New England Sugarloaf - King Pine Lift Status?

[Tony S]

Anyone know what the status of the King Pine lift is? Has it opened even once this season? I sense that the answer is "no." I asked a couple of staff about it when I was there two weeks ago, but they were very tight-lipped. What's the deal?

 

[RJS]

I'm not the person to answer this, but my hunch has been that this is more of a staffing issue than anything else. Sugarloaf, like many resorts in the area, weren't prepared for all of the wonderful snow that we've gotten. I was at Sugarloaf the weekend before last, and Whiffletree and King Pine both were not running, even though there were unseasonably large weekend crowds (and unseasonably great conditions).

Whiffletree is about to run for the first time this season, and I bet King Pine won't be far behind. You can access all of the King Pine terrain from other lifts. It makes lapping the area more difficult, but on the bright side that also means that the trails in that pod will get tracked out less quickly.

 

[Tony S]

Hmm. Everything you say is true, and I hope that you're right about it being a pure staffing issue. But something about the tone of the folks I talked to makes me suspect that there is more to it. The fact that they are mentioning opening Whiffletree this weekend and NOT talking about King Pine strongly suggests that it will not open this weekend, at any rate. If I ran the zoo I would prioritize opening King Pine way ahead of Timberline, which has been open for a couple of weeks. Much more terrain under the former than the latter. Yes, you CAN get to the King Pine terrain from Skyline. But to get BACK to Skyline from the base of that pod you basically have to do the "Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200" routine.