Brewbeer Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 That sucks if true. But that's different than what powderfreak just told me. Someone's poaching all the trails? The resort allows that? Ski patrol, skinners, and those who can get on the lift before it opens to the general public get the untracked trails. One run for the rest of us, and then you need to be in line for the first chair.You will have a better shot with the small hills and those that have limited uphill capacity. MRG and Magic are good bets for mid week powder that lasts more than one run since both limit grooming on pow days and have limited uphill capacity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoarfrostHubb Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Central Mass Ski Clib is $20 per family and has great deals Liftopia is another good way to go Wachusett has good online tix if you can plan ahead. My wife skied tonight for $32 which is $21 off. Feb 1st they have tickets for $21. I wonder why??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoarfrostHubb Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Central Mass Ski Group website http://www.skicmsg.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
#NoPoles Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 I'll post this in here, Any good tips or sites to get discounted deals? I hear about these clubs or groups, but not sure how that works. check out liftopia.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
#NoPoles Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 damn PF!!! you're a beast!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlizzardHunter Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Ski patrol, skinners, and those who can get on the lift before it opens to the general public get the untracked trails. One run for the rest of us, and then you need to be in line for the first chair. You will have a better shot with the small hills and those that have limited uphill capacity. MRG and Magic are good bets for mid week powder that lasts more than one run since both limit grooming on pow days and have limited uphill capacity. I thought only ski patrol gets on the lifts before the general public? I know some areas like mount snow allow condo people out first on the weekends. I'd avoid those like the plague. I'd be ripping mad if I saw lifts running with a lot of people skiing before they were officially open and there was nothing said about that before I went to the resort. I've heard others saying that smaller non corporate hills with slow lifts are the best bet. I mean at wachusett even if they left the entire mountain ungroomed(which they don't) you'd be lucky to get one run in during mid week and probably not get even one run on weekends. I just wish magic got the amount of snowfall as stowe. I'm going to have to take a trip up to magic next time they get a descent dump and open up mid week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoarfrostHubb Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Try a place like Burke, too. Off the beaten path and in a good spot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Ski patrol, skinners, and those who can get on the lift before it opens to the general public get the untracked trails. One run for the rest of us, and then you need to be in line for the first chair. You will have a better shot with the small hills and those that have limited uphill capacity. MRG and Magic are good bets for mid week powder that lasts more than one run since both limit grooming on pow days and have limited uphill capacity. You need to come ski with me on a powder day. I've skied all areas in VT and can get powder tracks at Killington just as easy as MRG. The slower uphill capacity areas are good but you get fewer runs in and I'm not completely sold on it being better. I heard MRG had a half hour liftline today on the single, so maybe the powder lasts till noon, but you get 4-5 runs in. On high speed lifts the powder goes quicker but you can get the same 4-5 powder runs, just before 10am. Magic is great because they just literally have such low crowds. It wouldn't matter if it's a high speed lift or not there. It's a very low volume mountain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Try a place like Burke, too. Off the beaten path and in a good spot Burke can be good, but it's off the Spine in NE VT and gets like half the snowfall of like the Stowe to Jay stretch. You have to find the right storm that isn't down sloping off the Whites on SE flow, and isn't seeing sunny skies while it snows 1"/hr across the Spine on NW flow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N. OF PIKE Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Great. Thanks guys.Wink at the guy running the lift, if he winks back your good, then throw him a 20$ on one ofYour first runs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powderfreak Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Wink at the guy running the lift, if he winks back your good Sounds like a plan to meet up with someone late at night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clinch Leatherwood Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Meh on conditions these last few weeks. Big big later ski season for my camp this year. Haven't been motivated by the scratchy conditions since Xmas and negative reports from friends. Noticing a lot of commercials from places I'm not used to hearing too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brewbeer Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 You need to come ski with me on a