Angus

2 hours ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

Drove thru Mount Vernon , lyndonborough, Francestown on way to ski today , those areas are looking at issues . Even Amherst had power trucks out . That whole area SW toward mason , temple and north by MHT ...damage coming 

I was driving up rt. 3 in Merrimack this morning and called my brother-in-law who lives there but is down in Florida and said if they get snow, sleet, freezing rain and then rain watch out... All the white pines are already caked in snow and leaning and tilting with lots of limbs down. 

skinned up WaWa a couple of times this AM. Their policy is off the hill when they start loading the lifts which on weekends is 7:30, between feeding and walking the dog and drive time, that makes for an early morning! Anyway, it was great to have snow on the trees and the natural snow mixed with the man-made base was nice. I pulled out of the parking lot at 7:34 and the cars were backed up from about a quarter mile on rt. 140 ... or a mile plus trying to get into the main parking lot!

@powderfreakwould have to confirm but I think he always references 40" at the mansfield snowstake as his good-to-go indicator for skiing in the woods. IMO just not worth skiing in marginal conditions in the woods where you risk tearing up a knee or worse. and the mansfield stake was at 23" yesterday. As observed, western Maine seems to have been able to retain and add to their snow depths this season relative to the rest of New England

Saddleback is reporting 100% open! Assume this is the first NE area to do so this season.

And, SLoaf has opened Brackett Basin which is kind of crazy. Folks on social media say that they are done a lot of work which I interpret as cleaning out a lot of the undergrowth.

About 8 years ago, my son and I had a Telluride-Taos vacation planned and it stopped snowing in Taos so we audibled and spent 2 days at Wolf Creek instead. The vertical is only 1.500' but runs along a ridge for a mile plus and you can ski everything. They consistently get the most snow in CO. There is no resort just the ski area. Lot's of Texans and folks from Arkansas which is hilarious. Only been to Taos once and the terrain is awesome.

Wolf Creek is awesome btw: Also, been watching Taos webcams - doing a lot of skiing vicariously this season so far! pounding snow there right now. They have a 40-50+ base right now too.

views from top of Cranmore are really good - last January.

tickets averaged out to $60/day when purchased in 5, 6, 7 day increments. It was XMAS so bed rates were probably almost 2X standard rates. We had dinner at a very nice hotel in downtown Lech and I think the xmas rate was 1,800 euro per night. It's now 1,100 euro or less for remainder of season. The place we stayed is now about $200 per night - nothing fancy but clean and nice and a 10 minute walk into downtown. Equivalent food was probably about the same - note: I eat pizza, BBQ and Mexican when out west! so our dinners were definitely more upscale) but there was no cafeteria options for lunch that I saw, it was a waiter in lederhosen (or the St. Pauli girl) taking your order. It was all very nice. Definitely a different kind of ski experience - and very enjoyable even with sub-par snow - than I've done in NE, CO, NM, UT, WY, MT, ID, BC for sure. Lech is part of Arlberg/St. Anton and definitely caters to an upscale clientele - we spoke to some Americans who stayed in St. Christoph - a smaller village - for what they implied was less $$ but they ate all their meals at their hotel and they said it was great but their options in the town were very limited to non-existent.

I'm frugal, I consume PBJs, bags of nuts and/or carrots and a nalgene's bottle worth of water brought from home whenever I ski...have to admit though, it was kind of fun sitting down with a menu and waiter everyday in Austria at XMAS.

Snow, sleet, freezing rain down 2A from Concord to Lexington - didn't expect this. 

I woke up at 430 this morning and looked at my phone trying to get some idea of the weather and saw Alex's post about the new webcam so clicked and it was snowing like crazy and thought to myself, it's been probably doing that all night, I'll cross country ski up to Zealand Hut tomorrow. In reality, there is probably two inches of snow composed of 1.5" of liquid equivalent on the road- strange, it made for pretty good skiing! I had to take my skis off shortly after passing the parking lot at the end of the road due to lack of snow. There is between 8-12" of snow up around the hut. A nice day - 13 miles round trip. Funny, met a bunch of folks who brought touring skis.

