polski
New member
These days normally about the last thing I'd do is look to ski in post-thaw/refreeze conditions on President's Day, but friends invited us up to their condo in Bartlett NH and we wound up at Wildcat. I set my expectations low; I figured we'd have a couple hours of decent corduroy before crowds & scrape took the fun out of it. Expectations were exceeded considerably.
They only had maybe an inch of fresh but it helped make the surface mainly packed powder rather than loose granular. I brought out the old carvers and we had good fun ripping groomers. I was shocked at how uncrowded it was - longest "wait" for the HSQ was maybe six chairs. By midafternoon some spots on some trails higher up the mountain were pretty scraped/blown off but there also were plenty of spots on the edges where that snow accumulated enough for nice soft turns. Also got a handful of runs on natural snow trails - one (I forget the name) that runs to skier's left of the terrain park (which itself had good soft snow on the edges) and tested skills on Panther at the bottom of the HSQ. Late afternoon we hit Catacomb Glades (which I think were the only glades open) and found them in surprisingly good shape - the wind that blew around the 6" they got the other day must've deposited a good deal of it here. Even a few modest freshies to be found.
Solid full day of skiing, lovely views of Mt Washington on Washington's b-day, Tuckerman Ale on draft in the lodge ... no complaints.
They only had maybe an inch of fresh but it helped make the surface mainly packed powder rather than loose granular. I brought out the old carvers and we had good fun ripping groomers. I was shocked at how uncrowded it was - longest "wait" for the HSQ was maybe six chairs. By midafternoon some spots on some trails higher up the mountain were pretty scraped/blown off but there also were plenty of spots on the edges where that snow accumulated enough for nice soft turns. Also got a handful of runs on natural snow trails - one (I forget the name) that runs to skier's left of the terrain park (which itself had good soft snow on the edges) and tested skills on Panther at the bottom of the HSQ. Late afternoon we hit Catacomb Glades (which I think were the only glades open) and found them in surprisingly good shape - the wind that blew around the 6" they got the other day must've deposited a good deal of it here. Even a few modest freshies to be found.
Solid full day of skiing, lovely views of Mt Washington on Washington's b-day, Tuckerman Ale on draft in the lodge ... no complaints.
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