Sugar bowl powder days?

sltmarc

sltmarc

Member
well after 6 years on the south shore, i might lose my place this winter. I hate to leave heavenly because it has become a second home to me and i know every fold and crease of the mountain. was thinking of keeping my summer rental for the winter at donner lake and thinking of getting a boreal pass for park. but I need a powder day pass. squaw is way too pricey (1800). alpine is a bit far from donner lake and weekday passes are around 550. sugar bowl is right up the road from donner lake and the passes are reasonably priced. I skied there once a couple years ago and looks like there is some good sidecountry runs down to donner lake as well as some cliffs to bomb.

any input on sugar bowl on powder days? does it get boring or is there enough terrain to keep a rider interested for 35+ powder days a year. also, does old donner lake road stayed plowed during the big dumps or do you have to go up and around on the 80? thanks
 
the terrain there is really fun, lots of cliffs and some cool chutes but nothing that will make you shit your pants unless they open the palisades. unfortunately the conditions usually aren't safe enough for them to do that, but the day after a storm when things have settled a bit it's sick! good tree skiing and sidecountry stashes for sure though. i bet you could have 35 really fun days there and not get bored.

40 will close when it gets really deep though.
 
There are seriously so many sick places in and around Sugar Bowl... the backside off lincoln has some of the gnarliest cornice drops, and the tree skiing is quite phenominal. Plus, if you feel super adventurous, you could take the AT setup and track it over to squaw. it takes about 5 hours or so, but if the weather is nice, its a really cool journey with lots of ups and lots of downs. If you know how to tele, thats the best, but AT isnt bad.
 
You can't go wrong with sugar bowl on a powder day. There is definitely enough in bounds to keep you occupied if you know where to look, and the sidecoutry is amazing. You've already spotted the lines off Judah down to Donner which can be amazing. Dropping off the train tunnels and such. If you take 40 it is an 8 minute drive to the Judah parking lot. Don't worry about 40 closing. Sugar Bowl now takes care of keeping it plowed and it rarely closes on powder days, but it still does on occasion.

Don't count out Alpine though. It isn't as far as you think. If you get up early its probably a 25 minute drive as long as you beat the traffic.

Sugar Bowl is my favorite mountain because I grew up skiing there and can get there from my cabin in no time. But I love Squaw also. You really can't beat it for the terrain. Crowds get rough sometimes, but it looks like you already counted that out anyway.
 
Dont be so sure of that one. Some employees of sugarbowl used to have a "friend" in a cal trans worker that helped them out, mainly to help get late night/early morning people to and from work. They lost that guy this year though, so we'll see. It will get cleared, but probably not as fast as the past few years. But you never know.

On days after HUGE storms, its NEVER open. So just be ready to leave 10 minutes earlier to take 80.

Oh, and you will find me shredding there every pow day this season.
 
Hahah uh ohhh. 10 minutes earlier sucks. but 18 minutes to primes skiing is still amazing. just make sure you remember to wake up.
 
I normally ski alpine cuz i have a cabin there, but my friends worked in the park at sugarbowl this past year so I got some vouchers throughout the year, and I am definitely pissed I have been hitting it up as much as I did this past season. Some of my favorite powder days have been at sugarbowl, especially midweek. it can get tracted out pretty fast on the weekends, but like everyone has said, its got great sidecountry and ASI kicks ass too. should be a good season too. and you get to hotbox the gondola at the end of the day. what more could you ask for.
 
well, not bored! just worried it might be a little small. guess i am just worried about leaving the south shore where i know the heav so well. nothing really to bomb there but 5000' heli worthy runs down to minden are hard to give up;)
 
thanks to all the positive contributions to my question. its looking like it might be time to try out a fresh mountain...
 
Sugar Bowl, is definately nice. Im doing the same as you, but im a little broke, so im just riding boreal at night.

Hopefully i can handle 10+ hrs a day. lol
 
While I grew up at Alpine and do think that there is far more "side country" there to keep you occupied, I am still a huge fan of Sugar Bowl. Most anything at sugar bowl is lift served, with some extra effort to get to Strawberry fields or a hike to judah bowl, and plenty of drops, great trees, and some fairly decent steeps if you know where to look. IMO it has as much as most of us can handle. As far as Palisades goes, by far the craziest shit in all of tahoe, yet very rarely open. The lines down to donner, while the gates are marked on the trail map, i have yet to talk to anyone who has skied them although they look sick. My best reccomendation would be to hit up The 58's, it's got trees, steeps and plenty of great lines and drops, the closer to the Palisades you get (on either side) the better! As far as the deepest days or crowded days go, put the effort out to hit up Strawberry fields, amazing, steep trees. Overall the a great palce, and some really big terrain for such a relatively small resort.

Plus they have Black Butte Porter on tap. You can't go wrong with either Alpine or Sugar Bowl.
 
sugarbowl is awesome because you can do 11 or 12 hour days there, and at boreal..

A whole bunch of times last season I ended up hitting boreal after 6 hours of hitting freshies at sugar bowl... soft landings at boreal after a powder day are FUNN.
 
Sugar bowl is slowly stepping up their park as well. They will have their half pipe at the top of the Golden gate park, where the entrance to the park was last year, down to where there is normally the first big jump. The park run will now alsorun from the top of juda all the way down.
 
I hope they step up their park, because it absolutely sucked last year. Well..they just need to build good jumps, because they were small with flat landings. More rails (not boxes) would be nice as well.
 
Jib funding there is little to non existent. But they have a sick lead park builder in JP, so a good jump line(at least the bigger line) should be good.
 
Very true. Sadly though the topography in their park is not really the best for a nice jump line, just to flat for too long in the middle. we'll see what happens.

Also do you guys know about the redbull sponsored season long Skier-X training course they are making? Going to be the first in the US to have a full time groomed out skier cross on a pro scale. It will run on tunnel 41 which is skiers right of the golden gate park/cold stream. Should be killer.
 
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