Is it ski season already? The last four months have been a passionless slog through the fog. I missed October powder turns but it was for a good cause. We went back to Bermuda and I got my head straight (again). And as soon as I got back from sea level, I wasted no time heading for the top of a mountain, a place where I need to find myself more often. I have some big plans for this season, so let’s get it started.

Sunday River retained solid coverage despite a warm up and rain. The River uploaded guests to two trails: T2 and Upper Punch. A small park was setup at the top of T2 causing significant traffic issues due to parker goers yo-yo’ing. Word on the hill was that the skiing on Saturday was spring like. An overnight freeze fixed that but mountain ops had the guns cranking on all open trails and well beyond. The new man made mostly covered up the frozen hard pack.

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After loosing the first to open battle to Killington, Sunday River responded by offering significantly better terrain at a cheaper price for the Veteran’s Day weekend. While Killington offers two trails off North Ridge with hiking to download and a top to bottom route that “may require walking”, Sunday River has three and a half unique top to bottom runs in addition to a connector trail. Unfortunately for Sunday River, the snow condition quality did not match the route count quantity.

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I hoped for a half dozen runs before the lines and downloading became overwhelming. Instead, I got a baker’s dozen before the lines and downloading became barely a minor annoyance. The guns were on and then they were off. The turns were good on variable man made blow with natural and skier induced terrain obstacles. Skier’s right on T2 was sweet and Upper Punch sucked the big one. Coming off a mammoth earned turn powder day last week, this wasn’t much to write about. But it was still turns sweet turns and I’ll be back for more next weekend if the natural hasn’t returned.

Inspirational credit for the post title goes to Pat at Ski Mad World. The originally proposed title was not to be but there will be other days for sure! As for Sunday at the River, conditions varied from sliding on golf balls to sublime cheesecake: carve out a slice and dig in–de-lish!

Icelanticskier spied me in line at the Locke Mountain Triple and we partnered up for the morning. T2 was skiing proper in the morning with fine grooming which gave way to a much more variable Sunday Punch. The top to bottom run ended with fine carving on Lower Punch which gradually scraped down and bumped up later in the morning due to traffic. Upper Sunday Punch featured the afore mentioned golf ball skiing. “At least we know what that skis like, now!”

Every other chair went empty due to the mid-station loading option. The line backed up past Rocking Chair onto the end of Lower Punch. I may ski all season without waiting in a longer line. Due to the lines at the base, we loaded at mid-station once before noticing the Barker Quad starting to turn. This saved the day as more late arrivals were still adding to the customer base.

Right Stuff was nasty! And I mean that in a good way. The guns were blowing top to bottom on Right Stuff which piled up several large mounds to bank around and jump off. Two especially nice hucks were available near the start of the trail allowing for a quick one-two huck fest. Skiers left had the goods with sublime turns in and around the bumps. As the morning gave way to afternoon, skier traffic took its toll scraping the snow down considerably and further defining a few small bump sequences. My legs were shot by quarter past one when I called it a day. Right Stuff gave me far more than expected with great variable terrain features and bumps.

Four days at the River in the past month for only $100. Money well spent for some quality man made snow skiing during a dearth of natural snow. That being said, I bid farewell to Sunday River until next October with most other major resorts coming online this week.