Castlerock Peak Liftline Powder

          This is a video from youtube, about lift line powder at Sugarbush. On a normal powder day, if you can get first tracks on Castlerock, it can be the best snow of your life because it is all natural, but then many people that do not ski Castlerock come over and try it for that one day, and the lines fill up. Since most people are scared of Castlerock, they want to try it on a safe day, where there is a lot of snow. This annoys most people that ski Castlerock normally, because we feel we are cheated.
          This was uploaded a while ago, but I feel the need to show, how good the snow can be at Sugarbush. Also on the other side, it can be pretty horrendous. This season, has probably been the worst season that Sugarbush has ever had, because of the rapid weather changes. Normally, during Christmas time, is when the back country and glades have lots of snow, and are ready to be skied. This has not happened yet, and it is the end of January.

Castlerock Peak

          The entry way to the Castlerock Peak chair has a sign on the beginning of it: "Danger this lift is for expert skiers only, it is not groomed and there is no snow making, rocks are very common and there is no easy way down" There is a big reason why it has this warning. The warning describes this peak perfectly, a peak full of cliffs, ice, and barely any snow.
          There are a total of 11 trails on this peak, and it is by far the most dangerous peak, and has the most dangerous runs. It is has two double blacks, six blacks, and three blues. From the top of the chairlift, there are three ways down, Lift Line which is a double black, that contains two cliffs on your way down and many rocks, and as the name suggests, the lift is on this trail. Next there is Castlerock Run which is the easiest black on the peak. It intertwines with Lift Line with a run called Troll Road which is a blue, if you are on Lift Line, and you need to bail off of it an go to something easier you can go to Troll Road or Hi  and Lo Road which are both flat trails that intertwine with the whole peak. Finally, there is Middle Earth.
          Middle Earth is by far my favorite run on this peak. Not only, because it has the best tree skiing on it, but it has cliffs on the sides, which are fun to jump off of, and it has a river running through the middle of it, that creates an area that is complete ice and river on the days where there is not enough snow. It has two main glades, one that you go into at the top of the trail, and the other towards the bottom. The top one is a lot longer, and has substantially better terrain, but the other one is less known and has a lot more snow. It has the best glade on the peak.
          All of the other trails on this mountains are just extensions of these three. All except for Rumble. Rumble. This trail is by far the hardest on the peak, and arguably the hardest on both mountains. It doesn't have any cliffs, but a ton of rocks, and it is the tightest trail on the mountain. This is the hard part. The tightness. You can enter Rumble by going down Lift Line half way. This is the only entrance to it.
          Castlerock peak is the hardest peak in all of Sugarbush. It has the hardest runs, and some good glades to ski in. On a powder day, it can be the nicest place on the mountain, but when there is not a lot of snow, it can be the worst spot, and the most challenging place.

Skiing in Slide Brook

Danger

"Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold."

Helen Keller

       Danger is everywhere, lurking behind every corner of life. At any moment in time, danger can spring up and attack you as fast as a pack of wolves smelling fresh meat. Everything can be dangerous, from the smallest grain of sand, to the biggest meteor in the universe; it all depends on how meteor is used. The same me while I'm skiing in the woods, the trees can be my greatest ally, or my greatest enemy. It was twenty-five degrees out, there was no cloud in sight, a perfect day for skiers. It was mid December of last year, just before the huge snowstorm that we got for Christmas. My ski group and I were at Sugarbush, a ski resort in central Vermont. We were going to try skiing Slide Brook, a valley made in between the two mountains of Sugarbush. There was not much snow pack, and there were not a lot of people going into the valley. Since the whole valley is completely trees, and no runs, it was dangerous to ski, and the bad base of snow added to the list of problems. I had just taken a turn. The snow was very bad,and there were many roots, and twigs that were popping up from under the powder. I was going towards the end of our group. I have always been a cautious skier, so I go toward the end to see where the twigs are, so I can avoid a face plant into the snow. I rarely crash in the woods, because my mind goes into overdrive, to avoid the many trees, twigs and roots. I rounded a corner, pole planted to turn, and felt the taste of snow in my mouth. I looked behind me uphill at my legs, to see a tiny little twig sticking up from the snow, with my leg right next to it. I was not hurt or anything like that, but the twig was only a few inches long. I lied there in awe wondering how such a little thing could make me fall. If I had been stopped right over the twig, it would have done nothing, but me moving at about 20 mile per hour, and hitting it, caused it to trip me. Even the smallest things, can make a huge impact on what happens to us, while skiing, or in many other places in life. Sometimes, the most unlikely things to be dangerous to us, are the most dangerous in the end.

       

Lincoln Peak

Lincoln Peak

    This post is about the Peak, Lincoln on the main mountain at Sugarbush. This peak is the highest peak, and you get to this peak via, heavens gate chair, which is a triple chair. There is a total of 9 trails on this peak, and from the top of this peak, you can access all the other trails, except for the ones on Castlerock, and North Lynx Peak. There are two double blacks, five blacks and two blues.


