All for 5 dollars

In case you haven’t heard yet, Rumford does not have good skiing right now and interestingly, seems to be one of the few places that doesn’t have good skiing. I drove over there the other day to find the snow wind blown and very dirty apart from a few sheltered spots in the woods. On the other hand, despite some misfortune on the mountain that happened to make headlines http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12087306 (which I fortunately avoided despite being on the mountain for some tele skiing), sugarloaf has incredible skiing right now. I’ve gone just about every other day and the trails have only gotten better over the last week. On top of that, a half day there only cost me 5 bucks. That’s a small price for great skiing and spectacular scenery (the sugarloaf outdoor center is more or less surrounded by mountains). Of course, the low price might explain why their groomers have all broken down this week. On my last trip there on Thursday, one of the loops I skied absolutely reeked of diesel oil after the piston bully sprang a leak somewhere. With their snowmobiles broken too, who knows what things will be like after the warm up forecast for the weekend.
Enough bad news, the skiing really has been great, even at my old high school where I skied with some UNH kids today and in Augusta on the new race trails there.

For good measure, here are some pictures