powder day. Sign me up! Lol. Seriously, been thinking about trying to get back up there this year, haven't been to Stowe in about 15 years. It's a long trip from Springfield, really need to stay over, especially on a pow day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PivotPoint Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Sign me up! Lol. Seriously, been thinking about trying to get back up there this year, haven't been to Stowe in about 15 years. It's a long trip from Springfield, really need to stay over, especially on a pow day. You think that's a long trip? Try coming from DC! Haha. PF- when I was up for the New Years weekend, you were right, the groomers did a real nice job handling the rain. Wasn't nearly as icy as I was expecting. Side note: Burlington is a pretty fun town. Try Red Square if you haven't already, haha. Looking to make the trip up for my birthday weekend Jan. 31st. Turning the big 30. Here's hoping "King Euro" drops 30" inches between now and next weekend!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HIPPYVALLEY Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Meh on conditions these last few weeks. Big big later ski season for my camp this year. Haven't been motivated by the scratchy conditions since Xmas and negative reports from friends. Noticing a lot of commercials from places I'm not used to hearing too The only decent skiing has been in central to northern VT. Maine and NH have been marginal at best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ORH_wxman Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 The only decent skiing has been in central to northern VT. Maine and NH have been marginal at best. Yeah we had several skiers on here out the past two days reporting solid conditions in Killington up through jay. This past storm really hurt the conditions in NH/ME. Maybe they can hammer out a couple events here near the end of the month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Professional Lurker Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 I can tell you that berkshire east DOES NOT GROOM on powder days. They'll groom out comp if there's an afternoon race, but prior to that, they'll leave the entire mountain open up to pow. ... provided that is a storm where like a foot falls overnight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brewbeer Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 You think that's a long trip? Try coming from DC! Haha. Any trip longer than 10 minutes is a long trip when you have 3 young children. Lol. Seriously, I probably wouldn't be a skier now if I didn't spend 1/2 a winter in Steamboat washing dishes 3 days week, and skiing the other 4. Nothing quite like living 15 minutes from the lift, eh PF? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoolMike Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Tried to get first chair on Monday. Was at the base of Sugarbush's Lincoln Peak by 7:30 AM. The lift line was already pretty long. I got one good warm up run with some un-tracked stashes on Organgrinder. I scooted over to Steins run as fast as I could and blasted through the chop - very fun - but not effortless powder riding like when its not all chopped up. Due to the holiday weekend the un-tracked stuff skied out unbelievably fast. As a snowboarder this isn't such a big deal since I can really attack the chop and push it around as needed. I rode the middle earth trail for the first time this weekend. What a workout! Its deceptively long but its a beautiful trail. A few runs were groomed - apparently just prior to the change over to snow. These runs were heavenly. There was upslope snow falling from mid morning until I had to leave around 3pm. From 1pm-2pm the snow was pretty heavy. I was surprised they only reported 3-5 inches. That is probably a conservative measurement in my opinion (wind blown up top perhaps). My buddy and most frequent ski partner left his helmet at home so I wasn't comfortable attacking the trees with him - but the in-bounds tree areas looked absolutely incredible. I'm going to try and come back on Friday to hit the leftovers in the trees. I had to call an audible and take a no-notice vacation day in order to ski on Monday - potentially angering my colleagues - but it was worth it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlizzardHunter Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 I can tell you that berkshire east DOES NOT GROOM on powder days. They'll groom out comp if there's an afternoon race, but prior to that, they'll leave the entire mountain open up to pow. ... provided that is a storm where like a foot falls overnight. I've been there once. Great hill. Really steep. Steepest in MA I think. Close by me too. How crowded is it on pow days where a foot fell overnight?