psuhoffman

I am aware of the issues. I know they didn't just close it for no reason. But waiting until 2 days before to announce this was inexcusable and frankly I find it odd some are defending them at all. How do you defend not telling people so they can make plans. Selling spring tickets without telling people. They also originally were doing absolutely NOTHING to compensate for the loss of HG. They have since relented and announced they will keep the gate house side open as long as possible. This is "something" at least. It does not excuse them for keeping this a secret all winter though when people could have made plans or informed decisions. Also, some of their excuses are weak imo because they are based on decisions they made earlier in the winter. Yea now its too late for them to do anything about the staffing issue but that was a decision they made months ago. I am slightly less upset now that they at least are leaving gate house open. That is something...but it's not supposed to be my job as the customer to understand the problems. It's supposed to be their responsibility to not let their problems affect me negatively. In my opinion they did not try hard enough to do that in this case. Actually originally their plan was to do absolutely NOTHING, just close HG and offer absolutely nothing and hope I understand. That is not acceptable. And even now, we shouldn't have had to force them to open gate house by complaining, and their lack of communication... sorry nothing anyone says makes me ok with what they did. They are taking us for granted and I don't let people treat me that way! I can give my money to other places they don't take my patronage for granted.

I found it odd, not sure why they did that the week I was there. I know in the past they had great terrain variety when I visited in April. They did have a freeze before I arrived, perhaps they thought it was necessary for safety reasons. Glad others have confirmed that is not the normal.

Last spring I visited Sugarloaf mid April and they had groomed everything. I was incredibly disappointed as I love bumps. I actually left a day early and went to killington on the way back and they had plenty of mogul runs! Does anyone know of this is a common issue? I was at sugarloaf in years past during Spring and I remember them having some natural terrain with moguls. I asked the resort and got a very non answer like “we focus on safety and please check out conditions page for trail info”. planning a trip in 2 weeks and just don’t want to drive 10 hours and have the same thing happen. Sugarloaf is a better mountain but if they are going to groom the whole thing into a boring flat surface again I’ll go to Vermont!

@bwt3650 do you work for SG? Otherwise I don’t understand why you would have this attitude. Yes they have reasons. Yes finding way to compensate with a plan b (keeping Ellen open, starting the project later) would have cost them money and been difficult, but that’s their responsibility to their customers. It’s not my job as the customer to care about their logistical problems in providing me with the promised service. That’s their problem. Instead they made a bunch of excuses why they are basically choosing not to do anything and make their logistical issues my problem by offering less service than is acceptable and was implied when they sold their season passes. You shouldn’t have to explain why they are screwong us over. It’s their job to wind a way NOT to screw is over. They had options. Instead they made excuses why they didn’t choose those. Yes it wolf have cost them money. That’s their problem. They chose their bottom line over providing the expected experience to their loyal customers. For that we should hurt them the only way that matters. They won’t ever get my money again! I am urging anyone else who agrees the way they handled this was unacceptable to do the same. don’t give your money to someone that treats you like this! On Facebook it seems most agree with me. Hopefully this will end up hurting them enough that it serves as a lesson the next time a resort wants to do something stupid like this!

You have neglected to touch on the one part of this that makes it unforgivable. The fact they waited until yesterday to tell us. Meanwhile they were selling April passes and taking reservations. And people were making plans. I could have planned out my winter and spring differently had I known. That is the part that is inexcusable. Also the part about staff is totally their choice. They allowed that to happen. That’s an excise and not a valid one.

@vtski and why are they replacing a triple that works fine when they have major infrastructure issues on Ellen? I never experience the number of lift issues anywhere else that I do at sugarbush. But it’s not the HG lift. Plus can Lincoln peak even withstand the increased traffic from a quad? There aren’t many runs off the summit. There is so much about this that seems off. It the unforgivable part is the lack of communication.

Then why not keep Ellen open instead like they used too? That’s the better spring skiing mountain anyways. And why the lack of communication until yesterday when they were selling post April 1 discount tickets all season and people were making reservations? And why are you the one explaining this and not them? Im sure there are reasons. I doubt they just shook a magic 8 ball to bet this decision. But they botched the whole thing. Maybe it would have gone over better if they announced this months ago and explained the reasoning and offered some discount on spring passes. But they did none of that. Sorry this is an indefensible and imo unforgivable act. And unless they do something to rectify (either reverse the decision to close Lincoln or keep Ellen open) I am done with them forever. There are plenty of other good mountains that don’t behave this way and have never left me feeling this screwed over. They can keep their new summit quad. I’ll never be on it.

Oh I am 100% this decision was the best for their bottom line (in the short term) given the factors you both stated. But it was the wrong thing to do in the long run. They screwed all their loyal customers who make up a disproportionate % of late season visitors. Sometimes you need to just do what’s right by your people and in the long run it will work out in terms of $. Problem is too many corporations are only worried about the next quarters numbers.

They waited until yesterday to announce this. That alone is unforgivable. People made plans. If they can’t keep Ellen open due to state lands then the decision to close Lincoln early is even more idiotic and insulting. If they can’t get the summit of Lincoln open on time who cares. They have Ellen. Plus early season sucks. There is no way to spin this that is any less horrific in terms of their calculus and communication.

