Wachusett 11/30/12 Opening day

Got up to Wachusett early to be there for the 9am opening. Kind of a limited opening with just two trails (Challenger and Ralph's). It was enough for my first day this season. The early crowd was light, and not enough to fill the lift, so it was ski on all morning.

I thought there might be some whales to ski over, but the trails were groomed flat. Looks like snowmaking was marginal and they didn't have a lot of extra stuff to waste.

It was frozen cord at first, but it loosened up a little after an hour or so, but it was generally pretty much hardpack. They had the guns going over on the other side of the hill, but it didn't look like it was making much snow.

I just did a couple of hours to get my ski legs back. I'm way out of shape, but it's a start.

A few pics:

They had the pump room open for snowmaking. Looks like they have some good sized equipment in there.


Base area before opening


Snowmaking on the beginner side


Ralph's


Challenger

Nice! Glad to see them open up. I'm hoping to head out next week at some point for my first day. Would go this weekend but I need to get my wife's ski equip on Sunday down in CT.

Hope you get out there Nick. Looks like this coming week could be a big thaw. They seem to have a pretty good base, so hopefully it won't melt out too much.

Nice job!

Thanks so much for the posting and pics!

I also attended opening day. It was definitely a little icy at first but once the sun came out it was mint. Very fast. Not bad for me as its only about twenty minutes away from my house.

According to an employee they are focused on making snow in the monadnock lift(beginner trails) then they'll do the summit trails.

Is it just me or is this the only TR from Wachusett that I've ever seen that does not have thousands of people in the pics?

Nice TR. Were they giving tours/showing people the snowmaking equipment or was the door just open for viewing?

Wachusett isn't too busy if you can get there early on a weekday. It's the nights and weekends that can get jammed when all the kids show up. It seemed like the crowds were a little better last year after they put in the high speed lift on the beginner trails, since it siphons off quite a few people from the main lifts.

There wasn't a tour of the snowmaking equipment. They just had the door open while the motors were cranked up, probably to keep it cool in there. I'm curious about that sort of thing so stuck my head in there to see what kind of firepower they have. I think they could probably use more pumps since I've never seen them blow more than a couple trails at a time.