David Cronheim
New member
I skied Hunter on Thursday, Dec. 26. They had 26 trails open and almost all of the lifts turning. There was no snow actually on the ground (always depressing) and temps were in the mid 20’s all day. <BR> <BR>First, let me say that I have never been to Hunter and the opinions on the place run from hot to cold. I wanted to check it out for myself. I got there a little late in the day, 11:00 am, in time for plenty of runs. I waited in a 5-10 min. lift line for the Snowlite Express Quad. We got up to the top and decided that for our first run of the year we would ski Belt Parkway (Blue). It had good cover, but was packed. I had a hard time avoiding people because at each steep(?) drop people would stand and block the way. Well, at any rate we got to the bottom (with sore legs and wondering where all these new muscles came from) and skipped the long line at the Quad and took the triple, which had NO line. I wonder what the other people were thinking, waiting in a huge line instead of a nonexistent one. We skied a trail down to the other triple on the far left side of the mountain, in order to get to the top. We skied a couple of trails, ending in Lower Crossover and back on the triple. We took another run and headed down for lunch. We took Eisenhower Drive, which was loaded with semi-soft moguls. After narrowly avoiding a couple wipeouts there, my group headed into the base lodge for lunch. After locking up our skis ($.50) we headed in for lunch. <BR> <BR>For lunch we had a bowl of chicken pot-pie soup in a bread bowl and a soda. The lunch was good. Let me say, that the reason I can’t be more exact with what trails I skied was that I feel the trail map is awful. It is very hard to tell what trail is which and how to get to it. They make it look like one big field of trails and I found that to be hard to follow. <BR> <BR>After lunch we took a few more runs on the upper mountain’s windy steeps, which must have been blasted into the hill because no trails actually run straight down the mountain. That sort if annoyed me. Before calling it quits we a skied a few runs off of the lower mountain Quad (Broadway limited). The few runs we skied off of there were good. They actually ran down the hill. We also skied Gateway, a green on the skier extreme right. Even though I am an advanced/expert skier, I love green trails that you can go really fast on and this trail was good for that. The only odd part about that trail was that was a sign that said, “DANGER-EXPLOSIVES-Keep Off” I thought that was a bit strange. <BR> <BR>All in all, it wasn’t a bad day, but it wasn’t a great day. I site the lack of natural snow (not their fault), a very hard to follow trail map and crowds as the negatives. I site the amount of open terrain comparable to other resorts in the area as a major plus. I give it a “B-.” <BR> <BR>Dave Cronheim <BR>Watchung, NJ, USA