Angus

9 days ago, my son and I walked to the Cambridge/Stowe town line...maybe 8/10ths of a mile in from the gate. There wasn't much snow on the road then, surprised it wasn't open sooner.

Wildcat closes at EOD for season. Obviously the past 4 weeks of weather kind of, sort of gets them off the hook but still.

Skied Cannon today. Had a lot of fun, beautiful day but they will pushing some snow to keep going thru Sunday. Plenty of snow off trails serviced by the profile lift, although the area around the immediate summit is thin. But the trails connecting the top to bottom are in tough shape. Middle Cannon is shot, bypass closed so you need to drop down and ski spookie b/c middle ravine is in tough shape. The front 5 are now 3 and none are in great shape. zoomer was disconnected yesterday but they pushed snow and gary's and rocket aren't deep but should make it. Due to lack of snowy, there isn't a bump on hill which is what I like to ski but it beat work. Hopefully not the last day of season but very could have been.

Another fun day at Stowe, arrived to Santa Ana winds in the parking lot this AM which was strange b/c there was no sign of wind in downtown Stowe nor up on the hill in Waterbury. Only the triple was running due to wind so we lapped available terrain. Sometime around noon, they dropped the rope to Hayride and we were among the first to take a couple nice runs top to bottom before the masses got there. From then on, we called it a day at 2, we alternated skiing gulch which had some nice bumps but had been closed earlier and Hayride. A nice two days of skiing, won't be renewing my Epic pass and will miss skiing Stowe. On the way out of town took a couple pictures of the mountain with fields in the foreground, very picturesque. My son was going to snap a picture of me standing on one of the picnic tables on the summit today, oh well. edit: btw: it was my son's bday yesterday and with every scan, we got to hear The Beatles' Birthday - I hope Vail is paying Apple Corp a royalty.

Good day at Stowe. Skied the Spruce lift from 9 to 11. Friend joined us who'd skied yesterday and said it never softened. After a couple of runs off the foreunner lift, we jumped into hayride and discovered it was soft snow top to bottom. We only skied lifeline and national once. We were laughing that you get fixated on skiing goat, lifeline, national, starr & lookout and overlook the rest of the mountain. Lots of snow left on the mountain. Back tomorrow.

Probably wasting way too much time giving this any consideration but this kind of skiing in the Spring I find quite enjoyable. By the end of the season, with your ski fitness at a maximum and your mechanics fine tuned, picking your way down a slope avoiding rocks and roots on a warm sunny day is fun...a bit of a puzzle to be solved. You can't ski soft, deep troughed bumps every run! I find VT in general is better for this b/c its' slopes aren't as rocky.

WaWa never blows much snow on that beginner area but this discussion did get me curious...yeah, they really have taken a beating but they have at least three groomers pushing snow around right now but that looks late Aprilish for sure. https://www.wachusett.com/The-Mountain/Media-Center/Web-Cams.aspx

Reggae reimagined...they seem to have the right idea - have DJs playing at bottom and top of lifts...they emphasize it's for people skiing NOT a concert. https://www.sugarloaf.com/events-calendar/reggae-fest-2021

Wow, that's a brutal picture from the lift. Just read that Sugarloaf is planning to fire up the guns tomorrow. They have to feel Reggae fest is threatened, I'm assuming they are going to focus on trails to bottom of mountain to the superquad. LOL, I was just typing 'English Easter vacation business'...oh yeah, we aren't doing that this year!

just back from crotched. they made the perfect amount of snow! drove a bit less than 3 hour to ski a bit more than three hours! They would be pushing snow around to connect trails after tomorrow. Heard things - from a friend of a friend - are very bad at Wildcat...like can they remain open. I just looked at the webcam and seen it worse so I'm guessing some hyperbole but unfortunate. @LongBeachSurfFreaknext three weekends at Sugarloaf are Reggae. I'll need to figure out my ski strategy - given I am planning to ski Friday thru Monday this coming week.

