# Sugarloaf?USA April 19th - Backside pictures



## loafer89 (Apr 20, 2007)

Area skied: Sugarloaf/USA Maine

Date skied: April 19th from 9:30am - patrol sweep from the summit at 4:00pm.

Surface conditions: packed powder (above 3500') spring conditions.

Weather: Bluebird with clear skies, gusty winds at the summit. 41F at the base at 9:30am and 56F at 5:00pm.

We woke up yesterday in Stratton to a strange meterological condition in Western Maine as of late of blue sky and sunshine. Not having seen the sun since saturday afternoon at Sunday River it was a welcome sight. We drove up to the outdoor center and waded through knee high snow and deeper to take this shot of Sugarloaf in all of her glory:








After skiing through snow/sleet and rain and having watched 50" of new snow accumulate since last friday, we knew that yesterday would be the kind of day that Sugarloafer dreams are made of.

The 3-5" of heavy wet snowfall on wednesday had frozen up during the night so Warren and I played the follow the sun game and skied down Tote Road which was a bit slick, but improved above Chicken Pitch and was wetpacked snow below it allowing for smooth easy carve turns. Our second run was down Tote Road/Scoot and Scoot was already a sea of cut up soft snow/slush but still fun. 

The lifty at the Superquad announced that Timberline would be opening shortly so we made our way over there and waited in line for 15 minutes for the lift to open and scored 7th chair to the summit. The Timberline chair line had to be cleared with a snowcat to allow for safe chair operations with the deep snow:






We made it to the summit that I could barely recognize with such deep snow and large drifts:






We climbed to the summit with me carrying the ski's and Warren having the easy job of carrying the poles which helped him balance himself while walking through the soft snow. We made it to the backside and skied down a combination of the High Rigger/Pure Heat and Jagger Trails:






The snow near the summit was covered and mixed in with quite a bit of rime ice, but the snow got better as we made our way further down the run torwards Hard Tack with a mix of powder/wet packed snow:






We made our way down to Widowmaker which had been left ungroomed and was a mess of frozen cut up powder which could not soften because the temperatures on the mountain at this elevation where to cold. Compared to the snowfields this skiing was far more difficult, but the snow softened up near the junction with Flume and we skied to the Spillway chair.

Our next run was down White Nitro which was quite firm and the high wind had blown away all of the lose snow at the headwall so we traversed across to Powder Keg and back to much softer snow below:






I skied lower White Nitro which was firm semi-loose cut up powder and certainly not as nice as the smooth powder on it on monday/tuesday but still okay. Warren did his usual Blade Glade/Boomauger skiing and we meet up on Wedge which had nice soft moguls.

Warren wanted to ski Tote Road extension as he had never been on the trail before, so we took Spillway up and skied to Timberline and then did Tote Road top to bottom and we both tucked the bottom part of Chicken Pitch. We took advantage of the soft snow on the main mountain to ski a nicely groomed Competition Hill and that was my son's first time down that trail. We skied into the new terain park which had huge hits and impressive base depths. Kings Landing was next with soft groomed wetpacked snow and we skied to the base for lunch.

Warren decided that he wanted to have another go at the snowfields so we took the old familiar route of High Rigger which had nice soft snow and large moguls on the steeper sections:






Backside summit looking down torwards Burnt mountain:






We made our way down the mountain through the upper part of Cant Dog Glade to Ripsaw which was heavy work with frozen cut up powder that was like skiing on crushed glass, Cross Haul was really slow with heavy water logged snow that made for a slow run out. The big temperature and snow condition variations where very apparent on a late April day on a mountain with 2,600' of vertical.

We scrambled to take one last run from the summit and arrived at the top at 3:57pm and lingered at the Gondi Building where I took this picture of Warren with a huge drift of snow (8' +) behind him:






We skied down Tote Road Extension and into the comically deep snow in the trees above the Spillway shack, and Warren posed for this picture with the top of the trail sign at his feet:






We made our way down Upper Double Bitter with patrol sweeping the trail behind us to nice spring snow on Kings Landing/Peavy X-Cut to a deserted Boardwalk trail where we ended our day tired but very happy with the snow and weather conditions.


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## Angus (Apr 20, 2007)

this is the stuff of legend! You'll both be able to reflect back later in life about that "crazy week in Maine during April 2007" It will bring grins to everyone's face. Of course, this has become Warren's baseline reference point for April skiing! I'm always telling son of Angus to appreciate moments like these - he just rolls his eyes! I can draw a parallel to a friend who's been skiing at Sugarloaf since almost the very beginning - he still gets a twinkle in his eye when talking about the snow there during the winter of '69! I'm envious!


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## snoseek (Apr 20, 2007)

i will never forget yesterday.


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## loafer89 (Apr 20, 2007)

The year that I have to compare this year with was 1996 when Sugarloaf had it's snowiest year ever with 389" and I remember skiing the snowfields in late april with 11' of base and no obstructions in the snowfields whatsoever. That year was unreal and we still had the remains of the gondola for summit access.

This year without a doubt is incredible and I told Warren just how special and rare good quality or any backside skiing really is. The last week has seen an amazing amount of snowfall at the village:


Grand Summit:






Village West:


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## wintersyndrome (Apr 20, 2007)

Nice Report!


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