Absolutely insulting decision by sugarbush to close half of Lincoln peak April 1st to install a new summit quad. Not announcing it until now and not keeping Ellen open as an alternative make this unforgivable. Also the idiotic decision to prioritize opening on time v ending the season early when the better skiing is almost always Spring! I hate to say it but after 30 years enjoying sugarbush I think I’m done with them forever after this. Unless they change their mind and fix this somehow I’ll probably never ski there again. If you agree please call and send them an email letting them know how horribly they’ve screwed up.

I wasn’t exaggerating. I terms of temps and snow since 2010 DC has had the climate we would expect from southern NC

At some point as it warms the odds of that one storm hitting decrease significantly. There were a few stj waves that came along and took a decent track (or would have with any cold air over the top) But the whole continent was warm. One perfect track storm rained all the way to the mountains in northern New England around Xmas!

If you know how to ski I can see this... but I was talking specifically for learning. I've taught about 25 people and it's much harder for them to get comfortable and establish the basic balance needed when they are sliding all over on ice. Your first day on skis is not really the right time to learn how to ride your edges lol.

@Maestrobjwa I agree with others...don't go out west to learn how to ski. Liberty near Gettysburg is actually a good mountain to learn. I taught my kids there. The best time to learn IMO would actually be a warmer day when there would be less distraction from being cold or overly bundled up nor the need to buy a bunch of skiing specific clothes you might never use again...and the snow will be soft and mushy. You don't want icy conditions when trying to learn.

Shocked the gfs was too cold and caved to the euro. Just a crazy development

For anyone that doesn’t read the article, he started 13 of the 700 fires. Quote from the article below… “Despite a string of conspiratorial theories over the summer, amplified by Alberta’s premier, nearly all of Canada’s fires were caused by lightning striking the tinder-like condition of forests.”

Awesome find. It shows both the improvements and confirms there has been a bit of a plateau since 2010. Perhaps the advent of AI ushers in the next leap?

How is asking you a simple question “trying to drive you away”? You’ve criticized the use of certain indices commonly used to identify analogs. So isn’t it a fair question then how you identify analogs? You say you want non model focused discussions but 3 times recently when I attempted to engage with you in exactly that way by asking a benign question, you got weirdly hostile. As for stalking…

What criteria do you use to identify analogs for your seasonal forecast?

hasn't almost everyone in here been saying for weeks that it's over...not gonna snow.

@stormy it has rarely been cold enough to snow the last 5 years. Yes it gets cold enough once in a while each winter...but when you spend 80% of the winter "too warm" that is not bad luck when most storms come along when it's too warm...that is just math.

I am going to address this and your previous post here. From 2014 to 2018 was a positive PDO spike and taken as a whole was a very snowy period. From 2007 to 2013 the PDO was negative and other than 2010 those years all sucked. There is more to the PDO than the raw numbers. It is also NOT a magic bullet operating in a vacuum. But if you look at the last 5 deeply negative PDO periods, they all sucked major ass wrt snowfall here. 1949-1957, 1971-1976, 1989-1992, 2007-2013 and 2020-2024 were the last 5 deeply negative PDO periods and they all were incredibly low snowfall here. But the PDO is not the end all wrt snowfall. We can get a +PDO low snowfall season if other factors are not good. A +AO can offset a +PDO, for example. And we have in the past been able to get a snowy winter in a -PDO, but those mostly came during weak or moderately -PDO periods not strongly -PDO cycles. Look at the 1960s for example...and the snowiest seasons came early in the 60s when the PDO was positive...yes it remained snowy into the -PDO cycle later but it was a weak to moderate -PDO cycle NOT a deeply negative one. Once the PDO went deeply negative in the early 70's the snowfall stopped! There is a matter of degrees to this. No one factor makes up 100% of the equation wrt our snowfall. But what the last 75 years suggests is that when the PDO goes into a deeply negative cycle we are in big trouble and it tends to suck. A deeply negative PDO cycle seems to overwhelm the rest of the pattern and it's very hard for us to get much snow regardless of what those other factors are doing during these ---PDO periods. When the PDO improves does it mean we suddenly get a ton of snow? No. We might get a +AO season, in which case the PDO won't matter. The truth is we are south of where it reliably snows and so we need multiple factors to line up in order to get snow. But one of those factors is the PDO and it would be very helpful if it would get out of the suck ass phase that it is in now.

Like TSG said it depends on lots of factors... I know a lot of hacks that help keep the cost down. I have southwest account and charge everything I do then use points so I usually fly "free". Otherwise a regular flight from Baltimore to Denver is going to cost you about 300-600 depending on when you book and what airline you use. If you want to stay right at the mountains it can get very pricy, but there are cheaper options. For Winter Park for instance you can save a lot if you stay 30 mins away in the town of Granby instead of at Winter Park. Then you can find a decent place for 100 a night v the 250+ you're going to spend to stay closer to the mountain. If you ever have a specific place in mind I could give you a better idea what the options are and what the likely cost would be.

He isn’t always wrong

It’s kinda hilarious we get missed to the north and south AT THE SAME TIME!