Waterville Valley - Sunday, 1/4/04

[grichskier]

I took my two sons to the Valley yesterday morning around 10:00. I should have known something was up, as there was a small, but steady stream of riders walking back to the parking lot with their skiis and boards. Instead of asking how the conditions were, I wrongly assumed that they were in a rush to get back home from a long school vacation week/weekend. On the ride up, there was no getting around the obvious fact that the previous nite or day of rain had taken its toll. Many of the trails/slopes were closed and those that were open barely had enough cover to merit opening at all. About the worst conditions I've experienced at this area. Don't know what happened to all their grooming, but one run convinced us with all the ice and boiler-plate crust. Time to go home. We paid a premium price for the end of the "vacation/holiday" weekend and management said that, although they have a one hour price guarantee, they wouldn't refund our money, but rather insisted on giving us ticket vouchers for another vacation/holiday period. There are just two more coming up - Martin Luther King,Jr. weekend and, of course, the February school vacation week. Not real happy about that, but the worst thing was making the trip up (1 1/2 hrs.) and not knowing how bad conditions were until we got on the slopes. Does anyone have any tips as to how we can judge this type of thing before we leave the house? Thank you (way in advance).

 

[riverc0il]

sorry to hear about your bad experience. at least you got another pair of tickets for another day! that's fairly standard practice from what i've seen for handling skiers that don't enjoy the conditions.

regarding knowing conditions, hard earned experience often teaches the best lesson. i bet it will be a long time before you go skiing after rain again!

kidding aside, just keep checking online for conditions. this site and firsttracks usually have reports on ski conditions. for waterville, reports at loon, cannon, attitash, cranmore, tenney, etc. are also usually good indicators of WV conditions. don't trust ski area web sites. there are a few that are legit (MRG for example), but most are deception at best, lies at worst.

also, if it hasn't snowed in two weeks and we've had lots of rain and warm weather, chances are good conditions are going to be bad. i bailed five times in the past two weeks despite really wanting to go skiing. the conditions have been horrible since christmas at most resorts, since a week after christmas for all resorts.

also, study up on the resorts you ski. for example... i know in a good snow year that my favorite mountains should be at least 85% open or better by this time of year. without the rain and warm weather, this would probably be the case. most ski areas are 40% or less open right now in new england, it's ugly everywhere right now.