attitash a.m. wildcat p.m. 4/26 killer corn

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icelanticskier

New member
after one of the best solo mt washington experiences in a long time which included 4 t2b runs in perfect solitary summit east snowfield untracked corn runs followed by a superfun left gully exit, today les and i woke to yet another firm snow following a refreeze due to near freezing temps and radiational cooling and decided to hit up the closed attitash for some perfectly smooth harvesting. attitash definitely has much better cover than sunday river, wildcat and the loaf combined and should be skiable t2b on many runs for awhile. great skiing on the waxless lightweight gear in hero snow.

we decided to hit up the kitty for the afternoon and a great choice it was. hardly anyone there, maybe 100-200 total and perfect corn on the grooms and bump runs. the cover was better than expected but some trails required dirt patch crossing or. all corn was smooth and never sticky even with, i don't wax my skis, skis. i can't imagine them making may 4th unless it's on one trail on lower mt or all walking required. great afternoon. upper wildcat and middle catapult had great soft bumps. attitash could easily make may 11 or longer as one of the t2b runs we took was wall to wall 3-5 ft deep.

will hit up the rivah for last day tomorrow and some partying. still lots of skiing to be done on the ec and sure am glad i stayed here this week, perfect weather and consistent conditions every day.

rog
 
Attitash is an area that doesn't get much mention/respect on these boards. I've presumed it's another fairly flat, snowmaking dependent area.

Why is Attitash's base so deep relative to other areas nearly? Wouldn't Bretton Woods get more snow, being closer to Mt. Washington?
 
Attitash got a ridiculous snow making upgrade this year with the ownership change from ASC to Peaks (who did the same thing to Crotched and Mount Snow, which is one of the resorts going late this year and surprisingly so). Judging from what I saw from the top of GoS today, Attitash may have some of the best coverage for any closed ski area. Though I could not see the base area, the upper mountain looked to have wall to wall coverage on almost every single trail. Impressive for a mountain with low elevation and really shows the new ownership commitment to a huge snow making base.
 
Tony Crocker said:
Attitash is an area that doesn't get much mention/respect on these boards. I've presumed it's another fairly flat, snowmaking dependent area.

Why is Attitash's base so deep relative to other areas nearly? Wouldn't Bretton Woods get more snow, being closer to Mt. Washington?
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it's interesting you ask that question as i was going to start a new thread with an observation made my my buddies who skied cat this week .

loon bretton and attitash , from what the crew and i saw these past 3 weeks , have more cover than any other ski area west of vermont, with the possible exception of desert loaf, i mean sugarloaf....this is obviously somewhat of an anomally but it's the truth...that corridor , for whatever reason, held / recieved more snow and preserved it ...i can;t tell you exactly why , but it did....what i refuse to believe is it was any extra commitment to snow making on the part of the hills...i base this on the trail under the gondola at loon which is not an authorized trail, and has NOT ONE FLAKE OF SNOWMAKING ON IT, but skied like a low level blue run this april during the many times we skied it,,, i have never seen coverage on the trail like i have seen in the 8 years i have been skiing loon....it is very rarely ever skiable at any point during the winter ...it has massive boulders on it a la the silly tram line trail at cannon which is hardly ever skiable....it ( gondly line at loon ) was , and frankly still is as of today, quite skiable....so for whatever reason, ( good preservation climate conditions is what i think was the overiding factor this spring ) those areas, which a happen to be on the way to wildcat where the crew was skiing this april so we saw em every day, for the most part, had much better coverage... i have to disagree with some postings on wildcats coverage and did in fact state so about three weeks ago that i thought the coverage at wildcat was not as good as was being hyped up by the hill and others posting...i knew it was going to fall apart fast and it did...if you look at what was open at cat for the last 4 days, it was nothing .... there is nothing left for lines at wildcat...the crew and i were there this week so i have to respectfully disagree with anyone that would call the coverage at wildcat anything above average or even average.. it's not and it's why they will have no shot at staying open or reopening :roll: :bs: , next weekend...

the question posed by the crew this week on the way back from cat was based on the observation that the ski industry seems to be run by inflexible dunces who have no ability to think outside the box: i'm sure i'm going to get hammered for this one, but that's to be expected as i think too many people also just don;t want to think outside the box as well.

boyne should have kept loon open this year instead of sugarloaf for the late season option... the coverage was and is still there....if they had any ability to think outside the box they would have recognized this around the first of april that the coverage was off the charts and would have made loon the late season option for the boston area crowd and not the outpost that is sugarloaf... 2 hours vs 5 hours drive time...now of course all the sugarloafistas are gonna have a heart attack at that thought or proposal... that is to be expected.. but they really don;t matter... the issue, if the issue for resorts is getting enough people to go to justify spinning, would clearly be which area would more likely draw more people ....if loon was marketed properly this year with some late advertising, it would have been a much better option for boyne to do....that;s not going to happen every year, but it could happen a lot more if there was any real committment to snowmaking on few select trails at loon....
i know the professional ski bums who seem to do nothing but make endless roadtrips of skiing around here are gonna be outraged at this.. but i take that as a sign that it actually makes sense....more people would ski late if they had a 2 hour drive to nh and not some ridiculous excursion up to far maine... it's just that simple....
 
From what I've read, Sugarloaf's real strength is late season, and I'm glad that Boyne has recognized this. I haven't read any comments about its snowpack collapsing like Wildcat's.

That said, joegm has a point that if cover is good at someplace accessible to Boston daytrippers, at least one of them ought to keep something open.

