Following my previous post which began to explore the North Carolina ski mountains, I follow this week with the place that has all of my heart: Sugar Mountain.
This mountain is located less than twenty minutes from Boone, NC, surrounded by the other notable ski resorts in the area such as Beech Mountain and App Mountain. I began going regularly to this mountain after my negative experience with the Appalacian Mountain ski resort, which I went into great detail about in my previous post. In fact, I ended up staying at this mountain for the rest of my season last year because of how much I enjoyed the diversity in its trails and overall coverage.
While the snow that covered its trails is still indicative of the North Carolina climate, their investment into snow blowers (and the fact that they didn’t have them running during the day) was something that skiers who went there definitely noticed.
The trail map for Sugar mountain is definitely a stark contrast to what we saw of the tiny hill for the last mountain I visited. Sugar mountain has multiple parking lots and busses that can shuttle skiers and boarders from parking to the mountain, which, to me, definitely gave it a more ‘professional’ vibe than walking directly from my car to the lift. While it only has three main lines, the way it is set up ensures that only advanced skiers and boarders end up traversing to the summit area. The two groups (those who use the ‘easy street lift’ and those who traverse blue and black terrain) end up meeting at the bottom, which creates a hazardous environment for all parties involved but can’t neccessarily be avoided.
I found that the diversity in the blue slopes, while they were a little easy, provided nice variety and were very nicely groomed. The double black diamond, “whoopdedoo,” was definitely terrifying as North Carolina’s steepest ski slope (at an impressive 31 degree pitch), but had a weird, short run-off that forced skiers to severely limit their speed to not be catastrophic to others coming down “switchback”. Attached below is where you can find a video of a skier taking this slope to fully see how this run rivals some found even on the West Coast or Canada.
Personally, taking the “northridge” – “switchback” – “gunther’s way” by cutting underneath the GW lift was where I found the most enjoyment. While I haven’t tried the terrain park, I have heard that compared to the park at App Ski Mountain, it falls short of variety and length. For the price that skiers pay to go to this mountain (especially during the holiday season or on weekends), I would definitely prioritize all-mountain riding/skiing rather than spending your time at the park.
All in all, Sugar Mountain is a fantastic (and in my opinion, the best) NC mountain, and would be my first reccomendation for anyone looking to ski in NC- but seriously, why would you do that?
Stay tuned next week for a review of Beech Mountain Resort and the controversy surrounding it.
Lauren,
I ended up reading half of your other post (before you reposted this one), and I honestly think it really helped me understand what skiing is like in NC. I am from Buffalo, NY, so our ski resorts are very different. When I saw the map of yours, I thought, “that’s it?!?!” Sometimes I forget that not everywhere gets as much snow as we do. It must be so hard to find good places to ski without the snow. Sometimes we even have trouble making enough for good conditions. Overall, east coast skiing is definitely not where it’s at!