Sunday River, Maine

Sunday River is a sprawling resort spread across 8 peaks in eastern Maine near the New Hampshire border.  It is one of the most popular ski resorts in New England with a strong presence of Boston metro area skiers.

Stats

Real Vertical ?	2,175′, Rank: 59
Size	870 Acres, Rank: 80
Annual Snowfall ?	167″ claimed / 150″ actual, Rank: 99
Ski Pods ?	11, Rank: 14
Distinct Trails ?	131, Rank: 19
Review Date	March, 2023
Number of visits	1
Our Rating	★★
Resort website	https://www.sundayriver.com

Sunday River Review

We skied Sunday River after a significant series of storms had dropped a lot of snow, including 16″ the day before we arrived and a couple inches overnight.  We had just skied Sugarloaf the 2 days prior so we got to make a direct comparison between the 2 largest resorts in Maine under very similar conditions.

This trip to the northeast featured 8 different resorts and Sunday River was by far the most crowded.  It didn’t start off well because there were lift issues at the South Ridge base area which resulted in a huge line at the Chondola.  These things happen, but what was surprising is that by the time we started skiing the groomers were already bumping up.  By lunch time the whole mountain was bumps.  This isn’t what we usually find when skiing the northeast, but the heavy skier traffic means that’s going to happen when the snow is soft.

8 peaks

This place is huge.  With 11 ski pods and only 1 day, we had our work cut out for us.  By the end of the day we had skied pretty much all of them except Merrill Hill which I didn’t even notice until we were looking at the map for this review!  Here’s the thing though — although there are 8 peaks they all seem pretty similar.  We skied them right to left starting at Jordan Bowl.

Jordan Bowl

Jordan Bowl is the most popular part of the resort served by the only 8-passenger D-line chairlift we have ever ridden.  People seem to love it because the line was huge.  The terrain is pretty easy with some generous ratings of the trails leading you to believe it’s not.  Of interest was the black diamond rated Blind Ambition glad which was a fun low-angle glade with some easy bumps.  The terrain was some of the most interesting, but the line encouraged us to move on after 3 runs.

Oz

This is some of the steepest terrain at the resort but the huge bumps were pretty rock hard making it more of a chore than actual fun.

Aurora Peak, Spruce Peak, Barker Mountain

These are all pretty similar and I can’t remember much to distinguish them.  The highlight was the nicely steep and well groomed Upper and Lower Vortex which was our first real run of the day and which ended up being our favorite.

Locke Mountain

This was our favorite zone on the mountain.  Here things are significantly different with some narrow winding trails that seemed to have the best snow.  There was a great skier-cross course on the lower part of the mountain that we did a couple of times.  Upper Sunday Punch was probably our favorite easier groomer at Sunday River.  The Locke Mountain chair has the most vertical drop of any at Sunday River, with almost 1,400′.

White Cap

This zone features the VERY steep and notorious White Heat run.  It seems like it’s groomed sometimes, which for a run this steep can result in some pretty scary ice.  We skied the edge of the run where there was more natural snow rather than risk a long slide down that thing.

Lodges and food

We had lunch at the South Ridge lodge.  Even with the large crowds there was plenty of seating and the food was surprisingly good.  After the disappointment of the Sugarloaf cafeteria, this was a welcome lunch experience.  If we had more days we would branch out and try some of the many other options at some of the 3 other base areas.

The good

• Lots of ski pods and trails
• Above average cafeteria food and a large base lodge
• Excellent snowmaking coverage of 60% for such a large resort
• Excellent lift network including a rare 8-passenger D-line chair

The bad

• Crowded
• Lack of natural snowfall
• Needs more continuous vertical drop.  The 2,175′ real vertical drop does not reflect the actual experience when skiing.  Most runs will be 1,000-1,400 feet.
• Lots of trails and ski pods but they are all pretty similar.  It skis more like 8 small ski areas stuck together than one big one.
• The town of Bethel is surprisingly small for a resort this size
• The elevation is somewhat lower (800 feet at the bottom) than most of the other Northeastern resorts we skied which made the snow conditions noticeably worse.

The bottom line

Sunday River was not originally on the list because we knew it wasn’t what we are usually looking for, and that was definitely confirmed after visiting.  Compared to Sugarloaf it’s a notch lower in satisfaction for us which is reflected in the 2-star rating.  Crowds and lack of vertical are the biggest issues. Still, it’s an impressive place with a ton of terrain and some interesting features that make it worth a visit if you are in the area.