Small Ski Area Challenge

dlague · Oct 3, 2014

thetrailboss said:
I don't think this is affiliated with NELSAP but is just another site in a collection of websites that includes this often discussed website.

you are right!

SmallSkiAreas.com, a sister site of NewEnglandSkiHistory.com, was launched to provide a central location to discover small ski areas throughout New England.

VTKilarney said:
McIntyre has 200 vertical feet and 9 trails.
Whaleback has 900 vertical feet and 30 trails.

Yet Whaleback is a small ski area and McIntyre isn't.

Makes perfect sense to me.

My question to them: They (McIntyre and King Pine) are shorter and smaller than others on the list but lose it on # of lifts?

SmallSkiAreas.com response Correct, resulting in implied popularity!

Just as I suspected! If you are to popular you do not count!

VTKilarney · Oct 3, 2014

dlague said:
My question to them: They (McIntyre and King Pine) are shorter and smaller than others on the list but lose it on # of lifts?

SmallSkiAreas.com response Correct, resulting in implied popularity!

Just as I suspected! If you are to popular you do not count!

Since the term is "small ski area", I am having a real hard time understanding their logic.

For that matter, I'm having a hard time understanding how any weight can be given to an arbitrary "implied popularity" concept. Apparently Blue Hills, on the doorstep of the biggest city in New England, is "implied" to be less popular than McIntyre.

Tin · Oct 3, 2014

VTKilarney said:
McIntyre has 200 vertical feet and 9 trails.
Whaleback has 900 vertical feet and 30 trails.

Yet Whaleback is a small ski area and McIntyre isn't.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Whaleback has 900' of vert? it must have run a few cycles of Tren and DBOL over the summer.

How about we define small to start with?

VTKilarney · Oct 3, 2014

And by the way. According to these morons Yawgoo Valley is not a small ski area. Neither is Woodbury, Bradford, and Nashoba. And I could go on...

VTKilarney · Oct 3, 2014

Tin said:
How about we define small to start with?

No member of the male species wants to take on that challenge.

hammer · Oct 3, 2014

Tin said:
Whaleback has more difficult terrain than some big mountains/resorts. If I was nearby and they got a good storm I would head back again.

This...Whaleback is a blast when the snow is good.

VTKilarney · Oct 3, 2014

Tin said:
Whaleback has 900' of vert? it must have run a few cycles of Tren and DBOL over the summer.

That's what they report. I have seen 700 stated elsewhere.

SmallSkiAreas.com · Oct 3, 2014

VTKilarney said:
The are going to need to add Mt. Eustis to their list in a couple of months!

Things are looking good up there!

Smellytele said:
Just Whaleback but thinking of hitting the Kanc for a little night skiing in Feb

Kanc started posting on the site last winter and has a fantastic slope.

Savemeasammy said:
Granite Gorge looks like it could be entertaining for a few hours. If we lived in Keene, it's the kind of place we would probably bring the kids to.

Granite Gorge has been gradually growing for the past few years and has some fun terrain!

moguler6 said:
Not sure how they're defining this, but I think McIntyre and King Pine belong on that list. As it stands, I've hit none.

Neither area currently qualifies for the criteria (http://www.smallskiareas.com/about.php), but the criteria may be revisited in the future, should there be enough demand from areas.

4aprice said:
Why Whaleback is not on the list mystifies me. Seems to me they would be a perfect fit and a great option for Upper Valley residents and Dartmouth students and help Whaleback to boot.

xwhaler said:
I was surprised by the omission of Whaleback as well. Sub out Ski Ward and put in Whaleback and I would have given some serious thought to getting this.

Whaleback is on the list. Whaleback was one of the first ski areas to join SmallSkiAreas.com last season and were posting conditions reports on the site on a regular basis.

billski said:
As you guys have noted, there are a number of glaring omissions, and there are even more after that.
The challenge list, even as limited as it is is still an arduous task. The geographic distance between areas makes it impossible to day trip or safari many of them. Not only that, it can get pretty doggone expensive, even at 10, 20 or 30 bucks a pop, not counting the gas. Complicating matters is that most of these small areas operate on limited hours.

While the main challenge is for all of New England, there are also Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine only challenges for those unable to drive all over New England! Especially considering that many of the areas do no feature snowmaking and are operated by volunteers when available, part of the challenge is getting there when they're open!

thetrailboss said:
I don't think this is affiliated with NELSAP but is just another site in a collection of websites that includes this often discussed website.

SmallSkiAreas.com is not affiliated with that site.

VTKilarney said:
McIntyre has 200 vertical feet and 9 trails.
Whaleback has 900 vertical feet and 30 trails.

Yet Whaleback is a small ski area and McIntyre isn't.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Whaleback is listed as 700 vertical feet on SmallSkiAreas.com. The current list and criteria are as of the 2013-14 season. A new list will be issued for the 2014-15 season.

dlague said:
Just as I suspected! If you are to popular you do not count!

VTKilarney said:
Since the term is "small ski area", I am having a real hard time understanding their logic.

For that matter, I'm having a hard time understanding how any weight can be given to an arbitrary "implied popularity" concept. Apparently Blue Hills, on the doorstep of the biggest city in New England, is "implied" to be less popular than McIntyre.

