Sunday River
07 February 1998

Weather

Perfect weather for skiing. It started cold and crisp but as the sun came out it got comfortably warm without being so warm that the snow turned to slush.

Conditions

Less than ideal. This part of New England is still recovering from a major ice storm a few weeks earlier. Although there has been some natural snowfall and lots of snow-making, the layer of ice is still there not far beneath the surface and by the end of the day, there were many areas of Maine hardpack about to catch the unwary.

Overall

I skied this day with Allen Brown and we had a pretty good day.

We started the day with a cruise down Broadway and then moved over towards the East of the resort. Quantum Leap is a fairly steep black and although it was in good condition early in the morning, there was one hard patch which gave a hint of things to come.

Airglow off the Aurore Peak lift was in excellent condition as was the traverse across to Jordan Bowl. We had one long cruise down the looping green Lollapalooza and then started back to the North Peak Lodge to pick up the 10am mountain tour - a great way to find new trails and to pace the day.

Eureka a relatively steep black looked good. The first turn however was dreadful with skis sliding all over the place. From there on, there was fresh snow from the guns and the run was really good.

Last year we took the intermediate mountain tour and this year decided to take the "black" one. By coincidence we had the same guide as a year ago. He set out to show us the complete resort systematically from West to East, with some pretty energetic skiing along the way. There was quite a lot of traversing and because of the crowds quite a lot of waiting in line. It was an excellent tour, the highlights being



After a short lunch stop, we headed back to Jordan Bowl to try the trees. Getting there was not easy. Quantum Leap has deteriorated and there were too many people trying to avoid the slick bits to ski any kind of line.

Blind Ambition through the trees was not very much fun. The trees are pretty widely spaced and there is not a great deal of gradient, but there were many patches of bare ice.

We decided to do two more blue runs and then call it a day. We did not get that far. The top of Excaliber was in pretty poor condition. There were crowds of people trying to work out a line down the top section which did not help, but almost everyone was catching ice and sliding. By the bottom we decided that we had already had a good day, didn't really want to risk injury so at just after 2:30pm we traversed back the base area.

Runs

Lift Vertical Easy Runs Intermediate Runs Advanced Runs
South Ridge Express 600 Broadway
South Ridge Express 600 Escapade
Perfect Turn 800 Quantum Leap
Aurora Peak 1100 Airglow
Aurora Peak 1100 Northern Lights, Firestar
Jordan Bowl 1350 Lollapalooza
Jordan Bowl 1350 Kansas Eureka
OZ 900 Kansas, Cowardly Lion Northern Lights
Quantum Leap 550 Peak Easy
Start of Tour
Roadrunner Downdraft, American Express, Tourist Trap
White Cap 800 Assumption
White Heat 1100 Cascades, Heat's Off Obsession
Locke Mountain 1200 Sunday Punch T2
Sunday River Express 1250 Three Mile Trail Paradigm
Aurora Peak 1100 Cyclone, State Fair Northern Lights
Jordan Bowl 1350 Kansas Eureka
OZ 900 Kansas Eureka Airglow
Quantum Leap 550 Peak Easy
Lunch Break
Backside Quantum Leap
Aurora Peak 1100 Northern Lights, Firestar
Jordan Bowl 1350 Lollapalooza Blind Ambition
Jordan Bowl 1350 Excalibur
Jordan Bowl 1350 Kansas, Spectator, Lights Out Escapade, Downdraft
Total vertical 21750

Last updated: 07/02/98