Attitash Bear Peak, NH (Sun, 1/13)

[Jerry]

Went back to ABP on Sunday this past weekend. The snow started in the early am and didn't let up until about 3pm. 16 up from 95 was *ugly* on the way in, no problem on the way out. In the morning, the snow was wet and heavy and conducive to being pushed around into the beginnings of moguls on most of the trails. It was a lot of work to ski in the morning, but as the day progressed, the air got colder, the snow got drier and fluffier, and the day turned into a reasonably good powder day. ABP doesn't seem to have anymore problems with rocks poking through on the trails, but the coverage is still a little thin in obvious (and well-marked) places. The biggest complaint was the ice, which was fairly easy to uncover because of the snow conditions. By the end of the day, the wind had picked up though and was redistributing the powder across the trails for more even coverage. The best part about ABP these days are the lift lines. I spent half the day doing pretty much ski on, ski off and the other half the day having to wait about a whole two minutes (at worst) in a lift line. The park has been built on Thad's Choice (sort of) for the competition this past weekend. I'm pretty sure the competition must have been some kind of down hill thing, rather than a trick comp, b/c the park really only had some banked turns and a couple of drop offs. There weren't any kickers or rails at all. The halfpipe is still closed, but at least it's now covered. The guns were sitting on that run too (idle when I saw them). It looks like it should be pretty soon for that. I didn't notice any new trail additions to the Attitash Peak. There's also only one true (short, but steep) mogul run on Attitash on Idiot's Option. Over on Bear, they added Wandering Skis and have the guns on Avenger (double black). The mogul run is Myth Maker. They also put up some barriers in the middle of the upper part of Illusion. I'm not really sure why they did this. I think they may intend to groom half the run and leave the other half ungroomed until they can open some more trails. For those paying attention to the ABP report, I didn't see as much of the liftie superficiality this week. They were too busy beating snow off chairs.