(ie how long does pow last) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoarfrostHubb Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 The only decent skiing has been in central to northern VT. Maine and NH have been marginal at best. And yet I have racked up 15 or so days on the hill... but yeah... pretty scratchy on limited terrain for much of it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sankaty Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Skiing was good overall Sun/Monday at Sugarbush. I was skiing mostly with the kids, so I wasn't able to get to the steeps/trees much. Conditions were generally decent at Mount Ellen on Sunday with the groomers in great shape, and the snowmaking ungroomed trails were mostly soft, too. FIS was a bit slick. The North Ridge Chair was completely down all day and the Inverness Chair was down for chunks of the day, too. Even though the crowd was average, the lift lines were much longer than usual for much of the day, and the slow Summit Quad provided the only access to upper mountain trails. We made the best of it, but it was a major bummer. I know that ski areas have limited control over lift reliability, but Mt. Ellen/Sugarbush operations did not make a good impression. Because the North Ridge was still down, we moved over to Lincoln Peak on Monday. Conditions were highly variable, ranging from pretty bad on the skied-off high traffic areas to absolutely sublime in the many areas covered in fresh snow. Most of the low-angle groomers were in great shape all day with fresh snow piling up over a smooth base. Birch Run and Morning Star under the North Links were supper fluffy. The kids, wife, and I had a blast in the Deeper Sleeper trees. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to ski off Heaven's Gate and Castlerock. It was snowing pretty heavily for much of the afternoon, so the trails were just getting softer as the day wore on. Today should be great. Thinking of going up to Pico later this week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clinch Leatherwood Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Yeah we had several skiers on here out the past two days reporting solid conditions in Killington up through jay. This past storm really hurt the conditions in NH/ME. Maybe they can hammer out a couple events here near the end of the month. It's just not worth it right now until some real snow falls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ORH_wxman Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 It's just not worth it right now until some real snow falls. I'd go up to VT with the recent fresh snow they have had (they've actually had severeal refreshers too before the 8-12" dump they just got)...but I'm definitely waiting on SR until later in the season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sankaty Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 I've found powder everywhere in VT, but it has to be during or just after a snowstorm unless I'm deep in the trees. Some of my best open-trail powder memories are actually at Stratton just after a 20"+ midweek snowfall. I was there just after the VD 2007 storm and again after a two-foot storm in mid-March a couple of years ago, and had fresh tracks, or lightly-tracked, pretty much all day. As long as the base isn't super slick, tracked-up powder is only marginally less enjoyable than fresh tracks for me. Heavy or dry, as long as it's soft, my wife and I don't complain. Unless it's during or immediately after a storm, we have a mantra that untracked powder in plain sight is a trap. In our experience, we've found that it leads to: 1) A gully that we'll have to hike out of 2) A run-out of a distance that is equal to or greater than the square of the length of the powder run 3) A cliff Definitely going to try to make it to Stowe sometime this season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlizzardHunter Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 I've found powder everywhere in VT, but it has to be during or just after a snowstorm unless I'm deep in the trees. Some of my best open-trail powder memories are actually at Stratton just after a 20"+ midweek snowfall. I was there just after the VD 2007 storm and again after a two-foot storm in mid-March a couple of years ago, and had fresh tracks, or lightly-tracked, pretty much all day. As long as the base isn't super slick, tracked-up powder is only marginally less enjoyable than fresh tracks for me. Heavy or dry, as long as it's soft, my wife and I don't complain. Unless it's during or immediately after a storm, we have a mantra that untracked powder in plain sight is a trap. That's basically anywhere unless you're skiing the backcountry. You're not going to find untracked powder a few days after it's snowed at any major resort in north america(inbounds) that I know of personally. That's the thing that sucks about flying out west when you don't live there. You might fly all the way out there and get no deep powder at a resort. Living there is a completely different thing. Pow days are plentiful and amazing. I don't know you mean by the base being "slick". Heavy deep cement wet snow you won't sink to the bottom and scrape the hardpack if that's what you mean. Heavily tracked out wet snow is not what I would call "soft" snow. You need a stiff ski and good pair of knee joints to cut through that uneven moguled up/cut up crud. It's especially bad if it sits overnight after being slammed by skiers all day and then freezes up and isn't groomed. I hate that personally, but to each their own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoolMike Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Skiing was good overall Sun/Monday at Sugarbush. I was skiing mostly with the kids, so I wasn't able to get to the steeps/trees much. Conditions were generally decent at Mount Ellen on Sunday with the groomers in great shape, and the snowmaking ungroomed trails were mostly soft, too. FIS was a bit slick. The North Ridge Chair was completely down all day and the Inverness Chair was down for chunks of the day, too. Even though the crowd was average, the lift lines were much longer than usual for much of the day, and the slow Summit Quad provided the only access to upper mountain trails. We made the best of it, but it was a major bummer. I know that ski areas have limited control over lift reliability, but Mt. Ellen/Sugarbush operations did not make a good impression. Because the North Ridge was still down, we moved over to Lincoln Peak on Monday. Conditions were highly variable, ranging from pretty bad on the skied-off high traffic areas to absolutely sublime in the many areas covered in fresh snow. Most of the low-angle groomers were in great shape all day with fresh snow piling up over a smooth base. Birch Run and Morning Star under the North Links were supper fluffy. The kids, wife, and I had a blast in the Deeper Sleeper trees. