Crotched Mtn - 1/17/10

[speden]

Conditions: Spring like soft stuff with a few dirty hardpack spots, cloudy, low 30's, no wind

Didn't want to hit any of the bigger places today for fear of holiday crowds. Decided it was time to hit up Crotched, with their non-highway approach and smallish vertical, figuring it wouldn't be at the top of most holiday skier's lists.

Through a herculean effort and clever planning, I had the wife and kids loaded and on the road by 7am. I timed it perfectly and we hit the lifts precisely at 9am when they opened. For the first couple of hours, it wasn't crowded at all. The kids really enjoyed getting first tracks on the slightly frozen cord. Throughout the day the snow warmed up and skied quite nicely. The light was flat and I was glad I packed my clear goggles.

It was a mellow family ski day for me, so didn't mind the short trails, but Crotched isn't really one of my favorite hills. They are big on parks, which I never use, and their trails are either straight and boring or else have a lot of crossings. I never quite understand why the summit lift wasn't built to go all the way to the top, and find the exit routes out of there kind of awkward.

Spent most of the day using the quad on the far skiers right. It has an interesting unload at the top, where you stand up on a flat top and then have a sharp drop, as if dropping over onto a black trail. That's a weird unload considering the lift services some of their easier trails, but it was kind of a kick to make that drop.

Had a good day, but didn't get enough of a workout, so hopped on the exercise bike when I got home!

The Zero-G terrain park lift. The park is off to the right of this photo.

Here's the beginner's Final Frontier glade

Looking up Meteor and Pluto's Plunge. Lots of race practice happening on Meteor.

Looking across the base area. Note the ugly warehouse thing in the background. Tacky stuff like that kind of deflates my Apres ski mood when I go to Crotched.

Zero-G Park rails

Crotched Mountain Park. This trail has some big and scary looking features. You need some pretty big coconuts to hit some of this stuff.

There's yet another terrain park feature built at the base, next to the wood fire pit.

Upper part of Meteor

The quiet before the storm. The lodge was packed by lunchtime.

When we were leaving around 2:30pm, the slopes were packed and there were long lines just to buy lift tickets. I think some kind of special was kicking in to draw the hordes. Really glad we got there early today.

Ah the Crotched lodge. This is the most flattering angle on it. It's very functional and roomy inside, probably one of the most spacious lodges I know, and yet so industrial and lacking in charm.

 

[hammer]

I think they have a $25 Sunday afternoon special.

 

[speden]

I think they have a $25 Sunday afternoon special.

Yeah, they seem to have some unusual promos. I was looking at their snow report one day and it said their operating hours went until 3am. I thought it was a typo, but it looks like they have a "midnight madness" promo that actually lets people ski until 3am on some nights. That's a little past my bedtime...

 

[polski]

Yes the Crotched lodge has all the ambience of an airplane hangar, but out on the hill they impress with their snowmaking and grooming, so there are times when they're better than other available options. I also like Midnight Madness, especially when they're getting fresh snow during it - I've been there in circumstances where I've been among the very first to ski a powder day by virtue of being out there at 1:30 a.m. ...

 

[soulseller]

Crotched does a $19 ticket ($29 and they will include rentals) Sundays between 2:30-5:00pm which is the only reason I went yesterday. I have been meaning to give this place a shot and the price was right and it is one of the closer mountains to Providence after Wachusett at which I am a passholder.

We arrived in the parking lot a few minutes after 2pm, got ready in the car and made it over to the ticket window about 2:20pm. The lines at the 4 ticket windows were all about 20 people deep and moving very slowly. Luckily they had a gentleman walking around the floor selling tickets to cash buyers or I would estimate it would have been a 20-30m wait at the pace the line was moving.

Despite the long lines at the ticket windows, we never waited more then a few minutes to ride the quad, snow coverage was good, snow was soft given the warm temps. Solstice glade was a little bare showing dirt patches and rocks through the middle but Final frontier had good coverage. I was very impressed with their parks, I wish Wachusett cared half as much about theirs as Crotched clearly does about theirs.

All in all we had a good time for the money, its a 2h drive from Providence so I don't expect I will be going back too often but is a good spot for beginners or bargain hunters. It worked out well for us because we had one guy that was on his 4th day of snowboard and another guy who was testing a bum knee, both were able to navigate Crotched with relative ease.

 

[speden]

My kids took several runs through the Solstice glades as well, and they also said the coverage wasn't that great, but they still had a good time on it. Coverage was good just about everywhere else, so Crotched does have pretty good snowmaking. Looks like they got about 10" of fresh last night, so the place should be pretty buried today. The snow by me is heavy and wet today, so it was probably a heavy 10" up there.