases are pretty much just fine now.  It all filled in.

First sign of snow today was on a car roof top outside of Portland.







Furthur up the road around the Belgrade Lakes it started to show signs of accumulation.  Here's winter bitch slapping some new spring leaves.






Once through Kingfield, it was on like donkey kong






Pulled into the lot at 9:30.  There was 2-3 inches on the ground.  I figured I'd probably just be skiing bumps today with a nice coating, so I grabbed my B2s and left my High Societies in the car.  Once on the shuttle and rolling, the guide lets us know there is 6-7 inches of fresh up top.  Crap, bad ski choice.  Was psyched to also hear that King Pine was running, which it didn't appear to be all week.

Booted up and went up the Superquad and down Sluice to Spillway.  Sluice had been groomed in the middle overnight, but there still was loose snow.  Sides were chock full with about 6 inches and bumps interspersed randomly.  B2s are only just okay in such conditions.  They just don't plow through crud and what not, so they can wear out the legs in a hurry.

Headed over to King Pine from there.  Haulback was SWEET.  Snow seemed to pile in King Pine much more than the rest of the mountain. I really wanted to be on my other skis, but it was also so good, I didn't want to stop.  After Haulback I decided to hit Misery Whip.  Great bumps, though fairly icy in the troughs.  Took a nice digger half way down into a big soft pile of snow.  Man did I miss that feeling.  Not often you enjoy falling, but today you enjoyed everything.  

With my fall, low and behold, broken ski break.  In 25+ years of skiing, I've never broken a binding.  Now I've broken both heal pieces on the Axials.  I've hated these bindings since the start.  This time, I was kind of happy as it gave me an excuse to get back to the car.






Now on the new skis, I got back to the Superquad and was going to text Rocojerry as he was supposed to be up there.  Just as I go to reach my phone; I see him getting on the lift.  Spent the rest of the day ripping with Jerry, his girlfriend and a couple of friends of his, Chris and Pat.  GREAT time.  Minus a couple of beers at Bullwinkles, skied straight through to 3:30 when I was spend.

Run of the day was definitely Ripsaw.  I spied people on it from the King Pine lift and we lapped it a few times ducking the rope.  Eventually ski patrol dropped the rope.  First couple of runs were SWEET.  Skiers left was all pow bumps.  Skiers right was straight pow as I'm assuming the base over there was completely wiped out befor this storm.. People were heading out to Can't Dog Glade as well.  Essentially everything from King Pine / Spillway up was in play today minus the snowfields.  By the end of the day, I saw tracks on every trail.

Best Powder day of the year for me for sure.  Missed some others by a day or two, but today Sugarloaf was the right place to be.  

More Pics:


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## wa-loaf (Apr 17, 2010)

Sweet, glad you got some.


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## marcski (Apr 17, 2010)

wa-loaf said:


> Sweet, glad you got some.



Yes, but you're still jealous as a MoFo, just like I am. Looks like a great mid-April Pow day!


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## severine (Apr 17, 2010)

Awesome! Is this a rare occurrence for Reggae Fest weekend? Regardless, nice job getting some today!


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## RootDKJ (Apr 17, 2010)

Awesome.


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## wa-loaf (Apr 17, 2010)

marcski said:


> Yes, but you're still jealous as a MoFo, just like I am. Looks like a great mid-April Pow day!



Lol, I let him know that on facebook.


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## snowmonster (Apr 17, 2010)

Awesome! You must have earned some good karmic points to score a day this good!


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## bvibert (Apr 18, 2010)

Congrats on scoring a great day.  I'm extremely jealous!


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## bigbog (Apr 18, 2010)

Nice DHS...


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## WJenness (Apr 19, 2010)

That's awesome.

Jealous.

I'm hoping to sneak up there next weekend to close out my season... Don't know if it'll happen yet or not.

-w


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## Vortex (Apr 19, 2010)

They announced what we were all pretty sure of anyway. The loaf will be open through May 2nd. Two more weekends.  Possilbly five days over the next few weeks up there for me.   Worst case 3 days.

Nice report.  
Looks like you had  quite a choice of runs.


