The 2022 - 2023 Ski Season Thread

[powderfreak]

Turning the season around pretty fast for sure.  Ropes continue to drop with about a foot and a half falling in the last week.

[Angus]

Great day at Waterville Valley. They were making snow primarily over on the new mountain and pushing out big piles on the main hill. They haven't opened nor made snow on their steeper stuff yet - true grit Bobby's run. With that said the foot of snow really helped, was even was able to ski some natural trails on upper half of mountain. Better day than I expected - obviously ski on all day. New 6 person lift is nice. I like the tbar at the summit too. 

[hazwoper]

On 1/23/2023 at 7:34 PM, powderfreak said:

Turning the season around pretty fast for sure.  Ropes continue to drop with about a foot and a half falling in the last week.

I’ll be there 2/2-2/5!  Can’t wait

[hazwoper]

On 1/22/2023 at 1:53 PM, bch2014 said:

Was able to get out and ski Montage for four hours this morning. Conditions and coverage were far better than I expected given the warm weather we’ve had here in the mid-Atlantic. They also have some interesting trails-pretty steep on the lower mountain (albeit only about 500 vertical, the top 500 vertical is low intermediate). 
 

Unfortunately won’t be able to ski for nearly  a month as I’ll be in Miami for two weekends and then Austin. 
 

I’ll definitely try to ski the weekend of 2/17 if possible and then I’m heading to Tremblant the last weekend of the month. Hard to believe it almost February and I only have 8 days in. 

White Lightning is pretty crazy for a short run.

[bch2014]

4 hours ago, hazwoper said:

White Lightning is pretty crazy for a short run.

Yeah, it's got some nice pitch. Was generally impressed by the operation.

[STILL N OF PIKE]

New snows Via mountain reports

2” crotched , 5” Sunapee 8” attitash (no wildcat yet ) conditions are heavy and soft and variable , Stratton 3” , Stowe 5”, sugarloaf 8” on top , Bretton woods 5”

[mreaves]

Watch a short doc on VT PBS about Mt. Snow’s first 40 years. It was made in 1995. Pretty interesting 

[GCWarrior]

Berkshire East was various levels of fun the last week.  None of the three storms really produced much.  Monday seemed around 6-8” of very dense wet snow.  This did allow them to get some of the natural snow trails “open”.  Jug, lift line and a couple others.  There were a ton of rocks and extremely thin cover but they skied well for a little bit.  Monday early was the best, fast wet snow on the manmade surfaces was really a blast.  This weekend should be nice, warming temps and hopefully some sun. 

[STILL N OF PIKE]

Last night  , Looks like Stowe grabbed 3” Bretton woods 3” and Wildcat says 4” 

[HIPPYVALLEY]

2 hours ago, GCWarrior said:

Berkshire East was various levels of fun the last week.  None of the three storms really produced much.  Monday seemed around 6-8” of very dense wet snow.  This did allow them to get some of the natural snow trails “open”.  Jug, lift line and a couple others.  There were a ton of rocks and extremely thin cover but they skied well for a little bit.  Monday early was the best, fast wet snow on the manmade surfaces was really a blast.  This weekend should be nice, warming temps and hopefully some sun. 

I think they went to town with snowmaking last night also.

[powderfreak]

Truly awesome one week turn around up north.  Ski quality is high-end.  Upper elevations are absolutely caked.  First photo shows the upper elevation scene.  Stuffed with snow... the trees and ground depth.  Some big stacks after 13" in this past system.

It's not even the snow total that's so solid, but the amount of SWE that has come with the snow.  It has body.  It's beefy on the bottom, with dense synoptic snow for the past 3 storms.  Then the ending of storm #3 turned fluffy, as expected.  The DGZ really grew and punched down to the surface on the upper elevations, as upslope/low level lift was still very favorable.  It added an ending of fluff after many inches of denser snow.  And the third storm in a row.

 

[alex]

Not the same here! Today I skied both Bretton Woods and Attitash. The difference was stark. Bretton Woods skied pretty well. Packed but grippy. Glades were firm but doable with a fluffy layer on top. Attitash was an ice rink. All you could hear was the hideous scraping sound; I can’t understand why they couldn’t groom it a bit better. Also surprised by how much of the terrain was still closed in spite of a decent base, and the stupidest thing in my opinion… they’ve been bragging about replacing the a/b chair… but the replacement is a non-detachable, crawl up the mountain at make you wanna jump off the chair speed lift. Why oh why not spend the extra money on a detachable if you’re replacing a lift in 2023??? Don’t get it. But what do I know, I don’t manage ski resorts (granted, neither does the person who managed that ski resort till last year lol). I was just disappointed- and reminded of how amazingly consistently good the conditions are at Bretton Woods vs other area resorts 