Memory is deceiving! I had to go back and look at the '15-16 winter to remember how bad it was around here. My social media posts reference a horrible winter. I was up on Mount Washington in mid-April and my posts reference the snowpack looking like Memorial Day weekend in the ravine. I had a pass at WaWa that season and I must have done a lot of my skiing there - I think it was that next summer that they expanded their uphill pumping capacity by 50%. My memory is also skewed by a great Sunshine Village, Kicking Horse, Revelstoke, Fernie 'roadtrip' during my son's march break that season. 2012 was nuts - knowing it was all melting, I day tripped to Saddleback from metrowest Boston and literally watched 2-3' of snow melt away during the day. My son called me to come pick him up at school around dinner time and I remember telling him 'No can-do, I'm in Jay Maine!' I'd left the house at 4:30 that morning. I then drove to Stowe the following Saturday on the first cold day and skied while the mountain locked up and then drove to Loon and skied Sunday in a rain storm - I stopped buying pre-purchased tickets after that season. My niece's 10 year old son is coming up next weekend and is expecting to ski and I'm scrambling to figure out a coherent ski trip strategy - keep flipping back and forth between Stowe and Maine.

My son and I have have already scoped out a 6 day Montana/Idaho ski trip on the Indy pass. This season has seemed been pretty busy for me and I will have only skied 20 or so days if I get in another 3 or 4. Next year assuming Covid is in rear view mirror, my nordic days will increase by between 2-3x given I will go back to the weston ski track where they make snow. I spent a lot of time in mountains this winter but was very diversified - hiking, nordic and downhill. I'm guessing Vail has this thing modeled super well and it's a financially very smart move.

I'm pretty sure I won't renew my Epic NE pass and instead go with Indypass. Skiing at Magic, BE, Saddleback, Bolton and Jay - where I've never been - will be a nice change. WV and Cannon are easy day trips although I'm not a big WV fan. The crowds at the Epic resorts this season have not been enjoyable - I'm a weekend skier predominantly - and I think this price reduction only makes that worse.

skied at Sunapee a few hours on Sunday after hiking up the backside with the dog - Andrew's Brook trail, very nice, highly recommended and the snow was surprisingly deep in the woods. Went over to Okemo yesterday with two friends who are infrequent skiers, we had a ton of fun. Didn't realize until literally the end of day that south face quad was running which is unfortunate b/c in my limited # of times there, I have found that pod to have some of the best terrain. I did get two runs there including a good bump run though. The snow was a bit too soft and mushy on the north side of trails that had been exposed to the sun all day but really no complaints. I guess they are closing a week early (4/4) due to some fairly extensive lift projects slated this summer. Nice, relaxed days with friends. 2x masked the whole time...no need for sunscreen for the win! Hoping to get up next week for a few days of consecutive days of skiing if weather cooperates - probably be a NNE tour, thinking I'll hit ME, NH & VT.

The Carrabassett Valley/Kingfield area was very, very concerned about Covid outbreak last Spring. There are minimal medical facilities in the area - Farmington and Skowhegan are the closest hospitals and neither of them are not equipped to treat high acuity patients. I have worn a mask all winter - usually double masked and it has not bothered me one bit. My observation based upon on visits to Crotched, Burke, Ragged, Sunapee, Wildcat, Stowe, Okemo, Jack Frost, & Bretton Woods. My theory is the more family oriented the place is, the better mask wearing compliance has been. Ragged was by far the best with staff monitoring/reminding proactively. Wildcat the worse with Jack Frost not far behind - which contradicts my family theory.

skied Cannon essentially top to bottom the morning of May 20, if I recall correctly that was the beginning of the real warm up. Snow was gone from the lower slopes within days. What was funny was how long snow held on in Tuckerman Ravine last summer even with that June heat.

