Wildcat, NH: 01/09/05

[riverc0il]

after tracking down the sherburne, i headed across the notch to wildcat for the $20 afternoon cruise. my legs and feet were tired, but i thought i might have a few more hours of lift serviced in me. one word summed up wildcat at 1pm on sunday afternoon: SCRAPE! here's a quote from wildcat's web site:

New Snow last 24 hours: 4-7 Sat. Nite

LAUGHABLE. here, let me add an emoticon for you: :lol:

seriously, i stayed in gorham saturday night and they had two inches. drove down to pinkham base, about two inches there. skinned TRT and descended sherburne and that was, well... about two inches might have been a slight bit more before getting tracked up. but where wildcat got 4-7 was completely beyond me. as always, wildcat shows it's top notch reporting on snow conditions :roll:

well, here's the no bull: everything groomed was scraped up pretty good. i wasn't too hard on cannon for being scraped, then again they weren't claiming 4-7 inches. i took three runs, lynx to catenary was run one with much scraping on lynx. i stayed to the side but even the side had slim pickings. catenary was really nice actually, soft packed powder with occasion bumps followed by occasional scraped. bumps on lower catenary were ugly scraped. run two was wildcat top to bottom. upper cat was generally scarped with slim pickings on the side, okay bumps before the merger actually. lower cat has okay stuff on skiers right but otherwise was scraped down to the cat tracks. run three was catapult which wasn't as bad as the other trails to lower top cat under the quad which was generally ugly, followed by a brief stint down lynx to access mountain jag glade which clearly wasn't ready for prime time but that wasn't gonna stop me. really wasn't worth it as i was too concerned about dodging rocks to enjoy the turns. dumped out onto panther under the quad to the bottom, decent snow but a short pitch before ending out on the chute which was scraped to a bone.

three runs for $20 isn't exactly my bag, but i was expecting better conditions. i would not have minded dealing with the scrapes if i hadn't already put in four hours across the notch. overall, trail cover is fantastic and it's amazing how much more snow wildcat has than many other ski areas. but a solid base doesn't mean solid conditions. if friggin wildcat would open up the tomcat triple, how much more would i love the place since all their best natural snow trails are all accessable from that chair (read: the lift line and former lift line). but having to run over 1000 verts of crap to access the goods is not cool.

4-7, i still can't believe it!

 

[joegm]

i would have demanded to speak to a suit just to let em know u were not happy... i 've made it very clear that i hold no resort accountable for what they can't control.. clearly cat can't control the fact that they only got the 2.. they can't control the scrapped surface conditions... but they can control putting up advertisements that they got 4 to 7... and if that at all influenced u to spend the 20, u can bet your ass i would have let a suit know that that is total bull... :evil:

 

[riverc0il]

i hadn't checked the report until i got home today, so no worries there. the plan was made to spend $20 at the cat before the snow fell. i just couldn't believe they posted that for a report when i got home and read it. even in the woods there wasn't 4" where it was untracked. blame the wind i guess. :roll:

besides, i wouldn't let a snow report from the cat influence my decision on skiing there. fool me once shame on you, fool me twice....

 

[Anonymous]

Steve,

I've got to disagree with you on the Wildcat conditions. I also stayed in Gorham on Saturday and they got closer to 3-4 inches. Granted, by noon Wildcat was scraped to the bones and I packed it in earlier than normal. However, I was on the second chair of the day and I found a good 4-5" in the woods. I was actually surprised how good the snow was in the a.m. After spending a harrowing Saturday at Sunday River with masses of people careening down polished ice slopes, Wildcat was a nice surprise. On Sat it snowed steadily from 1:00 p.m. until around 9:00 p.m. The ride from Bethel to Gorham in the evening was slow and slick.

When I got to Wildcat on Sunday, I was disappointed to see so much of the mountain groomed, but I was still finding fresh lines on skiers right in Catacomb glades in the early afternoon. The skiing was definitely best early and it got scratchy by late morning and scraped to brutal water ice on the main trails by early afternoon, but given the winter we've had it was better than I expected. Without Saturday's snow it would have been nearly unskiable. I will say that I have notice this year that Wildcat is inflating snow totals. However, Steve's impression of the afternoon at Wildcat isn't representative of the conditions overall on Sunday... the morning was actually quite good.

I was bummed that they are no longer doing the half price ticket to passholders from other mountains. I gritted my teeth and paid the full freight $55 for an all day adult ticket. That's outrageous IMO and bad marketing when they are surrounded by Sunday River and Attitash with a $349 pass. But, Wildcat is still one of my favorites for terrain and the views can't be beat. All in all, even with knocking off early, I would have paid the $55 again knowing what I know now.

 

[riverc0il]

i definitely should have been more explicit in that my report was in regards to the afternoon cruise ticket which is only a half day. i mentioned it in the trip report, but probably didn't highlight it carefully, so definitely keep that in mind with my original report. i am sure it was definitely great skiing in the AM, but the "no bull" in me says that after receiving "4-7", nothing should get that scraped all day. my harshness was with the snow report in mind, had wildcat gotten no new snow i would have been expecting such conditions and accounted it to the losey snow this year.

regarding the woods, all glades were roped i am pretty sure. at least the one i ducked into was, and i didn't feel comfortable with the amount of rocks i was dodging. you might have found better lines than i did, but they surely weren't ready for prime time coming from someone with numerous core shots i consider worth the repair bill.

regarding snow totals, even in the woods i didn't see 4-5" but perhaps we have different visual hard sticks. they certainly were not 4-7" across the mountain which you noted, though exagerated snow totals is nothing new at wildcat.

any ways, my distaste for wildcat management shows through in most of my wildcat reports i make even on the best of days there, so take it all with that in mind i guess. $55 is definitely hard to swallow. i though $52 was hard to swallow but would have been okay considering price hikes at cannon, burke, and MRG to the $50 mark. but wildcat must be keeping up with the joneses. it takes a seriously good snow day or excellent spring conditions for me to pay $55 for the cat.