      There are no marked woods on this peak, but there are many unmarked glades. One of the biggest and well known glades that is unmarked, is the glade in Paradise. The Paradise trail is the secluded trail off the top of the peak, right after you get off the chairlift. It is one of the double blacks on the peak, and only daring souls go on this trail. There is no snow making on it, tons of rocks, trees in the middle of the trail, a "paradise" for experienced skiers. When there are powder days though, it is a real paradise. It is very steep, as well and on the days where it has just snowed 1 foot, and there is a nice cover underneath, no ice, and the temperature is in the mid 20s, its heaven to ski down.

     The woods though, are even better. These woods are in the top 5 on the mountain of unmarked woods. Since, at a lot of points, the woods integrate into the trail, and this makes tons of open spots in the woods, that not a lot of people know about. Even so, you have to get to these woods early if you want to ski the good stuff. Adjacent to these woods, across the Paradise trail, there is Ripdice woods. These woods are skied a lot less, than Paradise woods, but are worse than Paradise woods. It is nice to ski on those days where the trails are not that good, because you can get to spots of powder and many other places.

     On the other side of these woods, is Ripcord. Ripcord is the other double black, and is a lot easier to ski. It is groomed, and has snow making regularly which Paradise does not have. One the left side of the trail, if you are looking down it, it is a nice flat trail that is fun to bullet straight down. On the left side, there are moguls, which very icy, and not that fun to go down so people stick to the flat groomed part the most of the time. Farther down this trail is Lower Ripcord, which is a black and Lower Paradise which is also a black. Lower Paradise is also accessible from Paradise. If you turn right though from here, you can go into Paradise extension which is a flat trail, that is really easy to go down, but it is a black as well.

     The other two ways to get down from the top of the chair are, Jester, which is a windy blue that leads to Lower Jester, and Organgrinder which can be groomed, or it can have moguls. It is icy a lot of the time, so this trail is not that good most of the time. This trail leads to Lower Organgrinder as well. This is all of the trails on Lincoln Peak, but there are two more things you should know. At the top of the chair, you can choose to hike up to a wooden platform, well above where the chair lift ends. It overlooks all of Vermont, and has a great view on nice days.

     Also, if you go down Paradise, only the beginning though, you can hike to Castlerock Peak which is by far my favorite place on the mountain, and almost every experienced skier's favorite too.

Sugarbush mountain

In the winter i ski a lot, almost every weekend in fact, and I ski at a resort called Sugarbush. Sugarbush is located in Wastfield and Fayston Vermont. It is split up between two mountains, Lincoln Peak, and Mt Ellen. Lincoln Peak stands at 3,975 feet, while Mt Ellen is 4,083 feet. Mt Ellen has two peaks, Ellen and Inverness. Invernesss stands at 2,750 while Ellen peak is the top. Over at Lincoln, it has 4 peaks. Gadd peak at 3,150, Lincoln peak at 3,975, Castlerock at 3,812 and  North Lynx at 3,300. Lincoln is the main mountain, mailny because it has the most trails, most space, and it has the main resort their. The resort hotel is there along with ski school, a restaurant, and season pass station. Both mountains have a main lodge where you can get food, but Linconls is much bigger so it can cater to more people, because at some points in the year, you can wait for 20 minutes at the main lift at Lincoln, but only wait for 2 minutes at Ellen. Most people visiting for a weekend go to Lincoln because as I stated before, the ski school is there and the hotel is there. Both sides have a racing course, over on Gadd Peak, there is a NASTAR course which is a national ski racing program, in which they time you, and you can receive medals. Over on Inverness Peak, there is a real racing course on which the Sugarbush ski racers race on. This is the basic overview of the mountain, I will be going more in depth on each mountian so you can know what the best trails, and the best peaks. Here is a map down below:

What this blog will be about

This blog is a purely only outdoors blog, about the New England outdoors. I have lots of experiences to share and tell about skiing, fishing, clamming and much much more, all right here in New England. I ski almost every weekend at a place called Sugarbush, in central Vermont, near fayston, warren and waistfield.
It is two mountains, offering up 7 double blacks, 14 NAMED glades, and many other blues, greens, and a big back country valley known as slide brook. It has in total 111 trails, and consisits of two mountains. MT Ellen and Lincoln peak. I will get into more detail about Sugarbush another time, and maybe have a mountain review. I do not always go up to Vermont in the winter time though, Vermont also has lots of cliff jumping spots, streams for fly fishing, and beautiful mountains to hike. Now moving away from Vermont, down to Massachusetts where I live. In the main part of Massachusetts there is not a lot do, so on the weekends in the fall and spring and summer, I canoe and fish around the area in which I live. In the summer though, I am down on the cape a lot of the time. Down there, I sail, go clamming, bogey board, kayak and much much more. I have lots of stories about this stuff as well, in which I am very eager to share. I know my blog does not say this, but occasionally I go out west to ski there. I will post stories about the out west, but not as frequent as the stories here, in New England. I hope you stay tuned to see what stories I have on my blog.