It's rare to find a ski area about which I have no preconceived notions, good or bad. I could count the number of TRs I'd read about Attitash on three fingers and I didn't remember exactly what they talked about. We couldn't tell much from the trail map either. So there you go: a blank canvas.
We started the day with good news. The skies had cleared overnight so the views of Mount Washington Valley were pleasant. Here's Harv looking out over Attitash next door on "Morning Star"
Gord on "Wandering Skis"
The first two hours were dedicated to figuring out the lay of the land on Bear Peak, which is ski-in/ski-out from the Grand Summit. Being more or less equidistant between the four mountains we're visiting on this trip, the hotel has turned out to be a nice headquarters for us. Bear Peak is reported as 1,450 vertical feet, but skis big, with steep, rolling groomers covered by grippable hardpack and loose snow on top. It goes without saying that they were in better shape than the same at Cannon the day before.
We warmed up with speed merchants Patrick and Mattchuck (a PSIA Level 3 in both alpine and tele) leading the way on a bunch of high-speed laps. It's incredible to watch those two fly down the mountain.
Patrick on "Avenger"
Mattchuck on "Illusion"
At 11 am, we met Marketing Director Thomas Prindle, who has worked at both Wildcat and Attitash for a while. I remembered a few weeks back, while planning the trip, a member of our group was wondering if a marketing guy would slow us down with discussions of time shares. I laughed both because I've never had a marketing guy talk about time shares and because I got the distinct impression from our pre-trip exchanges that Thomas was a really strong skier and that turned out to be the case. He grabbed his Volkl Goats and never took his foot off the gas the rest of the day.
After lunch, he took us on a tour of Bear Peak's trees, both on-map and off-, and a couple liftline runs.
By mid-afternoon, a few of us were hoping that he would take a break and talk about time shares. :lol:
We had a great, hard-charging day and the group verdict was that the ski area, particularly the Bear Peak side, was definitely underrated and worth a return visit. Mattchuck and rivercOil in particular are "call-a-spade-a-spade" types and they were impressed by the terrain.
We started the day with good news. The skies had cleared overnight so the views of Mount Washington Valley were pleasant. Here's Harv looking out over Attitash next door on "Morning Star"
Gord on "Wandering Skis"
The first two hours were dedicated to figuring out the lay of the land on Bear Peak, which is ski-in/ski-out from the Grand Summit. Being more or less equidistant between the four mountains we're visiting on this trip, the hotel has turned out to be a nice headquarters for us. Bear Peak is reported as 1,450 vertical feet, but skis big, with steep, rolling groomers covered by grippable hardpack and loose snow on top. It goes without saying that they were in better shape than the same at Cannon the day before.
We warmed up with speed merchants Patrick and Mattchuck (a PSIA Level 3 in both alpine and tele) leading the way on a bunch of high-speed laps. It's incredible to watch those two fly down the mountain.
Patrick on "Avenger"
Mattchuck on "Illusion"
At 11 am, we met Marketing Director Thomas Prindle, who has worked at both Wildcat and Attitash for a while. I remembered a few weeks back, while planning the trip, a member of our group was wondering if a marketing guy would slow us down with discussions of time shares. I laughed both because I've never had a marketing guy talk about time shares and because I got the distinct impression from our pre-trip exchanges that Thomas was a really strong skier and that turned out to be the case. He grabbed his Volkl Goats and never took his foot off the gas the rest of the day.
After lunch, he took us on a tour of Bear Peak's trees, both on-map and off-, and a couple liftline runs.
By mid-afternoon, a few of us were hoping that he would take a break and talk about time shares. :lol:
We had a great, hard-charging day and the group verdict was that the ski area, particularly the Bear Peak side, was definitely underrated and worth a return visit. Mattchuck and rivercOil in particular are "call-a-spade-a-spade" types and they were impressed by the terrain.
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