wildcat, nh, 4-19 / 20- thurs and fri

[joegm]

things are more than likely going to be becoming somewhat day to day over the next 7 days for sure.. but this is what i can tell you:
1) there is so much coverage at cat, upper starr line and upper lift lion have NOT ONE SPEC OF ROCK SHOWING.
2) there is so much snow at cat , every single old lift tower cement block on the top part of lift lion is buried and not visible
3) there is so much snow at cat the relative slope angle of upper starr and lift lion has essentially been made into a blue square
4) there is snow much snow at cat that the bottom two outrun route segments off of panther ( the lift line ) skiers left and straight on ahead, have no rocks showing and can be skied out without the slightest thought of hitting rocks
5) there is so much snow at cat, al's folly, ( not one flake of fake snow blown in there ever ) has no visible rocks and skis like a blue square bump run

thurs and fri had us skiing the most ridiculous coverage i have seen at cat /... ever.. spring or winter... think about that!!!!.. when is the last time you can honestly say you skied cat and saw no rocks showing at all off of starr or LL?...winter or spring or whenever
it's just about the most ridiculous thing i have ever seen...
fridays afternnon, standing in the lot, which was jammed by the way, looking up the hill you could not see any gaps in coverage from the top down to the bottom.. reports had them hedging on wed...openly debating thurs and by 3 on thurs they had majic markered the signage to commit to the spin through next week if they can...
aside from that, the whole hill is pretty much one big bump run.... the main groomers were fine for a few hours but then they start getting really muchy for the average rec skier i would think...every real line on the hill is open.. thurs the lines had not yet set up and been skied in but by 11 on fri , good lines had sprung.
the place is going to be mobbed , i would guess , today and sunday... the bigger concern is the weather... monday looks like it is going to be smoking hot , followed by a somewhat cooler 72 hours, so that might help ... the venerable british ( or is it scottish ) ski patroller ian said they are all in for sure on a day to day basis...they are doing the right thing and they get credit for that- no weekend only nonsense like jay peak had pulled in the past... it was good to see a full lot yesterday with obviously a ton of mass vaca skiers doing the right thing and putting t ball on hold or keeping the titleist in the bag or getting captain nemo out of dry dock for another week :roll:
driving over from lincoln, pasing loon ( no coverage gaps from the road ) cannon ( no coverage gaps from the road ) bretton woods ( no coverage gaps from the road ) attitash ( no coverage gaps from the road) black ( no coverage gaps from the road ) all we could do was shake our head at the ridiculousness of the ski industry in the east and their inability to adjust....
cat is going off for sure in the next 5 days.
we'll be there every day starting monday and chargin hard till friday or until they spin no more and tell us to get the hell out finally it's time to do some real skiing for more than one day in a row :wink:

 

[Tony Crocker]

Of the NH areas you mention, if one of them is going to stay open for spring bump skiing, I assume Wildcat is the right one terrain wise. So unless there are long lift lines (maybe so this weekend) the market is responding appropriately to the bounty of April snow. But I agree that some of the lift service should stay open until the snow runs out. It will be interesting to see how many weeks that is.

 

[Patrick]

Nice Joe.

when is the last time you can honestly say you skied cat and saw no rocks showing at all off of starr or LL?...winter or spring or whenever

How about October 2005? :wink:

it was good to see a full lot yesterday

That's great news...at least were not the only ones still skiing and ski area have maybe more an incentive to keep the lifts turning.

all we could do was shake our head at the ridiculousness of the ski industry in the east and their inability to adjust....

Yes, a few of them, however I've been surprised by some of the things I've seen this year (check out the Eastern closing thread). Some ski areas keep extending their season left and right. I guess there is hope in the ski industry after all.

 

[Tony Crocker]

One of the advantages of having multiple areas: only a handful of them need to see the light. So far they seem to be the right ones.

 

[joegm]

i agree with crocker, about cat in some ways... but it seems to me after 8 or so years of paying some attention to these things, not that i'm on crockers level of knowledge by any means, generally, year over year, to grab a wall st term, cat just doesn't get a lot of snow to make it a viable consistent last weekend in april hill.. they certainly do not make a lot of fake ....it seems to me they rely on thier location to preserve and sustain what they get.. which is not a lot, by any objective standard, ON AVERAGE. it gets more than that loon wv cannnon slot does.. but it doesn't come close to the stowe/smuggs/ jay or even K / MRG slot...cat was always somewhat of an engima to me considering where it is....the only thing i can think of is that the big rock pile breaks up or mutes some fronts...but i may be way off with that...cat seemingly does get lucky though every now and then... 3 weeks ago we were at cat and they were out of business within 48 hours for sure....then came some snow.... now like i said before, i don't believe snow totals tell the whole story... it's why i think jay peak is overrated ( please no nasty rebuttals, river... i'm not gonna respond ) i still maintain that.. location and maintainence ( by nature and by man) of what one gets , are just as important....and just as important here in the east , NORMALLY, is how much fake you make....the other thing , i think, about cat , is that when it does get snow, it seems to get fierce winds shortly thereafter .. so i think they lose some even more... but then, their trails cuts probably hold it better than the average blvd cuts like loon and that silly attitash....it's a complicated thing for sure....
yeah, right now it's kickin ass at cat for sure....but it's luck... all luck...it's out of hand over there ,but it's freak thing ...i skied cat on april 28th i think 5 years ago... havn't seen the 20's since till now.
a few years ago, crocker , i think, threw out that profile at cannon would be a good spring trail to spin on late.....of course that assumes they made a real committment to blowing it ....i've always agreed with that and still do.
pat, were there really no rocks showing during that oct 05 thing?... i didn't realize that...when i say no rocks now , i mean not just white on top of a rock contour....i mean the rocks are all literally underneath the snow pack... before thursday, the top of starr and LL were like skiing on a flat blue... it was bizarre....if anyone out there who is withing 3 hours of cat has a day off this week and you chosse to go hit the golf ball, u ought to turn in your union card...say hi if you see our crew out there this week... you'll see us.. just look for the old school high profile bump pants

