Jim Schley

Fifty-six inches of snow fell at Sugarbush from Wednesday through Saturday morning. FIFTY-SIX INCHES! It was pretty unreal. The bottom-line was that the snow was very deep everywhere on the mountain. The quality and consistency of the snow varied widely, though. It was very wet near the base, with a high liquid equivalent to the snowfall. During the course of the two storms that combined to hammer the higher terrain, there were periods of ice and rain, but the end product was great up high on the mountain with the deep base and about eight inches of fluff sitting on top where it was sheltered from the wind. Other places, where 60 mph+ gusts hit, were totally stripped of snow leaving bare ice, and other spots, like the top of Paradise and Spillsville had enormous drifts. On Saturday, we enjoyed Murphy’s Glade and Lower Birdland while the snow was still coming down in the morning. As the upper mountain opened up, we got in line to hit up Paradise, Spillsville, and some high-elevation woods which were all awesome. It was a busy day and the line got huge at Heaven’s Gate so we moved down to Castlerock where the line was also huge. It was worth it, and Murph and I enjoyed one of our best runs ever down Liftline followed by an incredible run through Rumble woods. We finished the day after another run through the high elevation woods off Heaven’s Gate. Was sore on Sunday! Had great runs down Castlerock Run and Paradise Woods and then spent the rest of the day at North Lynx. Awesome weekend!