With the warmer temps coming again, I thought Turkey day might be the best morning for decent coverage. So up with the chickens to see what the new lift was all about.
Sunrise on the BRP
It was pretty empty with only a few pass holders and resort workers in the lot. It looked like they may have GW open from the road in, but it was still too thin. Only the main run from the top was open. But for Sugar to be open top to bottom this early on, makes it worth the thin coverage to me.
I didn't get first chair (I think that was Guenther and what I assume is his daughter or granddaughter), but I did get chair 1.
I brought an older board I don't care about as much and was very surprised at the coverage. Sure there were some low brown areas, but not many. I didn't hit any rocks. They smartly, hadn't groomed, so it was a little bumpy, but the snow was cold enough to hold and was a ton of fun.
It was good to get runs in and get my legs under me. The summer/fall mountain biking helps, but is no substitute for hot laps.
There was no line at all and I was able to hot lap right to the front. A quick scan of the pass and get on that big couch and repeat. The trip to the top is as advertised, about 5 mins. Just enough. I turned on my ski tracks app after a few shake down runs and even with a little lagging, instead of three, now easily five laps an hour. Probably could do six.
All in all, great job by Sugar with the new lift and the work to the place. I had to laugh that while the top is now flat and a true drop in after unloading, the load in area at the base, now has a slight up hill!
Im very curious how the flow of traffic will work with all lifts running. Seems like a it will put a lot more people into Northridge/Switchback.
As it got closer to noon, there were a few more people on the runs, but not enough to seem like a holiday. Now if we can just get some sustained cold so we can get this season started!