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to ski off Heaven's Gate and Castlerock. It was snowing pretty heavily for much of the afternoon, so the trails were just getting softer as the day wore on. Today should be great. Thinking of going up to Pico later this week. Downspout is always a problem on weekends - even after a big snowfall. Its really the Achilles heal of the Lincoln Peak trail layout. Its very high traffic, too steep for intermediates to navigate without snowplowing, and the upper trail ends at the heaven's gate lift line. It really is the perfect storm for poor trail conditions. I don't mind it personally but my wife hates it so much that she takes the traverse to get there instead even though its a much longer route to the bottom of the heaven's gate lift. Its telling that even though there was a 48+" base (mostly rock hard packed powder) on that trail they were making snow on it all week leading up to the holiday weekend. Stay to the far skiers right if you don't mind the bumps and you will have some better luck - especially past the slow sign near the HG lift line. Other than that Waterfall, Spring fling, and, wierdly, Allyns traverse are the only trails that really suffer from skier traffic in my opinion. I actually like when waterfall is all scraped off though because it is good practice for tough conditions. Its steep enough that it forces you to take some quick turns but really short so you can just practice turning on the very scraped off surface. Sleeper is a personal favorite of mine by the way. Moonshine is really similar and your family will enjoy it if they liked sleeper. Note that some days Moonshine does get a little bumpy. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N. OF PIKE Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 I heard waterville valley was nice friday and sunday, wildcat really just let a few of their trails go to absolute crap (and they were closed) i thought a couple (green from top/too crowded) and a blue (top to the right) ski'd nicely. I just question their resources given the amount of trails closed and reports of no snowmaking for a week) i made mistake going there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hitman Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Tried to get first chair on Monday. Was at the base of Sugarbush's Lincoln Peak by 7:30 AM. The lift line was already pretty long. I got one good warm up run with some un-tracked stashes on Organgrinder. I scooted over to Steins run as fast as I could and blasted through the chop - very fun - but not effortless powder riding like when its not all chopped up. Due to the holiday weekend the un-tracked stuff skied out unbelievably fast. As a snowboarder this isn't such a big deal since I can really attack the chop and push it around as needed. I rode the middle earth trail for the first time this weekend. What a workout! Its deceptively long but its a beautiful trail. A few runs were groomed - apparently just prior to the change over to snow. These runs were heavenly. There was upslope snow falling from mid morning until I had to leave around 3pm. From 1pm-2pm the snow was pretty heavy. I was surprised they only reported 3-5 inches. That is probably a conservative measurement in my opinion (wind blown up top perhaps). My buddy and most frequent ski partner left his helmet at home so I wasn't comfortable attacking the trees with him - but the in-bounds tree areas looked absolutely incredible. I'm going to try and come back on Friday to hit the leftovers in the trees. I had to call an audible and take a no-notice vacation day in order to ski on Monday - potentially angering my colleagues - but it was worth it! should have texted me. I think I was on the 5th chair or so on the super bravo monday morning. sent my son to secure a spot on line while i booted up. then similar on heavens gate. untracked ripcord was awesome. I didnt do steins early because of the lower elevation, plus its not in my powder day strategem for what that's worth. I did do slidebrook at 1pm which was great. Had to leave the mtn at 2, which hurt because it was dumping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoolMike Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 should have texted me. I think I was on the 5th chair or so on the super bravo monday morning. sent my son to secure a spot on line while i booted up. then similar on heavens gate. untracked ripcord was awesome. I didnt do steins early because of the lower elevation, plus its not in my powder day strategem for what that's worth. I did do slidebrook at 1pm which was great. Had to leave the mtn at 2, which hurt because it was dumping. The plan was to give you a text and try to hit the slidebrook sidecountry together until we realized my buddy was without a helmet. That scrapped the plan for hitting the trees since I wasn't comfortable asking him to follow me into the woods without a helmet. I'm hoping to be at the mountain again next weekend. It depends on how much work I can get done during the week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.