[powderfreak]

17 minutes ago, alex said:

Not the same here! Today I skied both Bretton Woods and Attitash. The difference was stark. Bretton Woods skied pretty well. Packed but grippy. Glades were firm but doable with a fluffy layer on top. Attitash was an ice rink. All you could hear was the hideous scraping sound; I can’t understand why they couldn’t groom it a bit better. Also surprised by how much of the terrain was still closed in spite of a decent base, and the stupidest thing in my opinion… they’ve been bragging about replacing the a/b chair… but the replacement is a non-detachable, crawl up the mountain at make you wanna jump off the chair speed lift. Why oh why not spend the extra money on a detachable if you’re replacing a lift in 2023??? Don’t get it. But what do I know, I don’t manage ski resorts (granted, neither does the person who managed that ski resort till last year lol). I was just disappointed- and reminded of how amazingly consistently good the conditions are at Bretton Woods vs other area resorts 

It was definitely a weather system that favored north and west… wanted to be north of the WAA mix-line during the strongest frontogenic forcing.  Montreal regional zone has done very well.

[Ginx snewx]

BOX Met Bryce Williams at Stowe today, gorgeous 

[DavisStraight]

18 hours ago, GCWarrior said:

Berkshire East was various levels of fun the last week.  None of the three storms really produced much.  Monday seemed around 6-8” of very dense wet snow.  This did allow them to get some of the natural snow trails “open”.  Jug, lift line and a couple others.  There were a ton of rocks and extremely thin cover but they skied well for a little bit.  Monday early was the best, fast wet snow on the manmade surfaces was really a blast.  This weekend should be nice, warming temps and hopefully some sun. 

I remember some good times in the 80's at the Beast, they did get some good storms and I remember skiing with a cast on my left hand when it was single digits. As bad as the 80's were there were some decent periods.

[STILL N OF PIKE]

Anyone know how wildcat was compared with Sunapee , specifically how wildcat is skiing 

[Baroclinic Zone]

459" at Atla now. Think I said 425" at end of this month.  Bust.

461" at Brighton on the opposite side of Alta.

[HIPPYVALLEY]

10 hours ago, alex said:

Not the same here! Today I skied both Bretton Woods and Attitash. The difference was stark. Bretton Woods skied pretty well. Packed but grippy. Glades were firm but doable with a fluffy layer on top. Attitash was an ice rink. All you could hear was the hideous scraping sound; I can’t understand why they couldn’t groom it a bit better. Also surprised by how much of the terrain was still closed in spite of a decent base, and the stupidest thing in my opinion… they’ve been bragging about replacing the a/b chair… but the replacement is a non-detachable, crawl up the mountain at make you wanna jump off the chair speed lift. Why oh why not spend the extra money on a detachable if you’re replacing a lift in 2023??? Don’t get it. But what do I know, I don’t manage ski resorts (granted, neither does the person who managed that ski resort till last year lol). I was just disappointed- and reminded of how amazingly consistently good the conditions are at Bretton Woods vs other area resorts 

In my recollection Attitash has always been pretty rough in terms of grooming and snow  making.  When we are up in North Conway we tend to go anywhere but Attitash. 
Their low base elevation probably doesn’t help but Cranmore is able to do a respectable job and they are right in the valley.  Attitash might have perennial budget issues though according to folks I’ve talked to in that area. 
We used to call it Iceitash.

[radarman]

On 1/22/2023 at 7:25 PM, powderfreak said:

Bucket list for sure.  Skiing in an absolutely buried Sierra, with views of Lake Tahoe.

Donner Lake pretty nice too 

[mcglups]

4 hours ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

Anyone know how wildcat was compared with Sunapee , specifically how wildcat is skiing 

I skied Wildcat this morning and the snow conditions were packed powder on the groomed trails with nice stashes of fluff on the sides. I only did 6 runs, but never did I scrape ice or anything frozen. In talking with people who went off trail, trees, or ungroomed trails, they mentions that it was really good it was already skied, but untouched areas did have a firm layer in the middle of the mountain, presumably because rain froze at some point. Overall, the report of 40 inches of snow in the past week is confirmed in my book, just riding up the lift you can see lots of snow covering vast sections of rocky terrain.  --- I'll be back tomorrow morning and then heading to Milan to watch the ski jumpers at the Nansen Ski Jump!

[STILL N OF PIKE]

Thank you !

