Throwback Thursday: Sunday River October 16, 2009

5 years ago on this date October 16, 2009 I had the awesome, unforgettable experience of lift service skiing at Sunday River in Maine. It was wild driving through the White Mountains that morning, feeling as if I was about to go on a day long leaf peeping hike because it was only mid October and there was still quite a lot of Fall color hanging onto the trees. The crazy thing is I wasn’t going on a hike to peep, I was going on a lift to ski! (and peep, too, which was bonus!) My previous record for earliest lift serviced skiing was October 30th back in the early 90s at Killington, so to break this 20+ year ski record of mine made the day that much more exciting!

Classic early season New England manmade snow mixed in with changing leaves became a confusingly surreal aspect to the day. Every skier and rider there, all crammed onto the same trail down T2 to the Locke Triple mid station to go back up, or down. The downloading process from the mid station to the base was also a very cool and unique part of the day. There weren't that many people there skiing that day so I barely stood in a lift line.  The longest was waiting to download back to the bottom since Sunday Punch was closed but looked so good.   

The snow coverage on T2 was great on the 16th because of the long, cold night of snowmaking they had going into that morning. Most of the trail was bumped up but they were very fun, mellow bumps to comfortably jam through. And there was also some small, natural side trail features not blocked off and open to be sessioned on the way by. Even though it was only one trail, the options were open to really mix things up. I lapped that run a lot and had a blast skiing it each time!

What started as a mid-Winter morning with cold temps and snow guns blazing then becoming milder in the afternoon with the sun breaking out and softening the snow just enough to turn conditions Springlike, yet we were in the heart of Fall. Such an epic mix of three seasons that they day quickly became one of my favorite days on skis. It easily turned into a ‘it doesn’t get any better than this’ type of day!