After a week of rebuilding, Sugarbush has done a nice job of
replenishing their standard terrain, and added a couple of little extras.
I was worried, and all signs pointed to no Top-to-bottom for the weekend,
but the 5 inches of natural must have been just enough to put them over
the top.  For the first time this year, I skied without a download!  I
also had two SKIVT encounters, meeting up with the mighty Mr. Wright in
the baselodge at the beginning of our day, and Mr. Rossi right at the end.
        I was with my friend Chris, and we started the day off at Birch
Run.  I know what people say about over grooming, but you couldn't get
less groomed than this.  It was a mixture of manmade, with natural in
there, and I bet to hell it was sweet for those folks that got first
tracks down it.  By the time we got there it was mostly chowder, the
lightest snow being up top, and things getting a bit heavier in the
sun-baked sections as you got lower.  I was still able to scrounge some
fresh tracks off the edges, but the cover is still thin, so one had to be
careful where it wasn't packed.  I hit numerous rocks and accessories
below the fluff, but I'd brought my good ol' boards and they took the hits
with style (That means that the new gouges do not bother them because they
are used to it or something).  After four runs there of tough skiing (man
I would have loved to test drive some mid-phats in there), we headed over
to Mt. Ellen on the Slide Brook.
        The trail "Cruiser", which prevents downloading on the North
Ridge, was temporarily closed for a grooming, patrol said that it was a
breakable crust that was hell to ski (Prolly manmade on top of the
natural).  We hit all the stuff off the summit, and unlike Birch Run,
cover was wall to wall great, packed powder, with ice being a hard thing
to find (I found a little on the left side of Elbow and Lower Elbow).
Lookin' Good had a roped off section where there was a bare patch, but
that was about it for anything major.  My pick was probably the top skiers
right of Rim Run.  FIS was closed, but a nice ridge of loose snow had
built up along the rope, which eventually turned into skiing amongst the
little trees along the right side of the first Rim Run pitch.  Lower Rim
Run also had great snow, and a big roped off jump for somethingorother.
We took Cruiser down to the North Ridge Chair - watch out - coverage is
pretty good in the flatter sections with nice packed powder, but a couple
of the steeper sections are thin.  Still, this avoided a big download, and
the snow was good.
        We returned via the Slide Brook Express, and were able to ski down
via Pushover and Lower Pushover to the base of the Gate House lift.
Coverage was good, except in a few spots where grass was coming through,
but hardly worth taking a download.  I didn't visit Jester / Downspout,
but it looked like snowmaking was going on over at Organgrinder.  A great
day, windy, but the clouds were doing crazy things all over the mountain
as they slowly broke up.  They were screaming just over the top of Lincoln
Peak, and if you tricked yourself, you could believe that the mountian was
heading toward Lake Champlain at a pretty good clip, cool illusion.
Tomorrow is Demo day at the 'bush, I hear it costs $10 to demo, but it
looks like they have a lot of companies represented, we'll see how it is.

J.Spin