Date(s) Skied: Saturday 1/10
Resort or Ski Area: Tenney Mountain
Conditions: Cold, perfect buttery cord....needs some snow for base
Trip Report:
So, Day 2 at Tenney, my 2008-2009 home mountain. Met up with danaxxmiller for a day at Tenney today. We were supposed to meet up with our former boss from where I worked on the Cape in the mid-90's then got Dana a job there for a few years 10 years later. Greg owns the Lighthouse Inn on West Dennis beach, the place cranks, he has money and typically only skis at places like Sunday River, Killington, the major resorts with all the bells and whistles. Dana convinced him to try out little Tenney....but....the day started with a wind hold on the summit double. I arrive excited to ski with Greg, but the double isn't spinning and Dana had sent him and his crew up to Waterville as they were fully running without wind. Right call on his part given they'd driven three hours from the Cape, would've gotten bored with the limeted terrain off the triple and things weren't looking good for the summit to open.
My first time out, I only went to the Season Pass desk and direct to skiing off the lift. Today we booted up up stairs in the main lodge area and I got more of a full experience. It's a nice lodge, small, but very clean and comfortable. Staff were all very friendly like my first time out. We headed over to the triple and skied five runs off it. The snow was absolutely PERFECT corduroy. The only complaint I have is that there is limited base, it's 95% natural snow. Because there is no base, there are a lot of water bar areas, spots of pucker brush, general uneven areas that keeps you dialed back a bit. Kind of an interesting dilemma because the snow is so hero perfect edgebal that you want let to things scream, but you dial back because odd low base variable come up on you quite quick. Tenney by no means has much pitch, but I do dig the trails; they've got a lot of dips and rolls and turns to them and they change widths a lot. What's also pretty cool is that though I normally dislike intersections, Tenney is set up in a way where you can mix up upper and lower trails off both lifts to vary your run each time, lots of combinations are available. In most scenarios the intersections necessary to have such a layout creates issues, but at Tenney where the trails intersect doesn't seem to cause the normal problems of collision avoidance and breaking up the skiing.
After five runs on the triple, the summit lift started turning, so we headed over there. The lift isn't necessarily the slowest double, but it's LONG, probably a 12-14 minute ride. Tenney's vertical is a solid 1400 feet. You combine that vert, with not a lot of pitch and the runs from the top and the lift ride is quite long. We did five runs off the top and one more off the triple before I had to ditch for the day. The top runs were great, just like off the triple, perfect cord, variable terrain due to low base depth and you could mix things up and link different runs together. The only downside was with a summit temp of maybe 10 with wind blowing, the lift ride got you pretty cold, especially my toes, which normally is never a problem, but apparently is on a 12 minute plus lift ride. We skied by some of the glades, which had a lot of tracks through them, but there was a fair crust over it. Debated poaching, but the little I skied at their run out lead me to think otherwise of going in. Looked to be pretty decent low angle stuff for 500 vert or so.
It was a great day. Would I rather be at Stowe skiing powder in the trees? Absolutely. Would I rather be ripping awesome bumps somewhere? Definitely. Would I rather be at a place like Loon with good snowmaking during / after a thaw before things get filled in again natural? Yep. But for a day like today, where I only have a few hours to get out there and there's been recent natural, Tenney is great. It's on the flat side, but I do see some off map stuff between a few trails that could be pretty cool once we get another foot of snow or so. We skied onto every chair, most of the time there were at least three empty chairs between us and the next group. The grooming is phenomenal and you ski fresh cord from bell to bell, ON A SATURDAY. That right there is fine by me for Saturday skiing in New England.
Resort or Ski Area: Tenney Mountain
Conditions: Cold, perfect buttery cord....needs some snow for base
Trip Report:
So, Day 2 at Tenney, my 2008-2009 home mountain. Met up with danaxxmiller for a day at Tenney today. We were supposed to meet up with our former boss from where I worked on the Cape in the mid-90's then got Dana a job there for a few years 10 years later. Greg owns the Lighthouse Inn on West Dennis beach, the place cranks, he has money and typically only skis at places like Sunday River, Killington, the major resorts with all the bells and whistles. Dana convinced him to try out little Tenney....but....the day started with a wind hold on the summit double. I arrive excited to ski with Greg, but the double isn't spinning and Dana had sent him and his crew up to Waterville as they were fully running without wind. Right call on his part given they'd driven three hours from the Cape, would've gotten bored with the limeted terrain off the triple and things weren't looking good for the summit to open.
My first time out, I only went to the Season Pass desk and direct to skiing off the lift. Today we booted up up stairs in the main lodge area and I got more of a full experience. It's a nice lodge, small, but very clean and comfortable. Staff were all very friendly like my first time out. We headed over to the triple and skied five runs off it. The snow was absolutely PERFECT corduroy. The only complaint I have is that there is limited base, it's 95% natural snow. Because there is no base, there are a lot of water bar areas, spots of pucker brush, general uneven areas that keeps you dialed back a bit. Kind of an interesting dilemma because the snow is so hero perfect edgebal that you want let to things scream, but you dial back because odd low base variable come up on you quite quick. Tenney by no means has much pitch, but I do dig the trails; they've got a lot of dips and rolls and turns to them and they change widths a lot. What's also pretty cool is that though I normally dislike intersections, Tenney is set up in a way where you can mix up upper and lower trails off both lifts to vary your run each time, lots of combinations are available. In most scenarios the intersections necessary to have such a layout creates issues, but at Tenney where the trails intersect doesn't seem to cause the normal problems of collision avoidance and breaking up the skiing.
After five runs on the triple, the summit lift started turning, so we headed over there. The lift isn't necessarily the slowest double, but it's LONG, probably a 12-14 minute ride. Tenney's vertical is a solid 1400 feet. You combine that vert, with not a lot of pitch and the runs from the top and the lift ride is quite long. We did five runs off the top and one more off the triple before I had to ditch for the day. The top runs were great, just like off the triple, perfect cord, variable terrain due to low base depth and you could mix things up and link different runs together. The only downside was with a summit temp of maybe 10 with wind blowing, the lift ride got you pretty cold, especially my toes, which normally is never a problem, but apparently is on a 12 minute plus lift ride. We skied by some of the glades, which had a lot of tracks through them, but there was a fair crust over it. Debated poaching, but the little I skied at their run out lead me to think otherwise of going in. Looked to be pretty decent low angle stuff for 500 vert or so.
It was a great day. Would I rather be at Stowe skiing powder in the trees? Absolutely. Would I rather be ripping awesome bumps somewhere? Definitely. Would I rather be at a place like Loon with good snowmaking during / after a thaw before things get filled in again natural? Yep. But for a day like today, where I only have a few hours to get out there and there's been recent natural, Tenney is great. It's on the flat side, but I do see some off map stuff between a few trails that could be pretty cool once we get another foot of snow or so. We skied onto every chair, most of the time there were at least three empty chairs between us and the next group. The grooming is phenomenal and you ski fresh cord from bell to bell, ON A SATURDAY. That right there is fine by me for Saturday skiing in New England.
