Berkshire East 3/20/18

Nice day to get out for a few hours...30s and sunny most of the day before a few high clouds moved in. Groomed stuff never really softened all day but was still good edgeable frozen granular...just not enough traffic to loosen them up. Other than Big Chief and Competition, you were skiing corduroy all day on the other groomers.

Lapped Liftline and Jug most of the day. Though thin, both were surprisingly soft and I didn't see another skier on either trail the entire day. Obviously natural snow retention is tough this time of year so a lot of last week's snow has melted away but still nice to have runs like this in MA this late in the game.

On the other hand, I hate to say it, but they absolutely destroyed their glades by putting in mountain bike trails. Blizzard Island and Tomahawk used to both be very fun to ski over and over but now both have huge birms cutting across multiple times, sharp rocks everywhere, and a lot of trees and branches down that totally block good lines.
East Glade was always iffy...at least now it's the only major glade there with no birms across it. Disappointing...there's quite a bit of snow in the woods there but just impossible to ski without destroying your skis at every turn.

Overall a fun day and worth the $15 deal to get out without having to go far. The March Miracle rolls on again this week...looking to get to Killington for a couple days this weekend.

Berkshire East's woods were a helluva lot better 20 years ago when they were basically all officially closed. There used to be some awesome stuff with a few cliffs past Mohawk. Now I think they got a mountain coaster and zip lines over there.

Sorry to hear Blizzard Island and Tomahawk got messed up too. Trying to do too much with limited space

That’s too bad about the woods. Went to Berkshire East today and Jug, Roy’s Way, and (very) upper Minnie Dole were all closed. Liftline was open but looked like this:



Can’t believe all those trails have been lost for the season already. The groomers (Mohawk, Big Chief, Comp, War Dance) are holding up well though. They were firm and skied fast but had enough loose material to be edgeable. There were bumps on Upper Flying Cloud, Grizzly and UMass but they were starting to get a little icy in the troughs. Not much of a wait at the chairlift:

Liftline looked like that on Tuesday at the bottom...there's a little bailout onto competition so you don't have to cross the creek. The rest was in good shape except the 2nd entrance which was rocky.

I feel bad looking at that non existent lift line -- my first year on skis I can remember not going to Berkshire East

The lift picture also reminds me of how much I thought those Skytrac chairs are the most uncomfortable POS's I've ever ridden. All metal...woo. Makes your back feel wonderful. Oh and I hate loading carpets on fixed grips...they still slam the back of your legs almost as hard. Not to mention you fall back and slam your back on that wonderful metal backrest.

Sorry for the rant...I just hated that chair. Lol

I'm actually at Berkshire East right now. Haven't been here since the late 80s.

Nice spring conditions and no ones here! Much steeper in places than I though it would be.

And ya this chair kinda sucks. Although it seem to move fast for a fixed grip. The load on is terrible.


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