• Welcome to AlpineZone, the largest online community of skiers and snowboarders in the Northeast!

    You may have to REGISTER before you can post. Registering is FREE, gets rid of the majority of advertisements, and lets you participate in giveaways and other AlpineZone events!

MA skiing

KustyTheKlown

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 1, 2013
Messages
5,362
Points
113
Location
Brooklyn
Agreed...

Coming from the Worcester area, only Berkshire East is closer than southern VT. Going out to Jiminy is a waste. Been meaning to check out Catamount on the Indy Pass this year but it's no quicker than Loon.

And as you said, theres much better stuff in the Catskills if youre coming from NYC/NJ, so no reason for them to stop in WMA either. I guess Jiminy gets some Albany traffic, but even that doesn't make sense to me given their proximity to southern VT.

skied berkshire east for the first time this year, and with decent snow and everything open i'd much rather ski berkshire east than windham or hunter. indy pass free-ness helps for sure.
 

Killingtime

Active member
Joined
Jan 16, 2018
Messages
393
Points
28
Location
Long Island, NY
skied berkshire east for the first time this year, and with decent snow and everything open i'd much rather ski berkshire east than windham or hunter. indy pass free-ness helps for sure.
Was at Windham yesterday. I think it will be a few years before I go back. Plattekill today on the other hand was ski-on with some really good conditions. They lost snow in the recent warm up but it was still great.
 

Zand

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 30, 2003
Messages
4,108
Points
113
Location
Spencer, MA
Biggest problem with Berkshire East is the low elevation. If they were like 10 miles further west they'd probably get almost double the snow. So unfortunately they can have some long stretches when the natural stuff is closed and the rest of the mountain isn't any better than anything else in the area.

But when it's good, it's a special place this far south.
 

urungus

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 1, 2016
Messages
1,779
Points
113
Location
Western Mass
Last chair of the MA season looks to be at 4pm Sunday at both Wachusett and Berkshire East. Both will be closed Thursday, then reopening Fri-Sun. Pretty impressive they made it to April with no snow since February. Everyone else done for the season I believe.
 

mlkrgr

Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2010
Messages
460
Points
18
Last chair of the MA season looks to be at 4pm Sunday at both Wachusett and Berkshire East. Both will be closed Thursday, then reopening Fri-Sun. Pretty impressive they made it to April with no snow since February. Everyone else done for the season I believe.
Yes, Wawa was pretty shot Thursday of last week. 10th mountain was the pick of the day but had very thin cover leading on the lower half. They'll probably get it together for one last weekend on limited trails by pushing out the terrain parks.
 

Zand

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 30, 2003
Messages
4,108
Points
113
Location
Spencer, MA
Based on what I see on the webcam, I'd give Wachusett a 20% chance of reopening tomorrow and about 5% of making it to Sunday. They lost a lot overnight and it was already in ugly shape.
 

Pez

Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2016
Messages
336
Points
18
Location
WMASS
looking at the b east webcams now... i don't see how thats going to be possible
 

Zand

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 30, 2003
Messages
4,108
Points
113
Location
Spencer, MA
Wachusett announced they are opening tomorrow...somehow. Theyre going to "patch together" piles. Not sure where these piles are especially closer to the base area, but kudos I guess lol.
 

RH29

Active member
Joined
Nov 23, 2021
Messages
304
Points
43
Anyone been to WaWa lately? Debating whether to go or not this week, and conditions don't look great off the webcam (whales and trails not even close to wall to wall). Only one good night of snowmaking left this week. If anyone's been there lately and can give some insight into the conditions, speak up.
 

2Planker

Well-known member
Joined
May 16, 2007
Messages
1,459
Points
113
Location
MWV, NH
I live in eastern MA, inside 128, 50-some minutes to WaWa when traffic is light. If I’m going to be a good boy this year, following all the rules, that probably means all my skiing will be in-state. (Confession: I broke the rules once for a special day-trip to Sunapee with my daughter last month; I had not skied with her in multiple years, and a friend of hers made those plans. Did not feel great about rule-breaking, but it was an awesome day.)

How would you rate the places out in western MA, relative to each other and to WaWa? I have never been to Berkshire East, Bosquet, or Jiminy Peak. I’m pretty sure I’ll go crazy if WaWa is my only mountain.

I’m assuming Catmount is out because the way in is via NY — is that right?

Anyplace else I should be looking at?
No "rules" on travel in all of NE this season. Go where ever you want
 

drjeff

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 18, 2006
Messages
19,178
Points
113
Location
Brooklyn, CT
Anyone been to WaWa lately? Debating whether to go or not this week, and conditions don't look great off the webcam (whales and trails not even close to wall to wall). Only one good night of snowmaking left this week. If anyone's been there lately and can give some insight into the conditions, speak up.
I skied there with my kids high-school ski team (I'm the assistant coach) during the 4-7PM session last night (Sunday).

It's thin (both trail width and base depth) off all 3 quads. Most of the terrain is 2-3 groomer widths wide currently, and base depths were generally a foot at best and SOLID last night.

I know that it's been far from stellar weather for their impressive snowmaking system to do its thing this season so far, but it seems like they adopted an approach to get multiple routes off each quad open as quick as possible at the expense of taking the extra time to put down a bunch of depth on their trails knowing (or hoping) that they'll get more time soon to build the base depths.

Wouldn't shock me if they loose a couple of trails this week before the colder air hopefully arrives next weekend or so.

After skiing it last night, became any easy choice for myself and my head coach not to take our team back on Wednesday for the 4-7 session based on what the conditions were like last night. If you go, be aware of thin spots and have some edges on your equipment
 

Mum skier

Active member
Joined
Jan 25, 2021
Messages
145
Points
28
Anyone been to WaWa lately? Debating whether to go or not this week, and conditions don't look great off the webcam (whales and trails not even close to wall to wall). Only one good night of snowmaking left this week. If anyone's been there lately and can give some insight into the conditions, speak up.
I went with my daughter on Friday (she had a day off school and I wanted to get some runs in before the rain). They had 3 runs from the mid height lift and 2 runs from the summit down. Ralphs run was a bit icy/narrow but the other runs were good and no lines (contrast with weekdays last year). We had a great morning.
But not sure how the rain and warm impacted things.
 

Mt_Wawasee

New member
Joined
Nov 14, 2018
Messages
17
Points
3
Location
Windham NH
today (12/14) will be my 10th day at WAWA this year. trails are getting narrower and are a bit
crunchy in the morning. Warm temps in afternoon seem to make for the best conditions happening
after noon.
 

RH29

Active member
Joined
Nov 23, 2021
Messages
304
Points
43
Forgot to reply here, but I ended up going to WaWa on that 60 degree December evening. Conditions were textbook spring skiing, but with fast lifts and no lines I didn't mind one bit.
 
Top