Berkshire East, Monday 1/16/06 MLK

[billski]

Date(s) Skied: Monday 1/16/06 MLK

Resort or Ski Area: Berkshire East,

Conditions: Range: PP to select boilerplate

Trip Report:

Took the little one to BE today. Late AM start since the temps were zero early. Very nippy, face masks for us.

All the snowmaking trails were open and in good shape. Greens were PP. Very impressive since they really only had 24 hours to recover. Snowmaking all day on BD Upper/lower competition. Great for beginners.

Flying cloud(Lower) was lots of loose powder, manmade. A few select places had scraped off boilerplate, a dozen feet at the most, here and there, but in general, this trail was lots of fun.

No natural trails were open, but they looked like a lot of fun.


Pretty busy with families, kid 0 to 16 predominate.
If you ever need a GREAT kid's instructor (age appropriate for 8-9), drop me a PM and I'll send you the name.

Second Best part of the day (other than time with my daughter) was Atomic had a demo tent setup, that you had to practically trip over to get to the slopes. I took out the Izor 9:7m. God god, they were just great on the crud. What flex and gripping combo. Very stable at speed. If I hadn't just bought Vokls last year, I might have considered them!

Berkshire East is 2 hours to my home, 105 miles, near the junction of Rte 128 and Rte 2.

 

[thetrailboss]

Nice report. So were you duped into the "Natural Snow" listing on the trails instead of just "closed" like we were last year? :roll:

BEast had a good vibe IMHO. Decent terrain. How were the crowds on a holiday?

Great to see a demo was happening as well.

 

[billski]

Nice report. So were you duped into the "Natural Snow" listing on the trails instead of just "closed" like we were last year? :roll:

BEast had a good vibe IMHO. Decent terrain. How were the crowds on a holiday?

Great to see a demo was happening as well.

I have been around the block long enough to know that it takes more than 6-10" snow on a windy day to recover from a Mr. Ice-y treat. I gave them 24 hours to get their gear in motion to generate manmade and get the snowcone mashers into action. All I hoped for was grippable terrain. Got it.

Second, if you look carefully at the trails open/closed, the only open stuff was that with snowmaking. Pretty obvious what was going on.

"Crowds" are relative. This was the first time there was ever a "line" and no wait was ever more than five minutes tops. That was the big reason why I chose BE for the MLK w/e. "out of the way" so-to-speak.

An interesting story I was told by someone who is friends with the owners. Apparently years ago, BE used to contract to bring busloads of skiers from the East. Apparently it created a mob scene such that it PO'd the season pass holders who revolted with their feet.

The owner regrouped, put the focus local and now, with all the school and race programs, the place is mobbed during the week and deserted on the weekend. Apparently he now makes all his profits during the week, just the converse of the rest of the northeast.

I like the place. Low key, kinda granola-y. Like a walk in the park. And everyone is so doggone friendly, it feels like a vacation, even if for just a day. I always forget how slow the chairs are, but heh, that's half the fun.

 

[thetrailboss]

What I was getting at was that last season when we went their snowreport listed trails that were "open" and others that had "natural cover." Period. No "closed" trails. So it appeared more was open than in reality :roll: I think they fixed that problem.

 

[riverc0il]

fwiw, those natural cover trails deserved to be closed (they weren't that bad ). i bet they thought those trails were going to be fine the day before but closed them down during sweep or something. i am not holding it against the beast unless it happens more than once.

 

[billski]

fwiw, those natural cover trails deserved to be closed (they weren't that bad ). i bet they thought those trails were going to be fine the day before but closed them down during sweep or something. i am not holding it against the beast unless it happens more than once.

Berkshire East has an interesting way of signaling closed trails - a small "tee-pee" like structure of 2x4's; no tape. Easy enough to ski down it if you want to.

If I wasn't in "mixed company" and I had rock skis, I might have tried one or two of the closed trails.

It would have been a disaster if a great many people had chosen to ski that day.

I hope this upcoming rain is nothing. What a waste to make snow, then have it all wiped away again.

 

[Greg]

trailboss/RC - you guys really hit the Beast on a bad day. The place is awesome after a dump.

 

[billski]

natural snow trails

trailboss/RC - you guys really hit the Beast on a bad day. The place is awesome after a dump.

I have to agree. in fact, I like the natural snow trails best of all when they are covered.

 

[Joshua B]

billski, thanks for the report. It's good to see that Berkshire East was able to groom away most of the rain damage. I know they're proud of their grooming.