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| This is the best view I got all day. |
I am frankly unsure if I have been to Mount Sunapee before. I may have been way back in the day, but I cannot remember, so this was pretty much another new experience for me. Unfortunately I picked a truly terrible day to visit. The forecast was calling for snow, but at the base we were getting a nice, steady rain. Somewhere about halfway up the mountain it changed to snow, which helped mitigate the soaking I was getting, but it was still a very wet day. Conditions everywhere on the mountain were extremely, extremely slow. I don't think I got over 20 mph the whole day, despite my best efforts to go faster.
I spent the first few runs just getting a feel for the mountain, I tried my hand at one of their double-black glades, and quickly regretted that decision. Cover was thin, with an inch of fresh wet snow masking the rocks and dirt I was accidentally skiing through everywhere. I would have to say that glade season south of say...Loon is probably done. After a few runs, I decided with conditions how they were, I would hit the park up for awhile and call it an early day. Unfortunately it took me several runs to figure out how to get to the park without needing to skate across the entire base of the mountain. The way the trails are cut at Sunapee means the only way to get even close to the park is to take an extremely uphill path to get to the top of the 'North Side Triple' and follow it down and out. The park mountain is completely segmented off from the rest of the resort. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I found it odd that it seems like 80% of the trails off the summit, no matter which way you go, lead you back to the base of the 'Sunapee Express'. It makes getting around the mountain a little frustrating.
After finally making it to the park, I was happy to find it quite large and well maintained. The collection of park trails at Sunapee are referred to as the '6ix-0h-thre3', and at time of visit consisted of two trails and an airbag (There was a third trail marked as a park, but had no features on it.). The park located on 'Pipeline' is their main jump line, and is set up clearly for a no-stopping hot lap over several jumps. It also featured several beginner rails/boxes at the start and end of it.
The other half of the park is on 'Jet Stream', and focuses exclusively on rails. There are some seriously awesome features in it, and it might have the largest rainbow I have seen anywhere.
There is also a boarder-cross course located on the main mountain as well, and a well maintained boarder-cross course is always a blast to ride. Unfortunately with the snow being so slow, and all of the markings covered up by a fresh layer of snow, it did not make for neither good riding or good pictures.
Anyway, after I had finished taking my photos for the park, I headed up feeling a little iffy about doing some park laps. I was pretty much the only one stupid enough to be in the park on such a slow, wet day but I figured I would give it a shot. I hit the Flat-down-flat box as a warm up for some of the more difficult rails and proceeded to somehow face plant and double eject immediately. It was not going to be a park day for me unfortunately.
By noon time I was soaked to the core, and I decided to call it quits. I definitely want to return to Sunapee on a nicer day sometime soon to lap their park for hours because it really is an excellent park. Overall Sunapee is a solid day trip mountain.
Keep on Shredding!
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