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The 2013-2014 Ski Season Thread


Skivt2

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Attitash is just a cheap mtn.

Ski'd w my niece/nephew this am, was fun early. (Prior to 10)

Uncle has not seen them make snow all week. Cheap. They made snow after wachusett, after posting they didnt "make snow to see it melt down river" meanwhile at that time , Loon was making it hand over fist, along w Waterville, crotched. Its like stop w the f'n excuses. Your cheap, you made a decison to save money AND u are stretched THIN w alot of guns over at wildcat and too cheap to buy more, so attitash season pass holders suffer. Im gonna light up their fb page bc its annoying how cheap they are wrt snowmaking and conditions suffer.

Once family-owned businesses were destroyed a while back, this was to be expected.  Profit/greed and bottom lines, versus customer satisfaction.  "Peak Resorts" in MO now owns Attitash, Wildcat, Mt. Snow, Crotched, etc.

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Area skied: Berkshire East, MA

Date skied: December, 28th 2013 from 8:30am - 12:30pm

Weather: Sun and clouds, temp at 8:30am, 19F, 43F at 12:30pm

I skied at Berkshire East yesterday with my son and we used two free ticket vouchers that we got at the Cromwell Ski Expo. Despite the somewhat limited terrain opened, we did have a fun time.

When we started skiing at 8:30am it, was overcast with the temperature at 19F. Snowmaking was in progress on the upper section of Flying Cloud as well as in the tubing park.

Snowmaking on Flying Cloud:

Our first run was down a groomed Outback with stiff hardpacked snow. The second run of the day was down Mohawk to Chute. Mohawk was okay with mostly firm packed powder, but Chute was groomed ice cookies and not any fun.

Big Chief had the best snow among the intermediate offering. The upper and lower parts had the softest snow and packed powder surfaces, with the middle section being a bit slick in spots.

Big Chief:

By 10:30am, thing began to warm up rapidly with full sunshine breaking out and snowmaking was shut down. Runs down Outback where fun with 100% packed powder now with warmer temperatures and alot more skier traffic.

Outback:

We mixed this up by skiing Outback/Snowdance and Exhibition/Danny's Run about 4 times. I also alternated by skiing Big Chief/Flying Cloud Access and the lower part of Flying Cloud.

There was an ongoing race on Competition, so we never skied that trails, but it look fairly good.

Competition:

By noon it was above 40F and the snow transformed from packed powder to wet packed snow, so we called it a day.

Liftlines where never longer that 5 minutes and most of the time both summit triple chairs where ski on. The parking lot was about 50% full by noon, when we headed home.

Berkshire East:

 

 

Nice one.  I really love that place.  Give it another shot on a day with good powder.  It's old school, no frills for sure, but the type of place where everyone is smiling with some solid terrain to boot.

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Headed up to Sunapee today after liking the radar presentation last night   :)

 

Started cloudy and breezy with low clouds and heavily rimed aggregates, but quickly turned mostly sunny, comfortable, and outright stunning with trees covered in snow/ice and a blue backdrop.  10" on the peak.

 

I must say, Sunapee likely is my top mountain in the east for views.  The snow covered lake looms majiestically... homewood at tahoe'esque

 

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I've had my fill of groomers, nice as they were... was pleased to find the woods in very good shape, provided you don't bring your best skis...

 

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It sort of slowly crept up on me what a beautiful day it was...  

 

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But the last few runs it was just "wow, wow".  No doubt deeper powder days await for me to wax on about, but in the meantime this is a reminder, just another one, about how great winter and snow is for the soul.

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Headed up to Sunapee today after liking the radar presentation last night   :)

 

Started cloudy and breezy with low clouds and heavily rimed aggregates, but quickly turned mostly sunny, comfortable, and outright stunning with trees covered in snow/ice and a stunning blue backdrop.  10" on the peak.

 

I must say, Sunapee likely is my top mountain in the east for views.  The snow covered lake looms majiestically... homewood at tahoe'esque

 

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I've had my fill of groomers, nice as they were... was pleased to find the woods in very good shape, provided you don't bring your best skis...

 

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It sort of slowly crept up on me what a beautiful day it was...  

