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VAIL SUCKS
- Thread starter thebigo
- Start date
KustyTheKlown
Well-known member
i went to waterville for the first time a few weeks ago and my gps was set to waterville valley town, not the resort, and i wound up in a fairly massive 'town' with a shopping center and a shit ton of condos. looked like a major boston area family vacation destination to me. moreso than anywhere else i've visited in nh. i haven't ever been to bretton or attitash but i've skied the other big places a bit (cannon, loon, wildcat)
xlr8r
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Cannon most recent season listed is 12/13 with 109,888, in 95/96 it had 95,642, its peak was 00/01 with 133,656
xlr8r
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The town of Waterville Valley is 5+ miles from any other civilization though. It is a very insular ski destination.
Somewhat strange that it has remained like that all these years given it's location so close to Boston. It's kinda like Sugarloaf in that the town wouldn't even exist if there wasn't a ski area there.
Geoff
Well-known member
I haven’t skied Waterville since college when they gave ski shop employees comp tickets. 1979, maybe. I’m kind of surprised it’s not similar skier visits to Loon like it was back in the dark ages.
You shouldn't be. Waterville peaked in the 80s and rested on their laurels until about 5 years ago when they added Green Peak and kinda half assed it. They opened a terrain pod that added 30% more terrain, BUT they only moved over a 30 year old triple chair to service the new terrain. Had they added a High Speed Quad, it would have really been a a big change to the skiing experience. Virtually all of the ski areas in NH have invested more in improvements and expansion than Waterville has since the 80s
machski
Well-known member
Well, Loon has high speed lifts everywhere, including their newish South Peak Expansion. The bedbase in Lincoln keeps growing and growing and with South Peak, is a stone's throw away. At Waterville, they went the cheap route and re-used a FGT for their Green Peak expansion, which doesn't really hold a candle to South at Loon. They have 2 high speed lifts, one the ancient White Peaks Express. They have done some upgrades and the coming MND bubble 6 will start to move the needle a bit. Waterville will need to do the next phase of Green Peak, linking the village to the mountain if they are ever going to claw back skier/rider share.
Getting way off the Vail sucks and Vaxxwars topic of this thread pretty wide here, but it's always been interesting to me how the level of ski area development in VT has outpaced NH since the 60s when the quantity and scale of ski resort development was pretty similar between the two states back then.
Here's VT which has the reputation of being a horrible place to do business with very restrictive zoning. Yet their major areas all exploded over the past 50 years.
Contrast that to NH which is widely viewed as more business and zoning friendly than VT and the ski area development has been paltry in comparison. Our largest resort is small by VT standards in 2022.
VT does have a significant natural snow advantage, but NH has a significant topography advantage. The mountains have so much more vertical and steeper terrain here than VT.
I suspect it's simply a matter of VT being closer to NYC money and larger population than NH is to small Boston in comparison.
Here's VT which has the reputation of being a horrible place to do business with very restrictive zoning. Yet their major areas all exploded over the past 50 years.
Contrast that to NH which is widely viewed as more business and zoning friendly than VT and the ski area development has been paltry in comparison. Our largest resort is small by VT standards in 2022.
VT does have a significant natural snow advantage, but NH has a significant topography advantage. The mountains have so much more vertical and steeper terrain here than VT.
I suspect it's simply a matter of VT being closer to NYC money and larger population than NH is to small Boston in comparison.
You raise an interesting question...and I think this last thought of yours is really the key to the answer.
I live in the NY metro area and have never skied in NH. It is just so hard to justify the drive. I've always wanted to ski Wildcat (would never do it right now under Vail ownership of course). However that is about a 6.5 hour drive for me to get there. Literally every ski area in VT is closer than that (even Jay!). And to be perfectly honest...the drive to VT resorts for me does not involve any driving through either CT or MA which is a nice bonus from a traffic perspective as I absolutely hate driving through both of those states.
eatskisleep
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What’s the deal with installing the t-bar to the sunmit? I love T-bars but…
The whites are much rougher, rockier and windier than the greens. Road access to the bigger mtns would be logistically difficult in many cases. The one accessible undeveloped spot that screams for a ski area is Mt. Blue. A beautiful 2k vert northeast facing bowl with access to the snowfield on Mt. Moosilauke. It's the other spot the state looked at putting the cannon tram.
https://newenglandskihistory.com/cancelledskiareas/NewHampshire/mtblue.php
https://newenglandskihistory.com/cancelledskiareas/NewHampshire/mtblue.php
They're wind proof! The shortened the quad because it frequently went on wind hold. The chair the T-bar replaced had the same issue.
Likewise I've only skied in NY one time. One night skiing session at West Mountain when I was a freshman at Skidmore college. I ended up transferring to UVM after a couple of ski bum years.
But ever since I haven't come close to skiing in NY. Because I have to drive so much further to pass VT.
I totally get why NY/NJ folks never come to NH to aki
E
Exactly. They’ve fallen behind. I also interpret installing a new flagship lift manufactured by a new no-name company to be to save costs. I certainly hope the cost savings outweigh the risk of having a lemon.
I think the Pliny Range would have been the best with MT Waimbek and Starr King. Would have been a massive boost to the Lancaster area economy
Yea...completely makes sense. Ironically West is one of the areas in NY I've never skied (but I drive by it every weekend on my way to VT!). In NY I've skied Belleayre, Hunter, Windham, Platty, Gore, Whiteface, and finally Bristol out in western NY (45 minutes from Rochester, NY where I went to college). NY has a ton of ski areas and many of them are quite good, but I'd never expect someone from NH or the Boston metro area to ski them much.
I do still one day want to make it to a couple NH areas...the scenery alone at some of the resorts you guys have out there like Wildcat have always made them something I've been interested in. I've actually been on Wildcat's e-mail list for well over 10 years now.
Likewise my desire to ski Gore and Whiteface and also check out Platty, Bell and even Hunter though less so the latter
Because Vail sucks
Because Vail sucks
The new owners have turned West around from what I’ve seen.
Yes that one is interesting too. I'm not sure that area actually gets as much snow as you would think just looking at the topography though. The NWS has a product where they use satellite data to estimate snow depth. That region almost always shows less snow than the main part of the whites. Don't know how accurate the NWS's methods are though.
https://weatherstreet.com/weather-forecast/new-hampshire-snow-cover.htm
