Would you guys say Sutton was the highlight this Gathering? Never skied it.
Similar question as above - did you think it worked well enough that you would take the NEG to the Eastern Townships areas again in a few years?
[Monday: Sitting at the bar at Mt.Orford, having lunch while
@zircon ,
@mdf , and
@James take a couple more runs.] My personal take follows.
Disclaimer: I had never been to any of these areas except Jay, so my spin on the Canadian hills is based on one day at each. Obviously that's not a good sample.
On a good day, like we had, Sutton is a winner. Skis much bigger than it looks. It's for natural snow and terrain lovers, and had an old school vibe. I don't have a sense of what it might be like on a "groomers only" type day, since basically nothing was groomed yesterday. So possibly a risky place to go if you're planning months ahead. The lift network was not exactly putting on a demonstration of throughput or reliability, unfortunately.This is the only one of the three Canadian areas I visited on this trip that would hold my interest for more than one day. Again, given good snow. It seems like it would be a good choice on a bad visibility day.
Mont Orford is a big rocky knob of a mountain. Not much of the off piste was open, due to lack of base. From afar, some of it looked quite gnarly. One of the four major sections of the area was closed for unknown reasons. The groomers were either flat or steep IMHO; there was a distinct lack of that bread-and-butter blue square pitch that I crave on groomer days. (Plus the snow was soft and chopped up enough that smooth carves were pretty much a non-starter on any but the green runs ... which were VERY green.) For whatever reasons, it didn't excite me and I would not rush to go back.
However, the bar is quite nice.
[Tuesday: Picking up my half-finished post a day later. I see that several others have posted with very similar feedback to mine. I guess that's reassuring.]
Owl's Head, the day we were there, was a whole lot of dust on a whole lot of crust. I actually thought the conditions were quite challenging. Also, visibility was bad, in snow and fog. Stepping back, it appears to me to be a place that would be a delightful groomer cruiser of a mountain on a clear day with a view of Lake Memphremagog immediately below. In terms of size and variety it's not in the same league as Sutton and Orford, much less Jay.
Our day at Jay was arguably the best of the long weekend. Subjectively I loved Sutton, notwithstanding the crowd and the lift issues. But when trying to be objective about it, there's just a lot more
there there at Jay than at any of the other three. With reasonably fresh snow it's got everything.
If I had to design another 3-day gathering in the region it would probably be Jay - Sutton - Jay. I do think it is riskier than some of the other locations we've been to, such as Killington, Stowe, SaddleLoaf, or the Mad River Valley. The reason is simply that there is not the amount of groomer terrain that can save the day if the snow gods have not been cooperating. Also, it's true that the Jay-Sutton combo is not particularly friendly to skiers who are enthusiastic but are nevertheless without the skills / confidence to just drop willy-nilly into whatever terrain happens to offer itself up. (We did a LOT of willy-nilly dropping on this trip!)