No ice on Winnisquam or Meredith Bay. There are fishing houses on Waukewan and there were people fishing out on Wicwas this AM. Nice to feel like it is winter.

The front 5 at Cannon are pretty grim looking from the road - no snow on Paulie's or Avalanche. 

headed north to meredith in just a bit - car packed with ski touring, nordic, and hiking/traction gear - we'll see what can be done tomorrow when I wake up. hopefully, there is snow on the ground at the lake

SLOAF reporting 10" since they closed yesterday. It was still snowing up the mountain at Saddleback at 6am when I checked. Looked like rain at base. 

2 hours ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

Cranmore, essentially right in North Conway lol

for almost 4 decades, I drove past and ignored Cranmore but have had the opportunity to ski there a handful of times over the last 5-6 years and had a surprisingly good time every time. It's an interesting small mountain with an old style trail network. They have a pretty good snowmaking system but they need natural snow to open up some of the more interesting terrain.

3 hours ago, dryslot said:

Talk to my buddy this morning in Eustis, There 15 miles past Sugarloaf, Told me they've had 10" since New Years, 3" of that was Saturday, They'll be fine with this one and would get upslope on the backside anyways.

Although I get there infrequently I follow SLoaf's conditions very carefully and they seem to be in good shape having avoided the big torch and rain and some snow since New Year's. 

I've started watching the Kirkwood webcams and following their weather forecast. bonkers!!

I like to shovel. Actually have an old snowblower which broke 6-7 years ago and never have fixed, trying to figure out how to get rid of it.

I pre-bought some SLoaf tickets again this year and hope to do a couple Black Mountain Maine, Saddleback and SLoaf long weekends using my Indy Pass. Black Mountain is supposed to be a great tree skiing mountain with a very reasonable ticket price. Their Chisholm Ski Club has a fascinating history. 

Sitting in Dublin airport trying to decipher my prospects this week for AM skinning at WaWa. Looking to be cheered up, I figured I'd look at the the Sugarloaf webcam and behold...a horsefly? 

3 hours ago, moneypitmike said:

Winters of yore.

 

Driven through there many times. That whole area up and down hwy131 can get crazy lake effect snow. The town is a big summer tourist destination and in winter there are a bunch of small vertical but large ski areas - Boyne is HQed there - think owner of Big Sky, SLoaf, SR, Loon, et cetera. East and a bit south of there is Gaylord - maybe 5-7 years ago I was there in late January, in a coffee shop early in the morning and there were a bunch of mothers in there commiserating that their kids had literally had 4 days of school since the new year due to snow... Crazy amounts of snow was on the ground. The town of Mancelona in that general vicinity has a snow stake 10' high near the train depot.

Flew out of the airport there once, craziest thing ever - heaviest snow rates I'd ever seems. Pilot came on the intercom said "we have a half hour window" everyone hustled on board, they plowed the runway and we we were off on max thrust. 

44 minutes ago, kdxken said:

Isn't that where Mount Watatic is? Got to be close to 2,000 ft.

1,832'

I was just trying to discern on their webcams what's falling from the sky at Wachusett - might be rain at base and then snow not that far up the slopes. It is dumping snow on yankee magazine webcam in Dublin.

So you think it's snowing in the early AM if I want to go to WaWa and take a few laps before the lifts open?

That's nothing. WaWa's gotten like 15' in 3 days. From this morning.

I don't ski there at all anymore but with the exception of castlerock area, I remember preferring Mt. Ellen especially that lift to the summit. Might be the lines were shorter and trails less crowded. Be kind of interesting to go back now and ski - probably 10 years or so since I was there.

I remember being a kid in my school's library - gosh, creeping up on 50 years! - reading the profiles of mountains and glen ellen sounded awesome with it's high base elevation! I just browsed the new england ski history site and read this...

In early 1967, Glen Ellen was named as a possible downhill skiing venue for a potential Waterbury 1976 Olympics bid, thanks to its large continuous vertical drop.