Spring Snow On The Slopes

PHOTO: Yours truly skinning up the Sun Bowl Lift Line at Mount Sunapee last week. They stopped running the lifts but there was still plenty of snow to be found for those that were willing to earn their turns by skinning or hiking up the mountain. Check out SnoCountry.com for current New England resorts snow conditions reports. Do you think anyone will still be open until June this year? Only time will tell.

by Amy Patenaude
Outdoor/Ski Writer

Yikes, a snowstorm one day and 70 degrees the next! Mother Nature sure likes messing with snowsport fanatics.
Most of the ski areas have closed for the season. Loon Mountain’s closing day was last Sunday. Black Mountain in Jackson has decided to hang in there and plans to operate Friday through Sunday until May 3rd.. Black made snow on April 10th with hopes of making sure they are the last ski area open in New Hampshire this season.
Jay Peak, Killington, Sugarbush, Sugarloaf and Sunday River are also vying to see which resort will be the last to close in New England. Northern Vermont and Maine have received a lot of snow this April.
Some ski areas shut down because they run out of skiers and snowboarders before they run out of snow. Warm spring snow isn’t easy either. The snow can be like toothpaste–thick and sticky. That makes golfing and bicycling even more attractive than skiing this time of year.
I made it to Loon on Friday before they closed for the season. They were only running one lift, the gondola, which accessed 26 trails and their large terrain park. I wasn’t planning on going skiing but the temperatures dropped below freezing during the night and the forecast predicted it was going to be very warm all weekend.
Plus Jeannie texted me to come join them and that got me out of the house early to get to Loon before the lift opened. The first hour was the very best and there was no lift line. The snow was packed corn and was fast and dreamy. By ten o’clock a lot of people that had the same idea showed up and the lift line grew long out of the gondola building.
The weather was sunny. The temperature was 40 degrees when we started and by Noon it was over 60 degrees.

Lois had to leave at 11 am to make her tee time for her afternoon golf game. The rest of us made it until Noon, by then snow had turned into spring snow. Our tired legs were happy we quit.
Yesterday Becca and I skinned up Mount Sunapee. Sunapee’s last day was April 6th but their man-made snow covered trails are still hanging in there. In the late afternoon no workers were on the mountain but a handful of skiers and snowboarders were arriving. People were coming down the slopes and others were just putting on their equipment and their skins on their skis.
Becca has a split board and she had to arrange the snowboard bindings in the position for skiing and she put the wide skins on each piece of her split board.

We headed up Lynx from the base, skied down to the bottom of the Sun Bowl. We then skinned up the Sun Bowl lift line to the summit. The ice is out on Lake Sunapee and we filled our eyes with views of the surrounding brown mountains and far away we could see the white capped Franconia Range.
We then took Blast-Off all the way back down to the base. Snow depths ranged from bare ground to four feet deep. Since it was cool and windy the snow never transformed into spring sticky snow but stayed fast corn snow. It was fun enjoying their leftover snow.
Becca is taking white water kayak lessons now and this was her first time spring splitboard/snowboarding since she has been paddling the swollen rivers. I got my bicycle out this week. But I sure hope to get a few more days of skiing this month.
Have fun.