polski
New member
Date(s) Skied: 12/31/08
Resort or Ski Area: Ski Bradford, MA
Conditions: ~3-6" new snow on crusty (or sometimes no) base
Trip Report: The boys and I started 2008 with a powder day (Crotched 1/1/08 ) and finished the year with one at local Ski Bradford. Came as a bit of a surprise actually as Bradford's website said "closed New Year's Eve" but it turns out that meant only no night skiing tonight. Also we wound up getting a few inches more snow than had been forecast as late as last night.
All right, this might not meet everyone's definition of a "powder day" but it clearly went beyond "dust on crust" -- probably 3" or 4" new when we started skiing around 1 p.m. and 6" or so by 4:30 p.m. closing time. Snowed the whole time. Occasionally a little sleet mixed in but not enough to make the surface sticky; nice powdery consistency to the new snow. Far from bottomless though -- crusty/icy base was apparent and sometimes when I couldn't resist the untracked along the edges I hit dirt on turns. Uncrowded when we got there and it kept thinning out all afternoon despite the snowfall so there was plenty of untracked to be had on slope edges. Knee shots, baby! :lol:
Bradford had two of its three chairs running; basically a bit more than half the mountain was open. The race course (Wasp) had the most untracked, well until my boys and I took a few runs on it anyway.
One interesting bit of news: This spring Bradford cut a new trail, to skier's far left beyond Wasp. I talked with one of the managers about it and he said it'll probably be a couple years before they get snowmaking and lights there and open it up. They don't have any further room to expand and they have no plans to try further develop any glades, which would seem to be a possibility in that new trail area. (Bradford gets an awful lot out of the terrain they do have but they're light on glades.) They're concerned about cutting too many trees and losing wind protection and snow retention. Also, to the extent they have any glades at all -- mainly to skier's right off the top of the Wasp chair -- they look pretty out of commission at this point because of ice storm damage, which was heavy.
Left camera home so no pix for this one, sorry.
Resort or Ski Area: Ski Bradford, MA
Conditions: ~3-6" new snow on crusty (or sometimes no) base
Trip Report: The boys and I started 2008 with a powder day (Crotched 1/1/08 ) and finished the year with one at local Ski Bradford. Came as a bit of a surprise actually as Bradford's website said "closed New Year's Eve" but it turns out that meant only no night skiing tonight. Also we wound up getting a few inches more snow than had been forecast as late as last night.
All right, this might not meet everyone's definition of a "powder day" but it clearly went beyond "dust on crust" -- probably 3" or 4" new when we started skiing around 1 p.m. and 6" or so by 4:30 p.m. closing time. Snowed the whole time. Occasionally a little sleet mixed in but not enough to make the surface sticky; nice powdery consistency to the new snow. Far from bottomless though -- crusty/icy base was apparent and sometimes when I couldn't resist the untracked along the edges I hit dirt on turns. Uncrowded when we got there and it kept thinning out all afternoon despite the snowfall so there was plenty of untracked to be had on slope edges. Knee shots, baby! :lol:
Bradford had two of its three chairs running; basically a bit more than half the mountain was open. The race course (Wasp) had the most untracked, well until my boys and I took a few runs on it anyway.
One interesting bit of news: This spring Bradford cut a new trail, to skier's far left beyond Wasp. I talked with one of the managers about it and he said it'll probably be a couple years before they get snowmaking and lights there and open it up. They don't have any further room to expand and they have no plans to try further develop any glades, which would seem to be a possibility in that new trail area. (Bradford gets an awful lot out of the terrain they do have but they're light on glades.) They're concerned about cutting too many trees and losing wind protection and snow retention. Also, to the extent they have any glades at all -- mainly to skier's right off the top of the Wasp chair -- they look pretty out of commission at this point because of ice storm damage, which was heavy.
Left camera home so no pix for this one, sorry.
