Crotched Mt. - 12/19/04

Mountain - Crotched Mt., Bennington NH

Date - Sunday, 12/19/04

Elevation Gain - 900' or thereabouts

Conditions - Early it was terrific, got a little scraped off by 1PM

Report - - Took a day trip to Crotched today after a buddy told me they had free lift tickets for the first 2500 skiers!! Got there late (915AM), but my pal Dom had already scored 2 freebies for me and my 8-year-old daughter. The parking lot was already filling up, and I was a little apprehensive about the size of the crowd.

The new lodge and facilities at Crotched are impressive! It ain't the most beautiful building I ever saw (pretty industrial-looking) but it sure is big. We entered the lodge through the rental area, which is the largest I have ever seen, anywhere. The upstairs snack bar/bar area is the size of an airplane hangar, and is clean, clean, clean. The bathrooms are HUGE and clean. Definitely a nice new lodge.

The hill is only 900' of vert, but what's there really has a lot of variety. Having two 8- and 9-year olds with us kept us on the greens and blues, but these were fun. My pal Dominic runs a town rec ski program which blew off Wawa for Crotched, and he has been trying to get me there since it re-opened last year. I have to say we had a great time. The lifts are new, the lift buildings are new, the light poles are new, the snow guns are new. The new owners have obviously spent a LOT of money on the place, and I hope they can keep it going.

The snow cover was quite respectable in the morning. All man-made obviously, but not that extra-slippery or grainy stuff you see at some hills. We did some laps on Meteor, Magnitude, Supernova, etc, and saw most of the mountian except the diamond trails. The beginner area has a brand-new magic carpet and there were a lot of newbies getting in their first runs over there. The terrain park was pretty crowded, and I saw some kid throw an unbelieveable 720 on his board on my second ride up the new quad. Stuck the landing, too.

Great day - I definitely will be going back for some night skiing and some weekend family time. If that's as crowded as Crotched gets on free ski day, it must be great any other time. We never waited longer than a minute in any lift line.

wish i knew you were up there ChileMass, i would have said hello! i also hit the crotch today for their free day and WOW was i impressed. their snow cover and quality is better than cannon's was on saturday. once word gets out, crotched is definitely gonna take some market share away from WaWa. i can't believe anyone would ski WaWa over the crotch. only a few short pitches got scraped off and from all reports today was about as busy as it gets. what the lodge lacks in charm and character it makes up for in efficiency and practicality. only down side was having to search for my bag and boots which got moved by the staff along with everyone else's gear that got stowed under tables. clearly the ski areas approach is that the second floor is a dining facility, not a ski lodge. kinda different, but given the volume of skiers this set up is designed to turn, i see where their coming from despite not being thrilled with lack of area to stash gear. pluto's plunge has an decent pitch and i was able to find some loose pushed over powder on skiers right near the top on the really steep part that was sweet. definitely worth checking out, especially considering most larger ski areas still don't have much open!

You know - I knew I should have posted this prior to going. Would have been nice to meet you, River. One of these days. Glad you had a good time, also. I didn;t get to any of the black diamonds, but the blues had plenty enough variety to keep me interested. I agree - given the choice between the Crotch and Wawa, I'm going to the Crotch anyday.......

Hey, who knows, maybe you were in line next to each other or something. You may have said hi in passing.

ChileMass said:

I definitely will be going back for some night skiing and some weekend family time. If that's as crowded as Crotched gets on free ski day, it must be great any other time. We never waited longer than a minute in any lift line.

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I was at Crotched the night before with my family and the conditions were really good (especially on trails that didn't appear to get as much traffic during the day),. Also, there were NO liftlines at all. The trails were all well lit.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed themselves for the free ski day and will be willing to return as paying customers. I'd like to see Crotched stick around for a while.

I'll try to post a trip report if I get the chance.

Crotched

They always had a substantial emphasis on rentals. They seem to be trying to regain that entry level niche they held for years in the 60's and 70's. If they put in a good snowmaking system, it should work for them. It's a very attractive place to visit, expecially for the young and inexperienced skiers in the Eastern Mass. and Southern N.H. area. Will they have night skiing?

Night Skiing at Crotched

Actually what I meant was that I didn't see night skiing there thirty five years ago. Is that part of the new Crotched? It is a great roadtrip for teens but anyone who thinks that it won't be crouded might be deluding themselves. Once word gets around, it will be. IMHO

yes, there is night skiing. let's hope it gets crowded as it should. last thing any one wants is this great area back on the lost ski area list. though, given how much terrain they have and the uphill capacity, i think if all the parking lots were full it still wouldn't be as crowded as a lot of other areas.

Lost Ski areas

The funny thing about Lost Ski areas according to NELSA website would be that they all weren't abandonned due to poor finances. Mount Tom was a money maker for the owners who abandonned it. I don't know what closed Whittier, but there was a group that tried to re-open it . Unfortunately from what I heard, they had a fire which destroyed their grooming equipment and shed before they had a chance to get it back up to snuff. However, I just can't see that given its great location it wouldn't be a money maker.