 

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But the last few runs it was just "wow, wow".  No doubt deeper powder days await for me to wax on about, but in the meantime this is a reminder, just another one, about how great winter and snow is for the soul.

just gorgeous...i've always thought about giving Sunapee a go...kicking myself i haven't tried it yet

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Headed up to Sunapee today after liking the radar presentation last night   :)

 

But the last few runs it was just "wow, wow".  No doubt deeper powder days await for me to wax on about, but in the meantime this is a reminder, just another one, about how great winter and snow is for the soul.

 

Awesome dude!  I've never skied Sunapee but have always wanted to.  It seems like one of those under-the-radar small areas that rock.  Over-looked by most I'd assume with the larger southern VT ski resorts nearby like Stratton/Mt Snow/Okemo, and the quick access to the larger NH resorts on I-93.  In my mind its sort of like Bromley in southern VT...another sort of hidden gem.

 

Fantastic photos...definitely better skiing down there today than up here.  It was pretty rugged on the lower half of the mountain today with the rain last night below 2,500-3,000ft.  It wasn't a lot of rain (only 0.1-0.2") and would've only been 1-2" if it were snow, but alas we didn't have the UVVs to bring snow all the way down to the lower elevations, and all it takes is a brief rain shower to ice things up when temps plummet like they did today.

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Awesome dude!  I've never skied Sunapee but have always wanted to.  It seems like one of those under-the-radar small areas that rock.  Over-looked by most I'd assume with the larger southern VT ski resorts nearby like Stratton/Mt Snow/Okemo, and the quick access to the larger NH resorts on I-93.  In my mind its sort of like Bromley in southern VT...another sort of hidden gem.

 

Fantastic photos...definitely better skiing down there today than up here.  It was pretty rugged on the lower half of the mountain today with the rain last night below 2,500-3,000ft.  It wasn't a lot of rain (only 0.1-0.2") and would've only been 1-2" if it were snow, but alas we didn't have the UVVs to bring snow all the way down to the lower elevations, and all it takes is a brief rain shower to ice things up when temps plummet like they did today.

 

Thanks PF.

 

I've only done it a few times but I like that it's slightly on it's own from a storm track perspective... Has the potential to jackpot in a given system (which it may have, locally at least), and in that respect represents a decent option from time to time.  Certainly doesn't have the terrain of the big boys, but those woods shots were reasonably steep and open.  I wasn't complaining :)

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Woke up today to a nice warm morning before heading to Cannon. Man, things went south from there. Absolutely frigid by the end of the day. Could feel the cold air coming as they day continued. Started at the summit and by the end of my day it was about 6F at the lodge. Conditions were icy in some spots. Powder close to the top. Pictures to come.

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Nice one.  I really love that place.  Give it another shot on a day with good powder.  It's old school, no frills for sure, but the type of place where everyone is smiling with some solid terrain to boot.

 

I've skied there on quite a few powder days and while it's a nice place to ski, on a powder day I'd rather drive the extra 30 miles and ski Magic.

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I've skied there on quite a few powder days and while it's a nice place to ski, on a powder day I'd rather drive the extra 30 miles and ski Magic.

I've considered myself a Magic groupie for a while now but you really need to get lucky there.  The better the day is the more quickly it gets tracked.  Granted the trees are fantastic but the best/longest lines are shot by 11am.  At B-East I can find long untracked stretches right up until my legs give out and since it doesn't have the reputation for being a great powder hill the liftlines are non-existant.

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I've considered myself a Magic groupie for a while now but you really need to get lucky there.  The better the day is the more quickly it gets tracked.  Granted the trees are fantastic but the best/longest lines are shot by 11am.  At B-East I can find long untracked stretches right up until my legs give out and since it doesn't have the reputation for being a great powder hill the liftlines are non-existant.

 

 

I'd still rather ski at Magic, untracked powder or not, just alot more mountain to ski.

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If you like Wachusett, you'll love Sunapee.

Suffers from the same issues pretty much though.  Overcrowded peak times and lacks steeps/glades/natural.

 

In CNH other ski news, Whaleback is up and running with the new ownership.

 

Sunapee is excellent though for 90% of the skiing public.  What it does have in terms of drops is plenty for most.  I can't put WaWa and Sunapee in the same category both are nice places but Sunapee is really a place you could spend  day or two.

