By Tim Peck
Hardpack, bone-chilling cold, and graybird days are a way of life for Northeast skiers who winter in the white room.
Testing yourself in the toughest terrain means more than just conquering steeps. In the upper right, rowdy runs have everything from cliffs to rocks to roots to contend with, along with skier-swallowing bumps and dicey conditions. You don’t have to look past the trail map to find a challenge in New England—and you just might score some powder when you do. Here are the seven rowdiest trails in the East that are in-bounds and lift-served.
Bubblecuffer, Sugarloaf
It just takes one run down Bubblecuffer to see why diehard skiers make the long trek to the Carrabassett Valley in the middle of Maine. Sugarloaf is home to the only lift-serviced above-treeline skiing in the East. Bubblecuffer begins on the steep and often windswept summit snowfields before dipping below treeline where the trail narrows as the size of the bumps grow. One of the Loaf’s “Wild Things,” Bubblecuffer, like so many New England test pieces, is never groomed and its difficulty can range from mild to wild depending on conditions.
DJ’s Tramline, Cannon Mountain
Not your average frontside “expert” run, DJ’s wasn’t conceived as a ski trail. Rather it was built for a tramline used to bring people up the mountain years before skiers began sending it. Another legendary sandbag, DJ’s is too rocky for snowmaking or grooming—this is the Granite State, after all. Along with being one of the steepest trails in New Hampshire, it’s difficult to bail off of once you drop in, making it one of the East’s more committing runs. DJ’s is rarely open, but when the stars align and the snow stacks up, the region’s best skiers line up to tick this one off their bucket lists.
Lift Line, Sugarbush
Skiing under the lift is always a high-risk/high-reward endeavor, and nowhere is this truer than Lift Line at Sugarbush. Descending beneath the experts-only Castlerock Double—which accesses only four notoriously tough trails, two double-black diamonds and two black diamonds—prepare to style this narrow, steep, rock-strewn, pole-lined run or suffer jeers from above. There is no grooming or snowmaking on Lift Line, and although they replaced the old lift in the early 2000s, the capacity remains the same as it has been since the 1950s. (In other words, send it with style because you’ll have a captive audience.)
Black Hole, Smugglers’ Notch
Vermonters have a reputation for being tree-huggers, but on Smugglers’ triple-black diamond Black Hole, it seems outsiders are the ones desperately clinging to the pines that clog this uber-classic glade. The only triple-black diamond run in the east, Black Hole is puckeringly steep with trees so tight you may eat some bark on the way down. Catch it on a deep day, and it’s pure East Coast bliss that’ll have you bragging over beers at the Black Bear Tavern. However, get it in less-than-ideal conditions and prepare to be gripped.
True Grit, Waterville Valley
Despite a double-black-diamond rating, Waterville Valley’s True Grit doesn’t have the steepness, gnar, or bragging rights of some of the east’s other rowdy runs. While most in-the-know East Coast skiers will tell you it’s not in the same league as Paradise or DJ’s in terms of difficulty, it supersedes them in old-school cool. Waterville is known as the birthplace of freestyle skiing, and in 1970 it hosted the first First National Championships of Freestyle Skiing on True Grit—attracting a then-21-year-old Wayne Wong, who would go on to coach at the mountain. Make sure to bust out your best moves. Bonus points for classic hot dog tricks or a “Wong Banger”—while shredding under the Sunnyside Triple chair.
Paradise, Mad River Glen
The saying “ski it if you can” is synonymous with Mad River Glen thanks to runs like Paradise. One of two New England ski runs to make CNN Travel’s 100 Best Ski Runs in the World, Paradise blends a little bit of everything you want in rowdy run. Super sandbagged, this black diamond run features a pitch just under 40 degrees and trees so tight the only thing keeping you from covering your face as you bash through the branches is the need to spot the mandatory mid-trail hucks off frozen waterfalls.
Goat, Stowe
Often called “Aspen of the East,” Stowe is New England’s most picturesque and luxurious ski town. It’s easy to think the polished, hoity-toity nature of the town would translate to the ski trails, but Stowe is home to some of the steepest and sendiest terrain in New England, including Goat. One of the mountain’s famous Front Four, legend has it the trail earned its name from a hiker who quipped that the trail was so steep only a mountain goat could climb it. However, I like to think of it as G-O-A-T, or “greatest of all time.” Just under 40 degrees, this steep slithers down the mountain for over 1,000 feet through moguls, ledges, and boulders. Depending on when you hit it, you could also encounter solid ice or the occasional stream. If that wasn’t nasty enough, Goat’s double fall line has been tripping up skiers since it opened.
Want more Upper Right? Dive into our favorite backcountry skiing in the East.
