Mount Sunapee Review

On Tuesday, February 11^th, I was fortunate enough to travel southwest of Plymouth over to Newbury, NH and try out Mount Sunapee Resort. This mountain, which was a little over an hour away from PSU (much to my surprise, I anticipated it being further away), was an interesting mountain to go explore.  If you are the type of person who likes to just cruise on a mountain, then this is the place for you!!

Basic things about Mount Sunapee

-66 trails (17 greens, 32 blues, 17 diamonds/double diamonds)

-6 chair lifts, 5 carpets/rope tows

-Summit elevation of 2,743 feet above sea level

-1,510 foot vertical drop

-233 acres of skiable terrain (which results in 18 miles)

-97% snowmaking

-$72 for a lift ticket during the middle of the week for adults (ages 19-64), $76 for a ticket weekend/holiday

Lift Lines/Chairlifts

Since I went to Mount Sunapee on a Tuesday, it wasn't too busy at all (outside of a few school groups). Because of this, the lift lines weren't too long, and allowed me to jump on a chairlift as soon as I was done with a trail. The main chairlift, Sunapee Express Quad allows you to explore almost all of the terrain on the mountain, and takes only six minutes to reach the summit. Unfortunately, this is the only high-speed chairlift that the mountain has to offer. There is a chairlift that is on the east side of the mountain that is another quad, but takes ten minutes to reach the top. It was painful to wait on this chairlift, as it crawled up the mountain to the summit slowly. The third and final quad chairlift allowed for service of the beginner section of the mountain. Two chairlifts towards the bottom of the mountain give you the ability to hit the bottom half of the mountain, with one of those chairlifts dedicated to three trails that have park features on them. This makes it convenient for skiers/snowboarders who like this aspect of the sport.

Overall, due to the shape of this mountain, it has the potential to get extremely crowded at the chairlifts that go to the peak of Mount Sunapee.

Trail Variety/Challenge

There is a pretty good variety of trails across the mountain, with some trails making you wonder if they should be listed as being easier or harder than they actually are (as most ski resorts do).  From the summit, the trail that is listed as being the easiest way down the mountain is a blue (in Upper Ridge), and I wouldn't classify it as a cake-walk to a beginner (after all, though, it is a blue). Since there is a completely separate beginner area for newbies, it allows them to gain some confidence before they get to the big mountain. As far as more challenging terrain goes, there are a few trails that are steeper like Flying Goose and Blast-Off, that allowed for you to gain some speed. A number of the longer trails allowed for cruising, which bodes well for most people who participate in downhill snow sports.  The glades that are on this mountain aren't that necessarily long, but they are challenging in that they are on some steeper terrain, and aren't cleared out of trees.

These trails are ones that were longer then I had anticipated, and are wide enough for people to not have to worry about running into other skiers/snowboarders.

Terrain Park

Having a chairlift that was dedicated to three separate terrain park trails was pretty neat. The three trails had different levels of features, as there was a trail with smaller features (10' boxes/rails, small jumps), a medium sized park (15'-20' features and bigger jumps), and a larger park (30' rails, S- boxes, Step-up jumps). Some of these features aren't as big as other mountains in the region (specifically Loon and Waterville), but were good enough to get enjoyment out of.

Grooming/Snow

Upon getting onto the mountain at about 11:00 A.M., I was able to find a couple of trails in which I was still able to go over groomed terrain. On the trails themselves, there were a number of "rollers" on the trails, which is awesome if you like to get in a few jumps on the actual trail. If you are the type of person that doesn't like the sensation of getting a little bit of airtime on random spots on the mountain, it will be tough for you to enjoy a number of these trails.

Intangibles

The scenery there was awesome, in that you can see Lake Sunapee on approximately 50% of the mountain. It is awesome to be able to see the lake while cruising down the mountain.

Something that I found to be convenient was the main parking lot. It was more or less level with the Sunapee Express Quad chairlift, so you didn't need to walk up many stairs/hills in order to get to the chairlifts. If you carry your ski/snowboard with you, you know how much of a pain in the neck this can be when you are walking from your car to the lodge or lifts.

The staff that I dealt with was extremely friendly, and told me various trails/routes to check out while I was skiing. The chairlift tenants were relatively quiet, and didn't interact too much, which I found to be a shame. Inside of the lodge, the person that was serving me at the bar was extremely nice, and had a smile that could have melted (inset celebrity here)'s heart.

Unlike Cannon Mountain, amongst a few other resorts around here, there wasn't one part of the mountain that was windy, which also meant that there weren't many, if any, icy parts of the terrain.

Final Reaction/Thoughts

I had anticipated that this mountain was going to be a little bit more challenging then it was. Since I realized relatively quickly that this wasn't going to be too challenging of a mountain, I started to enjoy a number of the "cruiser" trails that were present. Overall, had the Sunbowl Quad (the 10 minute chairlift) been able to go up the mountain quicker, I believe that I would have been much more impressed with this mountain.