April 2013
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January 2013
1 post
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December 2012
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Maine Magazine: 45 North Sneak Preview →
Construction is finished at the all-new 45 North, and Sugarloaf’s newest restaurant is scheduled to open this weekend (December 8-9).
A while back, we invited Maine food writer Joe Ricchio to come in and sit down with Sugarloaf Executive Chef Gary Hubert for sneak preview of the new 45 North menu. His review appears in the current issue of Maine Magazine, and you can check it out right...
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November 2012
3 posts
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October 2012
4 posts
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September 2012
5 posts
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Eastern Territory - Coming This Winter
If you consulted the Sugarloaf trail map last winter, you more than likely found yourself drooling over the prospect of the vaguely and enticingly named “Eastern Territory.”
While it wasn’t ready for skier traffic last winter, our glade crew is busy right now cutting brush and extending the Golden Road to this as-yet untracked area to take you further into the Burnt Mountain...
August 2012
1 post
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July 2012
2 posts
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June 2012
2 posts
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New snow guns, new bathrooms
A few weeks back we announced the news that, thanks to a $300,000 grant from Efficiency Maine, Sugarloaf will be investing a total of $1 million in new high efficiency snow guns this summer (we actually just officially placed the order today).
The $1 million will be used to purchase 300 SV10 Impulse guns from HKD. For those unfamiliar with the company, Snow Economics Inc. / HKD Snowmakers has...
April 2012
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March 2012
3 posts
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New $1.7 million irrigation system for golf course
Summer at Sugarloaf revolves around the Sugarloaf Golf Club, and consequently, it plays a major role in the Sugarloaf 2020 vision. The future of the course took a huge step in the right direction recently, when Carrabassett Valley residents voted overwhelmingly in support of a new $1.7 million irrigation system, which will be installed this summer.
The cost of the system will be split between...
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December 2011
3 posts
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Brackett Basin in ESPN.com's Year in Review
This week ESPN.com took a look at the year in freeskiing and boiled it boiled it down to the ten biggest stories, and our Brackett Basin expansion landed us at number 7. Not bad, especially when you consider that other top stories included freeskiing’s inclusion in the Olympics and a first descent of the 20,320-foot south face of Denali.
You can check out the full list at...
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OPEN!
It was quite a scene out there today as hundreds of Sugarloafers gathered at the bottom of Skyline to be the first to ride the new lift. Boyne Resorts’ President Stephen Kircher joined Sugarloaf General Manager John Diller to say a few words and officially cut the ribbon.
The first four seats on chair #1 of the new quad were occupied by Meredith Strang Burgess, Doug Stewart, Chris...
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Go Time.
BIG. NEWS.
It’s been a long process, to say the least, but after years of planning, months of construction, several weeks of tests and inspections, and several more weeks of snowmaking (and waiting for weather to cooperate), we’re ready to open up Skyline to all of you this Saturday, December 17, at high noon.
We’ll have a short ribbon-cutting ceremony, share a few thoughts on...
November 2011
4 posts
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Load test!
One of the final pieces of the Skyline puzzle was completed today, with a full dynamic load test of the new lift. Members of the Maine Tramway Board and engineers from our insurance provider were on had today to conduct the test, which simulates the operation of a fully loaded lift using boxes filled with water.
The procedure is designed to test all aspects of the lift’s operations,...
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Powder Magazine
If you haven’t received your December issue of Powder Magazine yet (and if you’re not a subscriber, why on earth not?) get yourself to a newsstand and check out Porter Fox’s incredible feature on Sugarloaf and the Sugarloaf 2020 plan. The spread spans an incredible ten pages, and features many of the classic Sugarloaf characters we all know and love. The photos by...
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It's Alive
The crew finished hanging all of the chairs on Skyline earlier this week, and now they’re working on fully assembling all of the chairs - adding seat pads, arms, and safety bars. It’s kind of a tedious process, but the lift is now looking more complete than ever. And the seat pads are actually mighty comfortable too - I tested one of them out myself and can safely say that this will...
