Maine skier visits

[essslsclsact]

This thread needs to be moved to the other Maine mountains category

AMEN! It's annoying to get email thinking there's some SL info and it's about SR.

[Alpiner]

[essslsclsact]

Thanks didn’t realize there was a feature to unsubscribe from a topic.

[machski]

Is this turning into a Sunday River forum topic? Let's keep it focused on Sugarloaf.

Title of the thread is Maine skier visits. Part of my point about White Heat Quad is that SR also has some old-ass lifts that need replacing. We aren't the only ones. Next to that chair, SuperQuad feels like a ten year old sports car.

Pretty sure SuperQuad has received a lot more love and upgrades the WHQ as well over their lifespans to date. I will definitely be interested to see how Boyne plays things at SL once TL6 install.is complete. As in, will they accelerate replacing the main lifts now.

[sparty]

Dropping WH'.s replacement to White Cap base would make for a very congested base area with 3 lifts. Personally, when skiing the Heat pod, I like staying higher and not having to cycle back down to the flatter base runs. WH moves faster than Aurora, that is our slow quad. Yeah, the Yan chairs were nice back in the day but they are definitely getting long in the tooth. But WH is not a priority replacement as the lift tends to run well outside of winds. Given how exposed the summit is, not sure even a Skyline style FGQ would hold up too much better in winds.

Well, just my impression as a non-regular. Riding Little White Cap quad or White Cap quad to get to WH quad is a drag. I think having the 3 lift bases within skating distance of White Cap base would be do-able, just spread them out a bit. It's not like the other two lifts get a ton of business anyway. In theory if you extended White Heat quad to the bottom you could eliminate White Cap quad. It would make it so much easier to start your day there, and to pop in to White Cap Lodge for a warm up or potty or lunch or whatever. That lodge would instantly become much more popular and spread the crowd out from the other bases.

If you spend twenty minutes on a Saturday afternoon watching people try to get from the top of White Cap Quad back towards Barker, South Ridge and points beyond, I think you'd see why having everyone get off at the top of White Heat would be ill-advised. Plenty of people struggle with Bear Paw or Cascades; Salvation would be terrifying with that much traffic of limited skill.

They used to have stricter regulations on the White Heat lift versus the rest of the mountain (no straps or basic rentals), presumably in an attempt to limit the number of guests over their heads up top. I think the current layout does a good job of allowing for that separation by ability level.

Also, without White Cap (lift 9), high winds at the peak would mean needing to ride shuttles to escape the base area; lift 9 is relatively resistant to winds by virtue of staying below the trees.

Now, if someone suggested upgrading Little White Cap to a modern FGQ, that would probably make a significant difference in experience on that trail pod (which is pretty good terrain for skiers who aren't quite ready for North Peak yet). I'm not sure if the design speed is lower or not, but that lift certainly seems to crawl.

Upgrading lift 9 with a load carpet was in the 2030 plan; I have not checked to see if it still is.

[skiloaf]

I think noth replace and upgrade with conveyer are in the most recent version i saw but i can’t imagine you would do both in less than 5 years. Might as well wait.

[Alpiner]

Good points about White Cap Quad. Leave it then!

They definitely run Little White Cap at half speed. Ride felt as long as Snubber!

I still say extend White Heat Quad to the bottom.