Jim Schley

IMG_0127, originally uploaded by jmurphy67.

Saturday at Sugarbush was the 41st annual pond skimming contest and ReggaeFest, and despite the fact that this is the prototypical “Spring” event at the resort, there was still no sign that the season had arrived. There was plenty of sun, but temps were very cold. The festivities were fun to watch, regardless, but there wasn’t quite as much outdoor conviviality as there ususally is for the event. The snow was very nice with five inches of light, fluffy new snow coming down on Thursday and Friday making for excellent skiing, especially in the woods. The highlight was a new line found high up on the mountain, north of the Castlerock pod of trails. I know that a lot of these stashes have colloquial names, but I don’t know what this particular one is called. I can say that we will be back there to ski it again. Sugarbush is so big that there is always more good stuff to discover.

Sunday was the real first day of Spring, and although it started off very cold, it quickly warmed under cloudless blue skies and bright sun. Jim and I started the day putting the new alpine touring rig (skis, climbing skins, bindings, boots) to its first real test. We started out at his condo in Sugarbush Village and climbed up to the top of the ridge that separates the Slidebrook basin from the Lincoln Peak basin. It was a great workout with almost 1300 vertical feet of climbing, and the new equipment performed perfectly. The view from the top of the ridge where it intersects the liftline is stunning– a photo that Jim snapped there is above. From there we skied down the Slidebrook liftline back towards Lincoln Peak and had a blast leaving our mark with the sole tracks going down it. The rest of the day consisted of skiing nice soft corn snow and sitting on the patio in the sun. It doesn’t get much better than that! 111/111 trails open at Sugarbush with 281 inches of snow there so far this season.