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I snowboarded all over Attitash yesterday.  They got really dumped on by the snow but the conditions were still pretty sub-par.  Even so I had a blast.

 

Bear peak was MUCH better than Attitash peak.  This is always the way.  I can't figure out why the Attitash side is more popular.  Bear peak has better lifts, better trails, and shorter lift lines.  We had a blast lapping the abernake (sp?) quad which is sort of nestled near some condos.

 

They opened up a bunch of questionable trails with only the very recent 11 inch sticky snowfall to cover the slopes.  This worked out OK.  One interesting effect on bear peak of these ungroomed, un-snowmade trails is that there were 2-4ft natural jumps all the way across the trails every 200-300 feet.  I think the jumps are from buried snow pipes but I'm not sure.  The little kickers and the decent snow coverage made for some fun and exciting rides. 

 

I only put one real run in at the Attitash side, it was the blue square path from the top and it had some pretty sketchy sections of trail.

 

The runs of the day were the hidden pow stashes off of the Abernake quad.  I can't remember the trail names but up top it had a relatively easy black diamond that dumped into a blue run that was covered in soft snow.

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Looks like I'll be hitting Mt. Snow on Thursday - scored a lift ticket for about $15 off. Still not sure whether I'll drive up from Danbury late tomorrow night or very very early Thursday morning. I'd hate to pay $50-75 for an extra night of lodging but, not being from this area, am not sure how this type of storm will impact the roads. If anyone has suggestions let me know.

 

Friday could potentially be a B'East day with a fellow poster - looking forward to some powder!

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Cool mike, those 'jumps' every few hundred feet are called water bars, they drain water off the trails and prevent erosion. Normally, with snow and grooming, they vanish....

Yeah, very noticeable at WaWa lately with the rain events

We hit the bump for the late afternoon/early evening last night

Basically empty for New Years Eve. Cold. Icy but after the groomers hit the trails it skied nicely.

As we left a bunch of folks were coming in for the tubing, fireworks, etc

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Cool mike, those 'jumps' every few hundred feet are called water bars, they drain water off the trails and prevent erosion. Normally, with snow and grooming, they vanish....

 

Thanks for the info!  I had no idea thats what they were.  I had never seen anything quite like that before and I usually snowboard from early December into early April.

 

It just goes to show you how little snowmaking and grooming has been done at Attitash this year.  Every trail at bear peak had 4-6 of these.  I actually really enjoyed the jumping because there was nice soft powder to land on.

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Powder day at Mt. Snow (or at least to me).

 

This was my first time skiing in New England so the fact that it snowed the entire day was icing on the cake. The resort did a great job of opening more terrain as the day went on; in fact, over 65% of the trails are open now with more to come tomorrow. The glades were still rough so I didn't touch them but the blacks on the north face were in great shape to start the morning. As the day wore on the wind took its toll on that side (sad, as there are a few really cool steep, narrow trails over that way with bumps) which resulted in me moving over to the blacks and blues on the main face and Sunbrook. The latter had a hidden gem called Beartrap while the front side had untouched knee-deep powder on Ridge and Cut Off by the end of the day. The run Fools Gold opened toward close - I wasn't able to check it out but heard good things.

 

All in all, a great time - I'd definitely return. Didn't feel too resort-y and the staff were very friendly and knew their stuff. I also met a random stranger while eating lunch and ended up skiing with him for most of the afternoon. The wind kicked my a** at a few points but it's all part of the experience.

 

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We've been getting left out of the larger hyped snowstorms so far this season, but continue to pick up snow "under the radar" so to speak.

 

The 3,000ft snow board picked up 4.5" in the last 48 hours, with another 1" falling today.  I was off the past couple days and the snow report has been under-reporting (3" vs. 5.5" actual) in the past 72 hours.  But that's how I like it...conservative and exceeds expectations.

 

 

The snow has been fluffy snow globe stuff, even stacking up on top of the measuring pole.

 

 

The 3,000ft snow study plot.

 

 

Conditions have been improving each day thanks to the light snowfalls... starting to really look picturesque on the slopes with fluff on all the trees.

 

 

 

 

Woods need some more substantial snowfall...not even close to being really ready, but I like to wander and tour around in the snowy forest.  So peaceful and tranquil in the woods.

 

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