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## wa-loaf (Apr 19, 2010)

68 trails and $35 lift tickets. I think they definitely own the King of Spring title now. Just wish I could get up there.


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## snowmonster (Apr 19, 2010)

Looks like this TR is on the Loaf's Facebook fan page.


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## speden (Apr 19, 2010)

Wow, nice score!  The forecast did look like rain up there for this past weekend, so got to hand it to you for sticking to your plan.

I wish your cellphone took better pictures.


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## deadheadskier (Apr 19, 2010)

haha, that's my actual camera

I can assure you if I possesed the finest filming device on the market, I'd still eff it up.  

<----  world's worst photographer


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## severine (Apr 19, 2010)

wa-loaf said:


> 68 trails and $35 lift tickets. I think they definitely own the King of Spring title now. Just wish I could get up there.



Saw that this morning. Nice price and great offering.


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## thetrailboss (Apr 19, 2010)

snowmonster said:


> Looks like this TR is on the Loaf's Facebook fan page.



Was just going to say that....DHS is a celebrity now!


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## WJenness (Apr 19, 2010)

Trying to book a room for next weekend... SL site is down :-(

-w


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## rocojerry (Apr 19, 2010)

great skiing with you DHS!!

i was pretty fired up for the day


drive up access road


Reggae! Wohoooo!!


haulback!


Ripsaw!!! Best run of the weekend--


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## rocojerry (Apr 22, 2010)

bit late on the upload trigger, some more are still in the video room processing  sorry I only got you DHS for a few seconds to start the video off! Next skiier started coming down and I must have seen them in the corner of my eye...


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## deadheadskier (Apr 22, 2010)

intro is classic!  :lol:


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## rocojerry (Apr 22, 2010)

*few more snowy pictures from the loaf*

Snow was coming down good!






Haulback lookin great--





The whole Reggae gang


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## Mildcat (Apr 22, 2010)

Did they open Ripsaw Saturday? I was over at King Pine in the morning and it was roped off. 

Skiing there Friday it looked like it would need a hell of a lot more snow than that to open up some of the trails. I was shocked Saturday morning to see Sheer-Boom open. Haulback looked like it was done for the season Friday too. Even though it was snowing Friday it wasn't sticking to the bare spots. What a difference a day makes. 

Even the glades were good! The glades between Kings Landing and Hayburner were awesome. Some kids showed me a narrow trail in the trees next to double bitter that I've never noticed before.

Great weekend, hopefully I can make it up at least one more time.


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## deadheadskier (Apr 22, 2010)

Dropped the rope in the afternoon.  I think they realized it was a lost cause keeping closed as plenty of people were skiing it anyways as well as Can't Dog.....one person at least who shouldn't have been.

We saw one guy at the Can't Dog traverse back to Haulback being hauled off in a sled with a splint on his leg.  My last run with Pat had us run into a couple of regulars spying some woods.  They talked about how good Can't Dog was and we mentioned the guy in the splint.  Said they saw him skiing and he had no business being in there and heard him screaming after a fall.  I'd imagine Reggae weekend sees a lot of that.  Beer muscles sending beginner skiers and riders into terrain over their heads and getting injured.


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## rocojerry (Apr 22, 2010)

added a few more vid's to my orig post, the reggae music is for two reasons:

1) it was reggae weekend
2) too many F' bombs were dropped, it was that f'n good.


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## Mildcat (Apr 22, 2010)

deadheadskier said:


> Dropped the rope in the afternoon.  I think they realized it was a lost cause keeping closed as plenty of people were skiing it anyways as well as Can't Dog.....one person at least who shouldn't have been.
> 
> We saw one guy at the Can't Dog traverse back to Haulback being hauled off in a sled with a splint on his leg.  My last run with Pat had us run into a couple of regulars spying some woods.  They talked about how good Can't Dog was and we mentioned the guy in the splint.  Said they saw him skiing and he had no business being in there and heard him screaming after a fall.  I'd imagine Reggae weekend sees a lot of that.  Beer muscles sending beginner skiers and riders into terrain over their heads and getting injured.



Sunday Cant Dog was still roped off but Ripsaw was open down til the last traverse. I did see lots of people coming out of Cant Dog but I didn't bother ducking the rope.


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