In 2007, the ski season was done in late March. I believe during the second week of April it started snowing in the mountains and didn't stop. My son remembers skiing at BW Easter weekend with feet and feet of new snow on the ground when only the week before there had been discussions about not bothering to go due to lack of snow. We skied at Wildcat around Patriot's Day and the snow was the deepest I've ever seen there...silly amounts. There wasn't much in Jackson though.

just have to echo @Ginx snewx recommendation re: SR versus Wildcat, your experience at wildcat this season will be representative of what you find next year. My gripe hasn't been about the grooming but rather commitment to snowmaking so that more terrain was open earlier and the season lasting until late April. Wildcat has a liberal trail opening policy, they leave lots of terrain ungroomed and bumped up, et cetera. One of my observations over the years, chatting to skiers on the lifts at Wildcat is how many Mainers who live in close relative proximity to SR come over and ski at Wildcat. I have only skied at SR once - May Day free skiing - so obviously my experience is nil but I think of it as a BW in terms of amenities, snowmaking and grooming but with Cannon terrain ( and less the vertical ;-)), a nod to my friends at Sugarloaf! Plus, western Maine could use your $$.

saw this posted on another board...wow! Had a stretch a few years back where I went up and skied Superstar all day long in early May, it was fun. https://www.instagram.com/p/CMZ16KQgc7s/

Today was a classic March day in the NH mountains, I was in the Waterville Valley area hiking and nordic skiing and the weather flipped between heavy snow to a warm, bright March sun in 15 minute intervals. I drove up to Welch Dickey in the AM with a friend and we hiked the loop. I've done this hike a # of times in the winter but never I believe in March. Today, although the views were limited to due to the snow squalls and clouds, the views of the surrounding mountains were spectacular. After we finished, we drove up to the WV nordic center and I skied for almost two hours. This season, I had not ventured north to nordic ski and the rolling terrain along with the fresh snow crushed me - I was skating. It was interesting that for what probably amounted to just a few hundred feet of elevation gain - from the village center up to the Tripoli road area, increased the amount of natural snow that has fallen in last day or two from a generous 1" to 3"+. A good day, I am ready for Spring bump skiing!

Down in S. Carolina this week but packed the skis in the car thinking I'd hit VT on way home but because of the freeze; instead, skied Jack Frost in Poconos today making 11 states I've skied (and 3 Canadian provinces). Nice little hill, approximately 600 vertical feet with a bunch of relatively steep, short pitches for expert slopes. I skied for 3 hours and things were softening nicely when I left at 1:15. It is an upside down hill with parking on the 'summit.' They have had a very good natural snow year according to a local I spoke to on the lift and they have made a lot of snow...unless they have a big warmup, I'm guessing they have no trouble going to the end of the month which is, I presume, their closing date.

Had to go back to remind myself of the year but I have photos from April 2016 in Tucks that look like May in terms of snowpack. One of my 'bucket list' things I'd like to do this year is ski top to bottom from summit to pinkham notch but think there will be only a limited # of days to do that...comfortably.

I saw it! Friend who was at Stowe texted me the reverse picture, washington was clear but couldn't make anything else. He said it a special day!

In his defense, the WSJ had an extensive article yesterday about the southwest US on-going drought situation and various economic impacts. I'm not too worried about the local drought...if it means I need to cut my lawn less, I'm all in!

Saw these announcements and I just laughed. Wildcat at least stays open until Patriot's Day (this year 4/18) every year...this was my expectation when I purchased the pass. I am suspect of whether there will be that much skiing terrain available at wildcat if we run into a stretch of warm, wet weather. EDIT: texting with a friend and he sent me a screen shot of the published close date, 4/11 for both Mt. Snow & Wildcat. So, I stand corrected. My statement is valid though re: expectation and from the feedback they are receiving on the post, folks aren't too impressed. I think this may be an interesting disconnect of corporate office not understanding the local market. Another friend sent me an email today from SLoaf saying Reggaefest will be held 3 consecutive weeks April 3, 10 and 17. Interesting to see if Cannon decides to push to Patriot's Day - would be good strategy IMO.