I think joegm got outvoted on the Sugarloaf drive time, but at 4+ hours it's still weekend vs. daytrip for most people. I note that even Riverc0il hasn't made the trek up there.
 
Tony Crocker":2yn52drr said:
Attitash is an area that doesn't get much mention/respect on these boards. I've presumed it's another fairly flat, snowmaking dependent area.

Why is Attitash's base so deep relative to other areas nearly? Wouldn't Bretton Woods get more snow, being closer to Mt. Washington?
Click to expand...

attitash doesn't get much mention cuz it's not jay, stowe, mrg.....what attitash is is a funky 1750 vert hill with some classic ne trails, many of which that are steeper than most in the north east, the bear peak side, which has the ultra base depths right now has wider, sunday riverish trails with some great glades and steeper trails with bumps and without. anoyher thing about the tash over wildcat other than it's quite a bit steeper is that on many days when the kitty just won't soften up given it's higher elevation, the tash can be a total corn bowl. even before the new owners, asc made way more snow than needed as i've skinned the place into may on many occasion in different years.
rog
 
Tony Crocker":3jgw8s1x said:
I think joegm got outvoted on the Sugarloaf drive time, but at 4+ hours it's still weekend vs. daytrip for most people. I note that even Riverc0il hasn't made the trek up there.
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Given the east/west travel aspect of Northern New England, even though I am 1.5 hours north of Boston, I am still about four hours away from the Loaf. I have driven to Saddleback in Maine which is a little closer, but my times skiing Saddleback were not during corn season during which the Loaf would be worth the extra drive time. It doesn't make sense in season because I have as good and better options closer. And during corn season, I want as much time on Mount Washington as possible. I keep saying I will get back up there because it truly is an awesome mountain but the factors just have not lined up. One factor would be people to ski and share a room with because that is outside of my day trip range, which has ultimately been the deciding factor as I am not going to pay for a room solo, especially when most require double occupancy.

Regarding Attitash not getting much respect, it is hard for me to separate the mountain and terrain from the people that ski and ride there. I skied Attitash lift serviced once and was.... what is the word I am looking for here.... sketched out with the type of clientel the mountain attracts. It was a crowded zoo of yahoos, out of control sliders, and a bunch of punks. Maybe I hit it up on a bad day, the mountain simply does not have enough capacity for the crowd it attracts was my initial impression. I am not sure I would go back lift serviced on a free ticket unless it was mid-week. Seems like a logical destination for earning turns post season though as the vertical is fairly continuous top to bottom and there are a few sections with decent pitch as rog noted.
 
tony, i can get outvoted by people who believe what they want to believe, but that doesn't change what the truth is.....it is simple math...sugaloaf is a 5 plus hour ride from the city limits of boston.. if you are on the north shore of boston it is a little less and if you are on the south shore it is a little more....it is ridiculous ski area propaganda to say to put a 4 handle on it....any one who says they know people from " boston " who do it in 4 , are fallin for what people are famous for around here... saying they are from boston when they are not....i've met many people who when asked where they are from, reply boston...when in fact they are from burbs that are often 30 miles outside of boston....it's a 5 hour ride from boston...this debate is just ridiculous...i'd like to know where exactly the people who outvoted me on this live...do they live in the boston area, or do they really live in boston...i live in boston... in the city, i've made the drive... it's 5 plus hours.. and i don't know one single solitary family who would even consider driving 5 hours one way for a day trip to ski in the spring....i know many that would drive 2:15 to loon....
river's comments , imo, back me up on this...and steve is 100 % right on the skiers at attitash....that place is a circus with yahoos... i've been there probably 5 times , all midweek, and it was out of hand....i can't even imagine what the weekends are like there....it is probably comparable to loon on the weekends
 
riverc0il":19tqrtyt said:
Regarding Attitash not getting much respect, it is hard for me to separate the mountain and terrain from the people that ski and ride there. I skied Attitash lift serviced once and was.... what is the word I am looking for here.... sketched out with the type of clientel the mountain attracts. It was a crowded zoo of yahoos, out of control sliders, and a bunch of punks. Maybe I hit it up on a bad day, the mountain simply does not have enough capacity for the crowd it attracts was my initial impression. I am not sure I would go back lift serviced on a free ticket unless it was mid-week. Seems like a logical destination for earning turns post season though as the vertical is fairly continuous top to bottom and there are a few sections with decent pitch as rog noted.
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Pretty much sums up my feelings on the place every time I have been there. Don't get me wrong, there are some nice trails, but the majority of the skiers are not, err nice. Nice moguls on bear peak though...
 
in all of the years traveling to the loaf from cape cod it was always 5 hours 15 minutes from hyannis and 300 miles. from newmarket it's been 3 hours 15 minutes every time this year 180 miles. for anytime yer averaging less than 60, you more than make up for it in the 70+mph sections, that's taking 95 n to 295 to rt 27 which is alot faster than route 4, the way most folks go. now, when i lived on the cape i always timed my trips to avoid boston traffic, meaning leaving the cape at 630 pm and whizzing through town at 60 mph and i only skied midweek. as far as the tash goes, i now only ski there after they close for the season but have never had a problem with crowds midweek non-hol.

rog
 
Tony Crocker":l80h2kes said:
From what I've read, Sugarloaf's real strength is late season, and I'm glad that Boyne has recognized this. I haven't read any comments about its snowpack collapsing like Wildcat's.
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Apparently they have just passed a tipping point. I was at Sugarloaf on Friday and they claimed 83 open trails off four lifts -- even given an inflated count because of how trails are named, there was a lot of open terrain, and still t2b. At this writing for the coming week they say they will have six open trails off just the SuperQuad.
 
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