December 18, 2009
The beauty of cat tracks
by Brion O'Connor/
Ever have one of those ski mornings, when the freshly fallen powder looks so inviting that you start suffering from some Pavlovian reaction, and you just can't wait to get on the hill? Now, at Vermont's Sugarbush resort, you don't have to wait. Just set your alarm, grab an early breakfast and your gear, and reserve a spot on the resort's new cabin cat to ensure two hours of pristine conditions almost anywhere on the mountain.
"Aside from opening the new village, with the luxury hotel and restaurant and the lodge, this has been the best thing we've ever done," says JJ Toland, communications director at Sugarbush.
Last year, Sugarbush unveiled its new bright red "Lincoln Limo," a 12-passenger Pisten Bully cabin cat — named after the 3,975-foot Lincoln Peak — that is making tracks at the resort a full two hours before the lifts starting operation. Though potentially considered by some as a risky venture, since cat skiing simply wasn't available on the East Coast, the Sugarbush cat has proven to be a stroke of genius.
"It offers a very unique experience that you don't find anywhere else east of the Mississippi," says Toland. "If you do a cat-trip or a heli-trip out West, it's in the backcountry, and you have to have trans-beeper training, and there's an element of the extreme to it. This? Pretty much anybody can do. You get to the restaurant at the base area at 6:45, load up, and we're rolling up the hill by 7. You get to ski the trails. You get first tracks. You can get 36 inches of snow over highly groomed terrain. And where you go is determined by the strength of the group."
The only place the Lincoln Limo won't go is to the top of Castlerock. Everywhere else is fair game. "You've got to be a very good skier to run with a Western cat trip. Here, you can be an upper beginner, lower intermediate, and we'll take this thing to the top of the Valley House Lift, and you can go down Spring Fling, or you can down Racer's Edge," says Toland. "You don't need to be hard-core, you don't need the avalanche transceivers. You can be that intermediate skier and still have this incredible adventure, and not feel scared at any point. It's very family friendly."
The cat skiing concept was first hatched when the resort hosted Matt Lauer and the "Today" show for a dinner/night-skiing session in February of 2008. To accommodate the cast and crew, Sugarbush had to round up a small armada of snowmobiles and cats, and Sugarbush owner Win Smith wistfully wondered aloud how convenient it would have been if the resort had a cabin cat. Later that season, Dan Torsell, the resort's vice president of base operations, was visiting his son at Ski Cooper in Leadville, Colo., and learned that the resort had a cabin to sell. Torsell relayed that information to Sugarbush vice president of operations John Hammond, who was enamored with the idea of being the only East Coast resort to offer cat skiing. Hammond gave the green light to purchase the Ski Cooper cabin, had it shipped to Vermont, and the Sugarbush crew bolted it to the back of a cat. The cabin is outfitted with 12 cloth-covered seats (but can hold 14, with two standing) and a flat-screen TV. It's been a hit since Day 1.
"Every powder day was booked," Toland says, "and pretty much every Allyn's Lodge dinner sold out. The full moons and the holiday dinners sold out, and then there were corporate events."
The Sugarbush cat skiing schedule essentially breaks down into two sessions. It's offered every morning on a first-call reservation basis, so it pays to keep a close eye on the weather reports for primo powder conditions. The cost is $75 per person — up to 14 people — which includes the cat and a guide. "The guide is pretty much gratis, because we're all fighting to be that person," says Toland. "It's not hard to get one of us out of bed at 5 in the morning to prep for a cat trip." If the group is moving at a brisk pace, the Lincoln Limo can provide up to a half-dozen early morning runs. To ride the regular lifts afterward, skiers and boarders need to buy a lift ticket.
At night, the Lincoln Limo transforms into something more like a luxury limo, bringing guests to the resort's mid-mountain Allyn's Lodge for specialty dinners, at $175 a pop (meal included). "People will load up, have a drink en route up to a fireside dinner overlooking the Mad River Valley, and then they have the option of jumping back in the cat or skiing down with a headlamp and some guides," says Toland.
"The nighttime gig isn't specific to cat skiing. That's more the mode of transportation to the fireside dinner, and you can ski down if you want," he says. "The morning gig is for the powder hounds."
In the springtime, after Sugarbush closes the lifts at the 4,083-foot Mount Ellen (with 2,600 feet of vertical) in late March, the Lincoln Limo morphs again into an all-day private-party snow yacht. The cost is $1,500 for the entire cat for the entire day. "You can rent the cat for half- or whole-day excursions, and you own the whole place," says Toland. "Last year, on April 17, it was 50 degrees and we had set up a little campsite. We built this giant booter, so people were jumping over where we were prepping breakfast. Then some people were jumping in the cat, going up to the top of FIS, or skiing down Exterminator. The cat is basically a mountainside taxi cab that you can point and shoot with."
Proving the cabin cat's popularity, the Lincoln Limo already is booked this season for full-moon evenings and most holiday nights, including New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day. Call Sugarbush guest services at 802-583-6590 or visit sugarbush.com for more details. It may be the only antidote for that twitching sensation you get every time you hear the weatherman predict another powder dump.
