Maine and its Wonders

So, Maine has been wonderful. The trip thus far:

We departed at about 2pm on Saturday. Crossed the border without a problem in Sarnia, drove through Canada all night and had a smooth crossing back into the US somewhere around 1 or 2am. We then drove the rest of the way to Sugarloaf. We arrived somewhere in the neighborhood of 5:30am and slept for an hour or so in the parking lot.

At 7am Sunday the cafeteria and ticket counter opened so we went in, got tickets and some breakfast and changed into ski gear. Sunday had some extremely nice snow, fresh powder the weekend storm.

Monday was reasonably warm and still very good snow. Tuesday was frigidly cold with 30+ mph winds, faster near the top. The temperature with winchill was said to be -60F at the top… they closed the mountain. Mark and Doug decided that that was unacceptable so they hiked up nearly to the top – took about 2+ hours to go up and I’m guessing about 15 minutes to come down.

Today was still cold (near zero) but not so windy. With ample cover the boarding and skiing was quite good.

Overall, the skiing overall has been great. I (and all of us who are doing both) have started most days on snowboard when everything is nice and freshly groomed. Around noon we ride back to the condo, have lunch and swap to skis for the afternoon. I’m really liking the option to switch since it prevents getting too worn out in one day – it was worth the effort and expense to learn to board somewhat before coming here. My skills on the board have developed nicely if I do say so myself – I’m about to the point where I can handle any blue run here riding normal, and most of them riding switch. On skis, it’s absolutely great to be able to carve a few nice turns and establish a rythm without running out of hill.

No MJN land speed records have been set yet. Mountains such as this are not really cut out for that since there is a lot of terrain variation. I’ve got one more day here, so we’ll see what tomorrow is like.

Off the hill, the staff here has been very accomodating – very pleasant. The place we’re staying is about 3 minutes walk from the base lodge and allows us to ski home any time as well as ski down a small hill to a lift up (since a 3 minute walk still kind of sucks in ski boots :-P). The place is quite nice – two bedrooms, one bath, reasonably sized living room with fire place and a small kitchen. I’ll have to remember to fire off some pictures of is prior to leaving.

That’s about it… tomorrow we check out, then ski one more day here before driving back toward Michigan to Jay Peak Vermont for two days of skiing there.

Another note, participant list for those who might care: Doug, Mark, Jeff, Callum, Kevin (Callum’s brother) and Inchai (a friend of Callum who’s name I may have just slaughtered beyond belief, but I know it sounds like the tea).

Hope those of you back home are doing well and those of you who have spring break right now are taking advantage of it in some manner. Weekend trip for later in March… still on? I vote yes, we’ll see how many are interested. Searchmont or Holliday Valley (since those seem to be the likely candidates)?

Until next time… out.