Bretton Woods 1/24/09

[speden]

Conditions: hard packed powder

Early in the week I was looking for someplace new to try this weekend. It's about a three hour drive for me to Bretton Woods, so figured I'd do an overnight. At the old Mount Washington Hotel they had a deal where you get breakfast and lift tickets free with a room, so I did the math for the four of us, and the room was basically free.

Well at the time I booked I didn't know it was going to be so cold today. Started out in the high teens and steadily dropped all day, with my car saying it was just 5 degrees when we left around 4pm. But we'd come prepared and the cold didn't bother us much until the last run of the day, when the wind just sucked the heat right out of my fingers. I had to stop a couple times to revive them. Oh yeah, the wind. There's not supposed to be much wind at Bretton Woods, but there was some today. At little cold at times on the lifts, but fortunately most of the lifts there are high speed, so the trips up are quick. There weren't any wind holds though as far as I could tell.

The conditions weren't quite what I'd hoped. Their website says they have great grooming, but it didn't really seem that way today. We were on the hill early, but didn't see much corduroy, but did encounter plenty of hard packed power. And it seemed like they didn't overlap the grooming passes, so there were a lot of hard ridge lines running along the trails. I like to (well need to) use a lot of the trail width to control my speed, and crossing these little ridge lines was bothering me a little. The snow was edging fairly well, but I don't like it when it's that hard. At one point I caught a ski and tumbled forward, and landed hard on my knees as if to pray (dear God, deliver me from my ineptitude), and it felt like landing on concrete. I think I'm going to have a couple of bruises from that.

The place was moderately busy. I was hoping the weekend after MLK weekend would be lighter, but it wasn't too bad, with maybe five minutes the longest wait we had for a lift. Worse was trying to get lunch in the lodge. Geez, three floors of wall to wall people and no place left to sit.

Overall I think it's a fairly good place. The rental gear was of good quality, the lifts were fast, lots of different terrain to choose from. The place could use a gondola to the summit though since there's no lift that goes all the way from the bottom to the top.

The Mount Washington Hotel was interesting, but quirky. It's over a hundred years old, but well maintained, and they're putting money into it. Still, some things are not easily fixed, like the wood frame construction that gives thin walls and creaking floors. The old steam heat radiator in the rooms keeps the place toasty, perhaps too toasty, and they make big banging noises during the night. Not sure if I prefer that to the noisy fan heaters of modern hotels or not, but my wife was complaining about the noise.

We got to the hotel about 7pm, and they have a big new outdoor heated pool I would have liked to try, but WTF, it closes at 7pm, and besides there's a long walk from the hotel to get to it. I think various parts of me would have frozen off if I'd been able to try it. But there is an indoor pool and hot tub, so I took my two sons and we hit that. It's not that relaxing though since the guests there seem to have a lot of young kids, so the echo chamber room was filled with the shrieks of the tots. The hot tub is on the small side and up against a wall, so it was crowded, and worse, they let the small kids into it. It just didn't give me that apres ski feeling I was after. They should build another hot tub, but put it outside and ban kids.

The room we got was nice though, and with two queen beds it was a big room. All the ceilings are 12 footers and the decor is like something out of the Titanic. I guess they are renovating all the rooms, and I'm not sure if we had a renovated one or not, but probably it was since it seemed to be in good shape. The TV was crap. It was an old CRT tube with a tiny 16" screen. It's supposed to be a regal hotel and they can't spring for some flat screen TV's?

We didn't have dinner there, which is too bad because it looks like it would have been good. The breakfast buffet was top notch, with stuff like fresh made omelets, peach crepes (oh yeah), and other tasty stuff. I have to say when you look down on this hotel from up on the slopes, it's really beautiful. Oh one last gripe, the parking at the hotel is quite a hike. I'm sure they didn't want to ugly up the front of the hotel with a parking lot, so that's probably why.

 

[persee]

Hrm... I really must respond to this, seeing as I have skiied BW nearly 20 times in the past 2 seasons and feel I know it quite well. It's a nice mountain with a variety of terrain and indeed they do have EXCELLENT grooming. Perhaps you should have compared the conditions offered at BW to some of the other area mountains and I'm sure you would have found worse conditions elsewhere. Just for reference temps on Friday night in Northern VT and NH hit 40 degrees for a bit with a sudden flash freeze - not much a mountain can do to control mother nature. BW also does try to leave some natural on the sides of their wider trails to allow those us who enjoy some powder and chop to have someplace to play. However they also have some more classic New England trails such as InBetween and Zealand which are great fun as well. As for getting to the summit, you should have tried the Zephyr which will take you from the base to one of the summits. The other 2 summits are reached via other lifts which do not come all the way to the base area. This is due to the fact that the mountain has been built out (ie expanded) over time. West Mountain (earlier) and RoseBrook (more recent) have been expansions off the initial area. The area does not need a gondi as the 4 hsquads (not counting the learning area), 1 triple and 1 double are more than adequate. The current setup also does an excellent job of disbursing the crowds even on busy days.

Now as to the winds, of course there will be some wind, but BW has to put lifts on wind hold far far less often than most other mountains. Over the last 2 seasons I've only seen 1 day with any wind holds (the same day saw many other mountains such as SR, SL, Wildcat, etc completely closed due to the winds), but they still had some operations going even then.


Now as to the hotel. You were staying at a Grand Era hotel that is on the National Register of Historic places. Have you stayed at any other Grand Era hotels? TV's are not a typical priority for these properties and what you describe sounds quite typical. Generally rooms at such properties are outfitted to mirror what would have been provided a guest during the 1840s-1920s. TVs are added as a modern concession, but aren't a major selling feature. And the heating system needs to remain true to period due to the historic nature of the property, like it or not. That's what they had 100 years ago.

 

[speden]

Well in the room they had a brochure saying they were spending $22,000 per room on the renovations. How do you spend that much updating a room and only spend $100 bucks on the TV? Just seems strange not to put something nicer in there since pretty much everyone is going to watch some TV in their room. I have stayed in one other grand era hotel, but that was in Europe, so not really comparable.

The grooming was probably as you say just bad luck with the weather. I noticed as we drove up there, we seemed to cross over into a much colder band of weather when we went through that single lane pass on 93 north. I'd been watching the weather during the week, and it didn't look like the temps at BW went above freezing all week, so I was hoping it hadn't had a thaw/freeze cycle, but maybe it did.

 

[persee]

Eh... $22k doesn't go as far as you'd think when you have historical codes, etc to adhere to. I've seen the budgets for historical renovations at other properties and you'd be amazed at how quickly things add up.