Most of the ski areas on the site do not have marketing departments or the ability to have daily-updated web sites. In addition, with the monetization of Facebook (in which posts from the ski areas are now only going out to a fraction of their Liked userbase), providing up to date information on their ski areas is challenging. SmallSkiAreas.com gives them an easy interface to post their conditions/rates/hours/events for zero cost.

Thank you for your interest in the SmallSkiAreas.com Challenge. I hope you're able to check out these fantastic ski areas this winter!

thetrailboss · Oct 3, 2014

SmallSkiAreas.com said:
SmallSkiAreas.com is not affiliated with that site.

You mean not affiliated with NELSAP?

Terry · Oct 4, 2014

Speaking of Nelsap, stopped by Evergreen Valley last night. Not looking to good! 3rd picture looking in the window it looks like no one has been inside since the closed.

Smellytele · Oct 4, 2014

Terry said:
Speaking of Nelsap, stopped by Evergreen Valley last night. Not looking to good! 3rd picture looking in the window it looks like no one has been inside since the closed.

My parents actually had bought a time share there back in the late 70's. It was a sad story about the place. The town want a small little area there and a dirt bag developer came in and talked them into a large ski resort. It had indoor tennis courts, a golf course, horse stables, a marina, indoor pool. The developer took off with a lot of the money and the place slowly went into disrepair. I skied there once then the ski area shut down. That was the first thing to shut down. Then the marina and indoor tennis courts that had an inflatable roof. Then the pool, golf course and stables. Then the lodge (first bar I ever drank in when I was 14). I would still go there in my 20's (late 80's early 90's) to use it as a place to stay to ski Sunday River and Shawnee peak. Not sure if the condos are still there but were in the early 2000's.

Cornhead · Oct 4, 2014

I live in NYS and haven't been able to justify skiing small places in NE even when I've had passes, Suicide Six, Middlebury Snow Bowl. Living so far away, it makes more sense to ski the bigger places with all the other expenses involved, gas, food, lodging.

There are a couple small areas in NY that are on my radar, McCauely in Old Forge, and Hickory in Warrensburg.

McCauely is close enough to Lake Ontario that it gets significant LE, not as much as Snow Ridge, but it does have more vert, and more challenging trails than SR.

Hickory is skiing as it was in the past, surface lifts, bare bone amenities. It boasts the 4th highest vertical in NY at 1200 ft, only White Face, Gore, and I assume Hunter, are higher. It is totally dependent on natural snow, so post storm skiing is best. Hickory was NELSAP for a couple years, and has been resurrected. Hopefully I can knock both of these places off my to ski list soon.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

4aprice · Oct 4, 2014

SmallSkiAreas.com said:
Whaleback is on the list. Whaleback was one of the first ski areas to join SmallSkiAreas.com last season and were posting conditions reports on the site on a regular basis.

Just to be clear we are not talking about the same program. The program I'm talking about is being started by Dartmouth Skiways for their pass holders and involves free or sharply discounted days at other ski areas including Black Mt NH, Bolton Valley, Granite Gorge, Ski Ward and maybe one other. Like Xwhaler said add Whaleback to it and it would be very interesting. Whaleback was my home mountain during my prep school years in the late 70's and I always understood the vert to be 700'. (a entertaining 700')

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ

bobbutts · Oct 4, 2014

Terry said:
Speaking of Nelsap, stopped by Evergreen Valley last night.

Looks like Hot Tub Time Machine.

thetrailboss said:
You mean not affiliated with NELSAP?

You can spot the ugly utilitarian web design of the threecy family of sites easily.

xwhaler · Oct 4, 2014

4aprice said:
Just to be clear we are not talking about the same program. The program I'm talking about is being started by Dartmouth Skiways for their pass holders and involves free or sharply discounted days at other ski areas including Black Mt NH, Bolton Valley, Granite Gorge, Ski Ward and maybe one other. Like Xwhaler said add Whaleback to it and it would be very interesting. Whaleback was my home mountain during my prep school years in the late 70's and I always understood the vert to be 700'. (a entertaining 700')

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ

+1. We are referring to the Freedom Pass which among the mtns 4aprice mentions also includes McIntyre....$50 extra onto a pass at any of the member mtns to get the full consortium.
Whaleback skis big for its vertical when snow is good

deadheadskier · Oct 4, 2014

4aprice said:
just to be clear we are not talking about the same program. The program i'm talking about is being started by dartmouth skiways for their pass holders and involves free or sharply discounted days at other ski areas including black mt nh, bolton valley, granite gorge, ski ward and maybe one other. Like xwhaler said add whaleback to it and it would be very interesting. Whaleback was my home mountain during my prep school years in the late 70's and i always understood the vert to be 700'. (a entertaining 700')

alex

lake hopatcong, nj

kua?

4aprice · Oct 4, 2014

deadheadskier said:
kua?

Yep. We always beat up on VA:smash: (just kidding)

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ

deadheadskier · Oct 4, 2014

crazy there's no longer VA vs KUA football.

Small Ski Area Challenge

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Tin

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hammer

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