<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 1/30/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>Had an afternoon off, and since its between research papers at school, decided to try out the Dartmouth Skiway. Neat place! <BR> <BR>This was my first time at Dartmouth. The ski area is really two in one, like Spruce Peak and Stowe. A dirt road seperates Winslow Mountain and Holt's Ledge. Since I only had the afternoon to ski it, I made sure to ski as many of the trails as possible. <BR> <BR>Hit Holt's Ledge first. This is the original side of Dartmouth. A Hall double chair serves a variety of terrain from beginner to expert. Checked out Don Worden's Schuss first. Good pitch for the upper part, then leads to easy cruising back to the double. Several other trails, including an old T-bar lift line and Lower Worden's fan off of it. Those trails still had untracked "powder" but it was fairly well packed down, with some rocks/leaves showing. <BR> <BR>After that, hit some of the other intermediate cruisers on that side, such as John Meck, Lyme Drop, and Papoose. Those trails are narrow but not too narrow, and not very steep, except for a quick drop at the end. Fun stuff. <BR> <BR>Then hit Lift Line, a flat cruiser at the top which dropped into a natural ungroomed moderate pitch. Then, the trail takes one final dive towards the bottom---only problem, not enough base, so it was skiing rocks and leaves. At any other area a trail like that would be closed. <BR> <BR>After those, crossed the road and checked out Winslow Mountain. In general, totally different from Holt's. Winslow is more low intermediate/beginner area, but with a few good trails and drops. Its served by a fixed grip CTEC quad. MD was a good cruiser on the skier's right but suffered from a lack of base. MBA was much better, the perfect low intermediate cruiser. Howard Chives was a beginner's trail at the top turned intermediate at the bottom, also suffering from a lack of snow at the bottom. Cum Laude was cool, an expert rated drop but really high intermediate, narrow and basically ungroomed. It too needed some snow! Lower Thomas was the best trail on that side, a good pitch and groomed with no rocks/ice. <BR> <BR>Dartmouth's Good Points: $30 weekend ticket, two skiable mountains, variety of terrain, funky old style skiing, comfortable quad, not many liftlines. <BR> <BR>Bad points: Inflation of trail names (they claim 30 but really have about 15), snow report "fudging" (they claimed to be 100% open, but about 4 or 5 smaller trails were closed, snow depth "fudging" (they claimed a base of 25-35", most trails were more like 2-8 inches of dense packed powder, and a super tiny base lodge (being replaced in a few years). <BR> <BR>All in all a great experience, and the good points exceed the bad ones. I'd go back!
Dartmouth Skiway, NH 1/30/00
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