Sugar Mountain Resort Timeline
| 1969 | Fall – Sugar Mountain Company opens with four lifts and eleven slopes |
| 1978 | Sugar Mountain Resort, Inc. purchases Sugar Mountain Company |
| 1982 | The Red Slope and Red lift are built – now Oma’s Meadow slope and the Oma’s Meadow lift |
| 1984 | The Gray/Summit #2 lift is built |
| 1985 | The Sugar Bear mascot is born |
| 1991 | The Annual Oktoberfest begins |
| 1993 | Hiking and mountain biking trails open |
| 1994-2007 | The Showdown at Sugar Mountain Bike Competition is hosted |
| 1994 | New Ski /Snowboard School and Ski Patrol buildings are built |
| 1996 | Sugar Mountain Resort receives the National Ski Patrol distinguished service award |
| 1997 | Summer lift rides begin |
| 1998 | Sugar’s double Black Diamond slope, Whoopdedoo opens |
| 1999 | The Tubing Park opens |
| 1999 | The Terrain Park is added |
| 2000 | Snowshoeing becomes another activity at Sugar Mountain |
| 2003 | Annual Sugarfest Celebration begins |
| 2003 | Sugar Mountain Resort and local meteorologist, Ray Russell team up to provide customized local weather forecasting using on-site weather stations. |
| 2004 | Sugar Mountain Resort receives the Employer of the Year award by The Employment Security Commission of North Carolina. |
| 2004 | Improving the snowmaking infrastructure begins its five-year overhaul plan of replacing and enlarging all air and water pipes |
| 2004 | A Magic Carpet conveyor lift replaced the thirty-year old rope tow in the beginners’ area |
| 2006 & 2007 | Sugar Mountain Resort brings North Carolina its first National Mountain Bike Competition hosting 900-1,200 competitors from eight countries and forty-three states and territories. |
| 2005 | Yellow/Summit #1 and Green chairlifts receive new chairs and drive- stations |
| 2005 | Sugar debuts one of the industry’s first live-streaming webcams |
| 2006 | Sugar Mountain Resort’s Ski/Snowboard Patrol is awarded the outstanding patrol in the Southern Division for the 2005-06 season |
| 2006 | Sugar Mountain Resort receives the Alfred Adams Leadership Employer of the Year Award from the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce |
| 2006 | Brown Lift receives new chairs and drive station |
| 2007 | Sugar Mountain Resort and the Village of Sugar Mountain Tourism Development Authority build the Dave Nixon Pro Shop which houses tennis, golf, ice skating and tubing |
| 2007 | Ice skating opens |
| 2008 | Sugar records a record one hundred forty consecutive skier days |
| 2009 | Sugar celebrates forty years! |
| 2010 | Gunther Jochl purchases Sugar Mountain Resort, Inc. |
| 2011 | Gunther Jochl purchases the Sugar Mountain Trust |
| 2012 | Sugar hosts weddings |
| 2014 | Sugar’s game changing $1,000,000 slope Gunther’s Way opens |
| 2014 | Ten new SMI snow-making machines are purchased for Gunther’s Way Slope. The pump house is redesigned and rebuilt to accommodate an additional 1,000 gallon per minute vertical water pump. |
| 2014 | Big Red Slope is renamed Oma’s Meadow after Gunther’s mother, Marianne Jochl. She is eighty-eight years old, was an avid downhill and cross-country skier until around the age of eighty. Oma is a term of endearment in German speaking countries and means grandmother in English. |
| 2015 | The new Summit Express, a six-seater, detachable, high-speed chairlift/chondola manufactured by the Austrian based company, Doppelmayr is installed.The new Little Gray chairlift, formerly known as the Summit #2 chairlift, is shortened and ferries skiers and snowboarders to the top of the Easy Street Extension slope. The Little Gray provides access to the lower and north sides of the mountain. The new GW chairlift is installed. It transports passengers from the base of Gunther’s Way slope to the mountain’s peak. The new lift configuration increases the uphill transportation capacity from 8,800 people to 10,520 people. |
| 2018 | Built a lift-serviced bike park which includes Sugar’s signature expert terrain and newly built beginner and intermediate trails. |
| 2019 | Sugar records a record one hundred forty-one consecutive skier days |
| 2019 | A four-seater, detachable, high-speed chairlift manufactured by the Austrian based company, Doppelmayr, replaces the fifty-year-old, two-passenger, fixed grip Easy Street chairlift, increasing the Resort’s overall uphill capacity from 10,518 passengers per hour to 11,270 passengers per hour |
| 2019 | Fall – Sugar celebrates 50 years! |
| 2019 | Gunther Jochl receives the Order of the Long Leaf Pine Award granted by the State of North Carolina. |
| 2020 | Rental equipment shop expansion. Addition of clothing rentals. |
| 2021 | A four-passenger, fixed-grip chairlift manufactured by the Austrian based company, Doppelmayr, replaces the three-passenger, fixed grip Green chairlift, increasing the Resort’s overall uphill capacity from 11,270 passengers per hour to 11,660 passengers per hour and renaming the chairlift the Big Birch Chairlift. |
| 2022 | A four-passenger, detachable, high-speed chairlift manufactured by the Austrian based company, Doppelmayr, replaces the two-passenger, fixed grip Oma’s Meadow chairlift, increasing the Resort’s overall uphill capacity from 11,660 passengers per hour to 13,435 passengers per hour |
revised April 2023