[Angus]

skied Berkshire East yesterday, beautiful day. Short lines but the main chair was always full. Skied the single lines so never waited more than 3-4 minutes between runs and skied top to bottom so got a lot of vertical. Conditions were really good - not enough snow to have woods open. The warmth - around 40 - and sun softened things up. I like this place the more I go...a once a year person.

[STILL N OF PIKE]

Ski’d wildcat today . Just left -

Conditions are very good & No ice 

1.5 or so inches fell from 10-230 today at the base , prolly 2” up top

Quad was down for 90 min and most season pass holders left by 11:30 , turned back on at noon and got 5 more runs in . Good times 

[GCWarrior]

4 hours ago, Angus said:

skied Berkshire East yesterday, beautiful day. Short lines but the main chair was always full. Skied the single lines so never waited more than 3-4 minutes between runs and skied top to bottom so got a lot of vertical. Conditions were really good - not enough snow to have woods open. The warmth - around 40 - and sun softened things up. I like this place the more I go...a once a year person.

Yeah it was awesome yesterday.  I went on a skinning adventure, checking out some places I wish had enough snow to ski right now.  Today had some good skiing too but no sun so not as nice.  

[MarkO]

Not sure if it's industrywide or not, but the past 2 Saturday's have been the busiest I've seen at Waterville in the past 10 years. Cars were parked alongside the road about 1/4 mile from the Tripoli Road intersection. I think it's great for the industry, but the selfish part of me was like I'm not heading out until noon (which was what I did yesterday). It still was an amazing day. Top 3 for this season. I made a post earlier this season that I didn't think there would ever be more than a 5 minute wait with the new 6-pack bubble lift, but sure enough I'm eating leather. I avoided that lift yesterday and longest line wait was maybe 2 minutes. Even the ride back to Lowell was congested on 93 between exit 20 and the Hookset tolls. That's something I never really have to factor in the winter.

[Lava Rock]

Will be cold skiing at SR thurs/Fri. Glad we dont have tix for Sat. We go up every year for my wife's birthday and spend 3 nights.

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[Ginx snewx]

21 minutes ago, Lava Rock said:

Will be cold skiing at SR thurs/Fri. Glad we dont have tix for Sat. We go up every year for my wife's birthday and spend 3 nights.

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Once Skied SR with a -55 wind chill at the top. Place emptied out early but dressed right and it was a great day

[backedgeapproaching]

2 hours ago, MarkO said:

Not sure if it's industrywide or not, but the past 2 Saturday's have been the busiest I've seen at Waterville in the past 10 years. Cars were parked alongside the road about 1/4 mile from the Tripoli Road intersection. I think it's great for the industry, but the selfish part of me was like I'm not heading out until noon (which was what I did yesterday). It still was an amazing day. Top 3 for this season. I made a post earlier this season that I didn't think there would ever be more than a 5 minute wait with the new 6-pack bubble lift, but sure enough I'm eating leather. I avoided that lift yesterday and longest line wait was maybe 2 minutes. Even the ride back to Lowell was congested on 93 between exit 20 and the Hookset tolls. That's something I never really have to factor in the winter.

I dont normally hit any of the local spots on weekends unless friends or family are town, but 9pm on Friday there were so many cars heading from Manchester up the mountain towards Stratton it looked like an endless funeral procession or something. Never seen it like that on a Friday night at that time.

[NW_of_GYX]

2 hours ago, MarkO said:

Not sure if it's industrywide or not, but the past 2 Saturday's have been the busiest I've seen at Waterville in the past 10 years. Cars were parked alongside the road about 1/4 mile from the Tripoli Road intersection. I think it's great for the industry, but the selfish part of me was like I'm not heading out until noon (which was what I did yesterday). It still was an amazing day. Top 3 for this season. I made a post earlier this season that I didn't think there would ever be more than a 5 minute wait with the new 6-pack bubble lift, but sure enough I'm eating leather. I avoided that lift yesterday and longest line wait was maybe 2 minutes. Even the ride back to Lowell was congested on 93 between exit 20 and the Hookset tolls. That's something I never really have to factor in the winter.

It’s industry wide. Records set across NE over the last 2 weekends. The demand has never been higher which I think speaks to a hangover effect from COVID demand on outdoor access and the marketing strength (especially social media) of the outdoor industry as a whole. Everyone wants to be like their favorite instagram influencer. Season pass sales have been very strong from what I’m told and the value of an epic or ikon pass is still very good for your average 5-10 day a year skier. 

[mreaves]

Not skiing but this was the first weekend that widespread snowmobiling has been available and I can’t remember the last time I saw so many people on the trails. It was crazy. And I only got about 10 miles from home before we had to limp my buddies sled back home.