Three days skiing Sunday River, Maine, USA
Just completed three days of skiing at Sunday River in Maine. Had a great time. We had two days of cold but sunny weather, with a wild and windy day in between when most of the lifts were shut.
I have skied Sunday River a number of times over the years. It is a fun mountain.
Snow conditions were great on this trip. Sunday River has had a ton of snow this winter and the slopes, on the whole, were in excellent condition (I had one of my scariest days of skiing at Sunday River about 12 years ago. When we arrived the weather was good, and then one evening it started to rain, and then at around 3 am in the morning it froze and the mountain turned in to one giant ice cube. If that wasn’t bad enough the groomers had tried to ‘bash’ the slopes and all they had managed to do was produce ‘death cookies’ and ‘marbles’ – it was horrible.).
Skiing Sunday River, Maine
We stayed in one of the hotels up in the resort. It was warm and dry, with it’s own hot-tub out the front, plus it was possible to walk to the nearest bar.
As usual there was the ‘odd’ US hotel breakfast of cereal, bagels, coffee, and pastries in wrappers. One thing that as odd was the hotel was full of English school kids. It appears with the current exchange rate ($2 to £1) that it is cheaper for English schools to take the kids skiing in the US than in France.
On the windy day we went down in to Bethel (nearest town to Sunday River) for lunch and a look around. Bethel, so I have been told, holds the world record for the world’s largest snowman, and now has the record for the largest snowwoman.
World’s Largest Snowwoman
The snowwoman has her own site and can be found at: http://www.bethelmainesnowwoman.com/ and her own blog.
Some ’snowwoman facts’ (courtesy of the snowwoman blog):
Name: Olympia SnowWoman;
Height: 122 ft. 1 inch;
Weight: 13,000,000 lbs. of snow;
5 foot wreaths for eyes;
16 skis for eyelashes;
‘Carrot’ nose made of muslin, chicken wire and wood frame by the MSAD #44 elementary school children;
5 red auto tires for lips, painted by the Mahoosuc Kids Association;
48 ft. circumference fleece hat made by the Mt. Valley Middle School students;
130 ft. scarf;
6 1/2 ft. Maine-mica snowflake pendant created by Jim Mann of Mt. Mann Jewelers;
30 ft. spruce trees for arms;
3 truck-loader tires for buttons;
2,000 ft. of rope hair!
Anyway, skiing….
Conclusions: Great trip. Two great days of skiing, and it was a shame we lost one due to wind and low cloud. The slopes were pretty much empty and there were no lift lines.
Next stop: Killington….
