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Best places in the East to ski on the busiest weekends and holidays to avoid crowds

granite

Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2013
Messages
213
Points
16
In NH Wildcat and Cannon. Mount Ellen (Sugarbush North) and Burke Mountain in VT.
 

thebigo

Well-known member
Joined
May 15, 2005
Messages
1,869
Points
113
Location
NH seacoast
In NH Wildcat and Cannon. Mount Ellen (Sugarbush North) and Burke Mountain in VT.

I am sure the definition of 'crowded' varies but wildcat is crowded midday mid-season weekends. When skiing wildcat on Saturdays I make sure to be in line for first chair, ski as hard as I can until around 11:00 and then bag the day. To be fair I also try for first chair when skiing midweek but ski until some obligation calls not when the mountain sends me home. When I think of uncrowded in NH, Black comes to mind.
 

VTKilarney

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 5, 2014
Messages
5,552
Points
63
Location
VT NEK
What about the second-tier places like Suicide Six, Whaleback, and Dartmouth Skiway?
 

slatham

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 17, 2012
Messages
2,410
Points
83
Location
LI/Bromley
Bromley, Mt Ellen, Magic *depending* (if it just dumped, then maybe not. But quad could change that)
 

Newpylong

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 20, 2005
Messages
4,938
Points
113
Location
Upper Valley, NH
As long as the natural cover is good, I'll take Whaleback on a busy Saturday vs a major resort every time.

Sent from my motorola one action using AlpineZone mobile app

The problem with the Whale at least the past two winters is we tried our best to book an event every single weekend and utilize the mountain efficiently. While the place certainly wasn't like the Killington Base lodge area it certainly was extremely busy at times - ranging from the parking lot, lodge, lift and depending on open terrain, that too. I chose Ragged over WB on weekends so that tells you something haha.

Now that the GM, Mountain and Pub managers plus any volunteers who have been there forever are gone, you can bet it will be a ghost town again. If they even open.
 

Tonyr

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 6, 2019
Messages
782
Points
63
Mt Ellen is a good one, also I was at MRG last year over MLK weekend and was surprised how uncrowded it was. The single chair took no longer than 5 minutes to get on.
 

Bumpsis

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 25, 2004
Messages
1,088
Points
48
Location
Boston, MA
Mt Ellen is a good one, also I was at MRG last year over MLK weekend and was surprised how uncrowded it was. The single chair took no longer than 5 minutes to get on.

That's just super unusual. The snow conditions must have been marginal. I stopped skiing there on weekends when the snow is even half way decent because the 20+ min waits for the single were just too much for me. It's been a long time since I skied there but it was just such a weekend day when the waits were just a killer. Yeah, lots of room on the trails on the way down but the payback is the wait.
 

machski

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 5, 2014
Messages
3,702
Points
113
Location
Northwood, NH (Sunday River, ME)
Assuming no windholds and everyting is in play, Sunday River and specifically Oz pod. Rarely ever crowded on the quad and if cover is decent to better, plenty of lines to ski in relative solitude (more if you know where to go than on the map).

Sent from my SM-T830 using AlpineZone mobile app
 

Tonyr

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 6, 2019
Messages
782
Points
63
That's just super unusual. The snow conditions must have been marginal. I stopped skiing there on weekends when the snow is even half way decent because the 20+ min waits for the single were just too much for me. It's been a long time since I skied there but it was just such a weekend day when the waits were just a killer. Yeah, lots of room on the trails on the way down but the payback is the wait.

I don't know what it was but I was very surprised with the short lines for that weekend. When I got there I was thinking that maybe people are normally so deterred by the long waits why even think about going MLK weekend. It rained really hard during the week so much so that we thought we'd have to cancel but then two days before we arrived MRG got around 18 inches of snow which opened the whole mountain. The snow was good on top but underneath it was very icy, maybe that scared people off or maybe it was MLK weekend itself.
 
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