Sunday River 3/31 - 4/1/18

Rain on Friday followed by below freezing temperatures Friday night resulted in some hard conditions for our first turns Saturday morning.  We headed up the Jordan Bowl lift under bright sunny skies and rising temperatures.  The first run down Lalapalooza found some firm conditions with a lot of ice balls from their grooming efforts.

Mt. Washington from the top of Jordan Bowl.
We headed over towards the main base area.  On the way I was disappointed to find Oz closed.  There was lots of thin cover and everything looked hard and icy.  When we arrived at the chondola base, things had softened and some nice corn was starting to form.  I headed over to Whitecap and start exploring across the 8 peaks of the resort.

Heading up the White Heat Quad.  All of the higher terrain was very icy from the rain the day before.  The best skiing was to be found below the top of North Peak where the chondola offloads.  By mid morning there was plenty of soft corn to be found.  Any of the upper trails failed to soften up at all Saturday.

Softening up nicely down low.

Skied off ice on most of the upper head walls.

Bumps softening up on Black Hole on Aurora Peak.

Temperatures stayed above freezing Saturday night.  After some brief rain and snow showers early on, the sun began to poke out and the softening began.  Today was going to be a full on corn harvest!

Sun’s coming out.  Nice views everywhere.

Top of White Heat.  Which way to go?

Nice corn bumps on Shockwave.


White Heat.  This run reminds me of Killington’s Superstar.  Lots of snow guns, steep, and the chairlift runs pretty close to the ground in some spots.

Nice sunny runs on Locke Mountain.

Looking north, I believe that is Sugarloaf in the distance.





Barker Mountain had some nice soft bumps on Southpaw.  The ropes dropped on Agony under the high speed quad with more spring bumps and some challenging ice flows to navigate.  Barker and Whitecap had the best conditions today.  I skied at least half of the days runs between these two areas.

Downdraft on Spruce Peak.

Some gnarly terrain under the Spruce Peak triple.  Looks like some of the stuff under the Mad River Glen single chair.  Closed today as coverage was thin.

Welcome to the land of Oz!  

Patrol dropped the ropes on Tin Woodsman mid afternoon when things finally softened up.  This run has snowmaking, so there was a decent base.  Most of Oz is natural snow only and wasn’t open due to lack of coverage.

A few ice flows to navigate on the way down.

Finished up the day back at Jordan Bowl on some challenging blues.  As the temperatures began to drop, the days soft corn began to crunchy ice chunks, so I decided to call it a day and head back to our hotel.

Wow - have never been there and didn't realize the scenery was that impressive!  Looks like they had a tough year snow-wise; would like to try it out in a good snow year.

Sunday River looks like a pretty legit ski resort. An “all natural” trail with snowmaking seems a little odd to me.

onscott wrote

Wow - have never been there and didn't realize the scenery was that impressive!  Looks like they had a tough year snow-wise; would like to try it out in a good snow year.

Yes, the views are amazing.  March was a good month for them for snowfall, but a lot was lost in the past week.  All of their trails with snowmaking still have a substantial base though.

raisingarizona wrote

Sunday River looks like a pretty legit ski resort. An “all natural” trail with snowmaking seems a little odd to me.

The place is very wide covering 8 peaks.  Their actual vertical is around 2200’, but most of my runs were averaging around 1400’ due to the layout of the resort.
Yes, that sign kind of contradicts itself with the line of guns right alongside of it.