Whaleback 3/28

Saturday 3/28
Conditions: 1" of fresh, ice, rocks, dirt, wet chunky snow

Headed up to Whaleback with wife and son for a few hours. Used my last Mtn Sports Club voucher and figured since I was with my son a magic carpet is all the same to him at this point.
Snow squalls on the way up, saw quite a few cars off the road on 89. Pulled in about 930 and place was dead. Maybe 15 cars, no one in upstairs lodge.
Did some carpet rides with my son while my wife skied. She reported terrible conditions but as an intermediate her definition of terrible is a bit stricter than mine.

I then gave her kid duty and first run down Spout.
The groomer has been down for 3+weeks and too costly/time consuming to fix late in the yr. The freeze/thaw/freeze cycle hasn't been kind to those without grooming right now.
Tough skiing for sure...some of it was decent though and I could get an edge in or at least maintain control.
Did 2 glade runs down Beluga glade....less ice in the trees more just manky wet snow so was respectable.

Top of Ambergris was pretty nice all things considered. The 1" top dressing was key, without that Id have done 1 run and gone home.
Very much adventure skiing....builds character I told my wife who wasn't overly amused.

West Side entirely roped off...coverage on the mtn was actually fine for this late in the yr. Almost ducked rope on Jonahs but decided against.
Jawbone and Blowhole definitely had enough coverage had it been softer.
Had they been able to groom and/or it warmed up/softened it would have been pretty nice. Today upper 30s and sunny should be a good send off for them. I hope the locals show up spend some $ in the bar/cafeteria.

Whaleback really does try hard on a very limited budget. I felt bad hardly anyone was there yesterday and I was on a free voucher. Had the bar been open when we left at 1 I would have purchased a Harpoon IPA. Guessing they called the bartender and told him not to bother coming.

Hope they can make some improvements this off season. Need to get snowmaking sorted out and make sure groomer works at bare minimum.

Fun 1/2 day for us; just nice to be outside on a ski hill with my son. Nice lunch at the Flying Goose Brewery in New London on way home as well.

You have balls. I am surprised they even opened with the thaw/freeze.

I'll be there this afternoon. 35 and sunny. Hoping it softens slightly lol.

Next year I'll shoot you a msg we will have to grab a few runs there together.

Flying goose is just down the road from us great place.

Newpylong said:

You have balls. I am surprised they even opened with the thaw/freeze.

I'll be there this afternoon. 35 and sunny.

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If I didn't have the voucher there was no way I'd have paid for those conditions. Plus, time was limited with a 2 yr old so we figured free skiing is better than paying for only a short session.
Let us know how this afternoon is....If it softens it should be very nice.

Yesterday turned from Firm to Fantastic very quick.

When I got there around 1 only Ambergris (Beluga trees great too) and Dorsal were soft (and they were just awesome, hero snow), but by 3 PM Face and Jonah's softened up enough to open. Face was always really firm all day but enough coverage. Jonah's was all ground at the top outside of a small strip skier's left near the snowmaking pipes to get around. The rest was awesome.

Sad that there weren't more people there, almost like people forgot it was the last day. Oh well, it's a year they are glad to be done with. There are some interesting inter-mountain develops ongoing that I will share once they become public.

Newpylong said:

Yesterday turned from Firm to Fantastic very quick.

When I got there around 1 only Ambergris (Beluga trees great too) and Dorsal were soft (and they were just awesome, hero snow), but by 3 PM Face and Jonah's softened up enough to open. Face was always really firm all day but enough coverage. Jonah's was all ground at the top outside of a small strip skier's left near the snowmaking pipes to get around. The rest was awesome.

Sad that there weren't more people there, almost like people forgot it was the last day. Oh well, it's a year they are glad to be done with. There are some interesting inter-mountain develops ongoing that I will share once they become public.

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Nice, look fwd to hearing about the goings on. Keep us updated.
Glad you got a good last day in----and as you said I'm sure they had a tough season with the late start and groomer breaking down in March.

I wonder how much the really cold weather during Feb vacation weeks hurt...when I was there on President's Day the conditions were fantastic but the cold that day kept everyone away.

Just hope that they did well enough to stay afloat.

Newpylong said:

Yesterday turned from Firm to Fantastic very quick.

When I got there around 1 only Ambergris (Beluga trees great too) and Dorsal were soft (and they were just awesome, hero snow), but by 3 PM Face and Jonah's softened up enough to open. Face was always really firm all day but enough coverage. Jonah's was all ground at the top outside of a small strip skier's left near the snowmaking pipes to get around. The rest was awesome.

Sad that there weren't more people there, almost like people forgot it was the last day. Oh well, it's a year they are glad to be done with. There are some interesting inter-mountain develops ongoing that I will share once they become public.

Click to expand...

Another request Newpylong to share any inter-mountain developments as appropriate. I would consider adding a Whaleback preseason pass if it had reasonable options for other mountains to compliment my Pico pass. Last year the preseason pass was priced right but Whaleback is not enough for me to make the jump for an additional pass so I just paid for tickets.

We almost went their this weekend but, our friends who are regulars there mentioned that the conditions would be rough on our daughter. After reading this post, it sounds like she would have been fine considering we typically prefer the ungroomed stuff anyway. I think the last weekend was this past weekend right?

That's correct, Sunday was the last day.

Since it warmed up and was fairly sunny things were able to soften up this past weekend - the preceding weekend never warmed up so they were unable to open.

Both weekends are historically beyond when they close - but they wanted to remain open for pass holders since they did not open until January. Considering how many showed up my guess is they were losing money.