I was shredding over at Suicide Six Ski Area on Saturday and dealt with some lift lines, but all under five minutes. I decide to do an obligatory doom scroll on social media and saw some jarring crowds and bumper-to-bumper traffic at my home mountain: Mount Sunapee. I grew up skiing the mountain, but the crowds and lack of investments from the last couple of seasons led me towards shredding other places this season. Since buying the mountain in 2018, the crowds have become bigger thanks to the popular Epic Pass, but no lift improvements or expansions have taken place. So far this winter, locals have complained about the slow snowmaking efforts(only 27 of 67 of their runs were open on Saturday), a lack of terrain parks, and long lines. And on Saturday, a traffic jam created a never-before-seen situation for the mountain and the local town of Newbury.
Sunapee Snow Report, a recently made Instagram account that accurately describes conditions and current snowmaking efforts, detailed their effort to get to the mountain. By 10 am, all parking spots were filled. This includes their overfill parking lot across the roundabout at the state beach on Lake Sunapee. The traffic jam took many drivers hours to get there, with many being told when arriving to turn around.
Local Steven Ricker showed this video of the standstill on the way to the mountain. An even more crowded Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend is coming up this week. Please plan accordingly.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CYfSANAFfKX/
Image Credits: Mount Sunapee, @sunapeesnowreport,@stevenricker
