December 9, 2009 E-MAIL PRINT

Maine focus on early season skiing

by Tony Chamberlain/

Lyn gets ready for a quick descent at Sugarloaf's King's Landing.

Lyn gets ready for a quick descent at Sugarloaf's King's Landing.

Just as we were thinking that pre-Christmas skiing wouldn’t happen, the northern tier cooled down and got a pretty fair blast of natural snow just after Thanksgiving. Usually this time of year, if the natural snow doesn’t materialize, there’s enough cold air to make snow and begin the process of getting terrain open, with an eye ahead to the big holiday season.

My usual pre-holiday skiing starts in Maine with the two rivals — now corporate cousins — Sugarloaf, near Kingfield, and Sunday River, just outside Bethel. Both these areas do as good a job snowmaking and grooming as any ski areas on the planet, and better than most.

Sugarloaf is the older, or first developed, of the two and has some of the best terrain in the East. But this time of year, it doesn’t help to know that the resort features the only lift served above treeline skiing in New England — the Snowfields.

Nor does it help to mention that both have great glade areas and terrain parks that fill every bit of creativity a rider or twin-tipper can bring to them.

Sunday River, at this sitting, had a few more runs open (eight) than Sugarloaf (three). So, this time of year we are thinking limited terrain and thus can’t expect to experience what makes the two areas unique.

For Sugarloaf’s part, it is just awesome terrain of every variety. Like wide open steep faces? Check out King’s Landing or Haulback. Like narrow twisters through the woods? Then it’s Double Bitter or Winter’s Way.

And if you want to know the origin of the phrase: “The road to the Olympics leads through Narrow Gauge," referring to Bode Miller, Seth Wescott and Kirsten Clark, just check out that magnificent cruising trail straight down the front fall line.

And of course, the three-mile bread-and-butter run, Tote Road, is everyone’s idea of great cruising.

At Sunday River, White Heat is steeper, but the side cut, Obsession, is a more fun run that keeps you slowly twisting as you descend. American Express and Sunday Punch are a couple of quick shots, but my personal favorite peaks are at the west side of the chain: Oz and Jordan Bowl. Two of the best cruisers are found here in Excalibur and Rogue Angel. They’re not overly challenging but are rolly and fun, and usually uncrowded enough so you can blast right off down the fall line — perfect runs for those guys who still like to drag their old straight-edge Atomic 215s to the slopes.

As far as restaurants — on- and off-mountain — I give the nod to Sugarloaf, though Sunday River is coming on pretty fast with places such as Grizzly and Les Otten’s own The Phoenix.

At the Loaf, The Bag has maybe the best burger this side of Utah, and a little place down the hill called Hug's is one of the finest Italian Restaurants north of Boston’s North End.

Again, both areas are minimally open at this point, but if you’re planning a Christmas holiday getaway, they will undoubtedly be rolling near full-season strength after another three weeks of snowmaking.

And next time, another growing noise in Maine: Saddleback.

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