Tony Crocker":366xld5x said:
After years of reading eastern reports here, I am not impressed by the reliability of those from Loon and Cannon. I'm not sure what the logistics of your schedule are. Are you in the Boston area on business or to visit friends/family but able to use intermittent days off to ski? That's the only reason to base as far south as Lincoln. If you have a whole week you should go farther north, whether in VT or NH/ME for better snow odds. From Gorham you have Wildcat and Sunday River easy access, and day trips to Sugarloaf (which by both terrain and time of year reputation sounds like your best eastern fit to me) are possible.
If it's a totally discretionary vacation, I'll question your sanity for going to New England from the DR in March vs. Denver, SLC or Mammoth/Tahoe.
Tony,
As a person who skis every weekend out of Lincoln, mostly at Loon, I would agree with your assessment of the snow reports from Loon. It used to be that they would provide glowing reports. You would get to the mountain only to find it was bullet proof ice and completely unskiable. Now, they have stopped giving much of anything by way of a report. At best, they list what trails are open.
I actually stumbled along this forum today in search of a place where real skiers without a board room agenda would share their candid observations about what was going on out there on the hill.
As for the original inquiry, Lincoln provides an excellent base of operations. It is reasonably close to Boston, and the various areas mentioned are all within 90 minutes at most from there. Waterville and Cannon are within 30 minutes; Bretton Woods and Attitash about 45; Wildcat about an hour; Burke and Sunday River 90 minutes.
Having said that, conditions this winter have been mediocre, at best. There has been very little natural snow cover and lots of warm weather during the past several weeks throughout the region. I don't think it's really worth making any sort of a long trip into NE for skiing, so Lincoln makes sense. Worst case, if you're not happy, you don't have too much of a drive to get back to Boston.
March will hopefully be a very different story. Last year, January was terrible, but February and March were amazing, with several deep powder days. I left those great conditions for a week at Steamboat. Things were so bad there that I almost left early to finish the week in NH. Fortunately, it snowed mid week.
The past two weekends have been glorious. Nearly Spring skiing conditions with enough snow on the trails to have fun, especially for crusing. Bump skiers are lamenting at the moment -- my son is on the Loon Freestyle team and until last week, they had nothing to train on for bumps or jumps. In fact, the Loon Freestyle Competition scheduled for this weekend had to cancel the Big Air event on Sunday. Only moguls and that's tomorrow.
Loon has great cruising on blue and black runs -- personal favorites include Flume, Walking Boss, Flying Fox and Blue Ox.
Waterville has good cruisers early in the day, before it gets too skied off. I think you can use your day pass from WV at Loon, so if you're not happy, you can get in the car and go back there. Better check first, though.
Burke is great as one other writer mentioned. However, they have limited snow making, so I would investigate further before making that long drive.
Cannon is a great mountain, also, but I wouldn't classify it as a cruiser. It also has limited snow making, but does tend to get more natural snow fall because of the geology. The front five are usually bump runs, but if groomed, they are short as cruisers. The top of the mountain was ruined when they took down the T-Bars and put up the chairlift. I like the mountain, but I would not classify it as a cruising hill.
Attitash is a lot like Loon with the cruisers, etc. and likely worth a visit.
Sunday River cancelled their Big Air competition two weeks ago, so they are probably hurting just as bad as anyone else, so again, probably not worth the longer drive.
No suggestions on places to stay.
MSK