October 2011
6 posts
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WatchWe picked up our first measurable snow of the season last night, with six inches or so of fresh fluff covering the mountain. We LOVE snow around here, but it can add a challenge when crews are trying to finish up offseason projects. The weather is forecast to return to some more seasonable temps for the rest of the week, however, which will allow the glade crew to keep cutting in Brackett Basin,...
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Say Hello to Skyline
Our posts have been a bit sparse over the past week (our apologies) but the Skyline crew has still been busy, and this baby is getting closer to completion everyday. The new gates and conveyor loading system have been installed, as has the diesel backup engine (which the crew fired up for the first time yesterday), the comm lines are up, the new lift building is nearly complete, and...
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Two new cats join the fleet
Sugarloaf’s groomers have a reputation as some of the best in the business, and this year they’ll have two brand new machines to work with. We’ll be adding a pair of new Prinoth BR 350s to the fleet this winter - straight off the showroom floor, complete with that new cat smell and everything. One of the new cats will be replacing an older model, so overall we’ll be adding...
September 2011
15 posts
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Brackett Basin Update
It was a beautiful morning here at Sugarloaf, so I took the opportunity to tag along with the glade crew and check out what they’ve been up to over in Brackett Basin. After a brisk ride up mountain and some spectacular views of the morning fog rolling over Burnt Mountain, we hiked in and found out what these guys have been up to.
When you first enter Brackett, there’s no noticeable...
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Splicing!
The Skyline crew tackled a big job today - splicing together the two ends of the 21-ton haul rope. The process of splicing a haul rope for a lift is fairly complex, and requires the supervision of an expert who specializes in this type of splicing. But in simplified terms, the crew basically carefully unwinds each end of the rope back about 90 feet, and then carefully winds them back together...
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Stringing the haul rope
With all of the Skyline towers in place, thanks to last weeks helicopter excitement, the next order of business is stringing the new haul rope (cable). As you may recall from an earlier post, this particular haul rope is bigger than your average cable, weighing in at a bulky 21-tons. And as you can probably imagine, getting a 21-ton cable up onto the towers and around the bullweels is a bit of...
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More Video
Here are a couple more videos of yesterday’s towers install. The first is by local Sugarloafer and video-editor-extraordinaire Joel Osgood, who will be making a number of videos for us throughout the season. The second is from Scott Thistle and Russ Dillingham of the Lewiston Sun Journal. They brough a GoPro along and mounted it on a tower for some very cool footage. Enjoy!
Skyline Towers...
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Liftoff!
It was quite a show here at Sugarloaf this morning, with a huge helicopter taking the new Skyline towers from the parking lot up to their new homes on the Spillway trail. The helicopter was a Sikorsky S-61N, provided by Construction Helicopters out of Howell, Michigan.
The pilot had ice in his veins, and perfectly maneuvered a total of 18 towers into place in roughly 3 hours, including a stop to...
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Preparing for takeoff...
The Skyline crew is busy today, making sure everything is prepared for tomorrow when a helicopter will on site to fly the new Skyline towers into place. We’re told that if weather and everything else cooperates, all 19 of the towers could be in place within as little as 3-4 hours.
If you’re in the area, feel free to stop by and check out the action. The crew estimates that the first...
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Motor room, haul rope, and a big bad crane
This is going to be a busy week for the Skyline project, and it started with a busy day today. The biggest crane to visit us yet arrived today to lift the 21-ton haul rope and the 18-ton motor room.
The haul rope spool needed to be lifted onto a trailer, hauled up the mountain, and then onto a stand at the bottom terminal, from which it will eventually be unspooled (not sure that’s a word)...
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Wind Fence
One of the ultimate goals for the new Sklyine lift is to be as wind-resistant as possible. Toward that end, the lift has been designed with heavier chairs, a heavier haul roper, shorter towers, and shorter spans between towers. We’re also installing wind fence. Lots of wind fence.
You’ve seen wind fence around the mountain in a few locations - top of the SuperQuad, top of Double...
