With yesterday's visit to Sugarloaf -- where the SuperQuad is still running for diehards -- the Ski Bum's season extended to eight calendar months.

Sugarloaf is the last ski area operating in the East. Yesterday's view from Oh-My-Gosh corner.
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Three snowboarders unload at the top terminal of Sugarloaf's SuperQuad yesterday, May 1.
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Heading away from the SuperQuad.
SCOTT ANDREWS PHOTO

Those eight months -- October, November, December, January, February, March, April and (now) May -- began at Sunday River on Halloween.

Sugarloaf intends to continue operating today, Saturday and Sunday. It's the last ski area still operating in the East. (Forget Killington; they've exited the long, long spring season game.)

Sugarloaf received eight inches of snow from the April 29 storm, and several trails had been freshly groomed. Best snow conditions were on King's Landing, Hayburner, Skidder and Candyside. Very few bare spots on those four trails.

This weekend Sugarloaf teams up with Northern Outdoors, a prominent rafting-and-many-other-things company, for an alpha-omega sort of promotion: First day of the whitewater rafting season (Saturday) followed by last day of skiing and riding season (Sunday).

Snow was falling yesterday afternoon at Sugarloaf.
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The sign on the Sugarloaf Access Road, approaching Route 27 -- and the real world.
SCOTT ANDREWS PHOTO