Bradford MA 3/16/2007 (powder night) and earlier

[MikeM]

Rather than start a new thread on this little hill I've updated with a report on 3/16 at the bottom of the thread (with pics).

Here's the start of the thread with TRs on 3/1 and 3/4:

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OK, so Ski Bradford is not a destination that folks here will drive hours to but I'm posting this anyway namely because I'm thankful I'm not writing about the place on the board at nelsap.org.

Bradford is a 200' vertical hill in Haverhill, Mass., probably five miles or so from the coast. No there isn't any challenging terrain to speak of but the beauty of the place for me and my kids is that it's 15 minutes from home and there's night skiing. So on Thursday night we skied a solid three hours there on groomed hard pack -- the boys were using new skis for the first time and they had a blast in the terrain park. It rained heavily Friday with some more sprinkles Saturday evening but with thorough grooming the slopes were in surprisingly good shape when we returned first thing Sunday morning. We were the second chair up and had the place virtually to ourselves for the first hour, lots of "first tracks" on very fine loose granular corduroy. Then as temps climbed well above freezing my sons got their first taste of spring skiing. Four hours of nonstop skiing (no lift lines) on a half day pass and we were done.

As an aside, four or five years ago I actually had a quite good powder day at Ski Bradford (in the debate of challenging hard-pack vs easy powder, I'll take the powder every time). A big coastal storm dumped 22" in early December and even though Bradford grooms heavily, there were plenty of great stashes on the edges.

Anyway, I was happy to throw some coin to the local feeder hill this past week and these trips served as a good tuneup for one of the very best ski days of my life, yesterday at MRG.

 

[Admin]

As a former Swampscott resident I was always curious about the place, yet never saw it. You didn't happen to take any pictures, did you?

 

[MikeM]

No, sorry. I think I've got some from a few years ago but mainly of my kids ... I'll be sure to take the camera on a future visit.

I will say I'm happy for snowboarders as they're probably what keep a place like Bradford in business. And while Bradford doesn't have a lot of vertical they do a lot with the terrain they have, including a pretty extensive set of jumps and rails and things for boarders and freestylers.

They also have one slope that has a huge old tree smack in the middle of it. I've always liked that.

 

[riverc0il]

Nice to hear a report from the Bee. As a former resident of Haverhill during my pre-college years, I learned to ski at Bradford. I took my first turns and rode my first chairlift there at five years old circa 1983. Went on to take part in a Middle School after school program and raced there during High School. It may be a small hill, but it is what got (and still gets) kids like me into the sport because family trips more than once or twice a year were not a financial option, but once a week at the Bee was easy to swing and kept me out of trouble

 

[cweinman]

My fiancee is from Methuen and always kids around about Bradford Ski Hill. I understand that the big old tree sits in the middle of the only black trail there. Have to be an advanced skier to miss the tree, eh?

 

[MikeM]

Actually they've got three or four trails (including a freestyle area) marked black but anywhere else they'd be blues at most. The kids do like saying they ski black diamonds but, having been to Wildcat (and the older boy to MRG), they know it's all relative ...

I'm actually looking to get a powder night in with my boys at Bradford tomorrow night -- 6-10" forecast before changing over to heavy schmutz on Saturday. Unfortunately other commitments almost certainly will keep me from heading north this weekend or early next week but local pow sure would beat nothin'.

 

[MikeM]

Fri 3/16/2007. The powder night came through.

Around 4" had fallen when my boys and I got to Bradford shortly at 6:30 p.m.; a little sleet was starting to mix in and persisted pretty much through the night but the precip was predominantly moderate to fairly heavy snow, totaling at least 8-9" by 10 p.m. closing.

The snow wasn't too wet even with whatever sleet but it was somewhat wind-packed, so it was slow going in places. The wind blew the snow into fields of natural bumps that by night's end were a foot to a foot and a half or a little more; like a mild chop on the ocean. Hard surface where wind-scoured but that was less of an issue as the night went on and the snow piled up.

Again it's only 200' vertical and not much pitch but there were few skiers -- maybe 50-75 when we started, fewer than a dozen at closing -- so we made a LOT of powder turns. It was the boys' first exposure to these kinds of conditions, and now they get it.

Anyway, I said I'd take pics. I didn't say they'd necessarily be in focus ... (in my defense, tough night to shoot):

The big tree in the middle of the slope (discussed upthread) is at the upper right.

Another view of the tree. T-bar (only used on busy weekends) in the foreground. In the background is a trail with another lift but that was closed so if you were up for a little traversing at top and bottom it was a wide open slope with waves of powder. We also had the cutover trail you can see toward the right just about to ourselves.

Base lodge at left

At the "summit"

 

[Admin]

Nice! Glad you scored, and thanks for posting photos of a place I was long curious about but never saw.