 

[Patrick]

it's why i think jay peak is overrated ( please no nasty rebuttals)

You'll have no arguments from me.

pat, were there really no rocks showing during that oct 05 thing?...

Nope, it was my first time at the Cat (stayed the first two days of the season). I was speaking to some locals and they were mentioned that the coverage at that time was better that the whole previous year. Everything might not have been open, but everything was skiable. I skied Black Cat which looked like it had a few obstacles burried.

Report from Oct 28-29:

http://www.firsttracksonline.com/boards ... php?t=1272

However this storm was a rare event.

Great to hear that it's in great shape and that you were able to take advantage of it.

 

[riverc0il]

No nasty response from me, I used to think the same thing about Jay Peak. Over rated. Now I am a true believer and I think my reports and pictures from this year attest to the quality. But I am more than happy in knowing that other skiers share my former opinion No reply needed to my response, I won't cry a river if you open a discussion and opt not to discuss an item you brought to the agenda...

Back on topic, in regards to Wildcat, I have said often times over the years that The Cat is one of the best Spring skiing destinations in New England. The coverage at Wildcat seems to be very impressive this year due to the late season storms. Sounds very similar to Cannon in that every trail had wall to wall coverage with no rocks exposed. Though Wildcat is more impressive in that regard since, as joegm noted, the liftline trails tend to have rock gardens even in the middle of a good winter.

If I recall correctly, Wildcat has a North West face. So I would suspect the location of Mount Washington may help with some snow effect perhaps? Wildcat is windy enough as it is, but if it took the full force of a North Westerly wind, one might wonder if any snow would stick to the open trails? Both Wildcat and Cannon benefit from the type of storm system we just saw, but clearly Wildcat benefits slightly more perhaps due to being closer to the coast. It is an awkward balance being close enough to get a ton of snow and being too close where it changes over to rain. The early and late season storms seem to favor this type of setup from what I have noticed (and we have seen demonstrated early and late season many times these past few years).

The face of the mountain is nearly ideal for holding late season snow pack. Now if they had just kept that summit double chair, we could trash around arguments regarding November/May skiing at the Cat :lol:

Toss up between Wildcat and Sugarbush for me tomorrow. Normally it would be a no brainer for Wildcat, but I have yet to ski Castlerock and many pay up the $49 just to sample the goods at the Bush.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I think Riverc0il's and other reports have made the pluses and minuses of Jay quite clear. Lots of snow, often more than anywhere else in the East. But a few days later, after the wind has done its thing, forget it.

I suspect with the NW exposure (and proximity of Mt. Washington) wind is the issue at Wildcat also in terms of snow preservation.

I think your Nor'easters are rather like our Sierra dumps. High water content, big volume of snow, great for building a base and covering the rocks. As evidenced by Wildcat's condition now vs. late March. With that kind of snow, some places may have cover to mid-May (like Baldy 2 years ago). We'll see how long they stay open.

 

[Admin]

As evidenced by Wildcat's condition now vs. late March. With that kind of snow, some places may have cover to mid-May (like Baldy 2 years ago). We'll see how long they stay open.

Wildcat officials have already said that it's extremely unlikely that they'll go beyond the 29th due to a construction schedule.

 

[joegm]

the hands down biggest disgrace of areas that should have been open this week but were not was loon...it had ( and still has :evil: ) the snow .. it has the location and would have got good crowds.. cat is kind of a pain in the rear to get to for the boston metro crowd.. but they still got em... loon should be ashamed...
next on the hit list is bretton.. they pulled some marketing scam thing last year, boasting about the long season they did...looking strictly for turns through may 1st, our crew actually bought the $199 season pass for bretton on march 20th of this year during the asc breakup announcements...we assumed that K was toast and a risk at a best for anything after 4-15... ( plus the general anger built up for K over the last 2 seasons ) . bretton then proceedes to shamefully reverse course and shut it down ....so we got toasted badly on that....after 6 emails , still have not heard back from bretton with their excuse.
it's obviously not reasonable for every single area to be spinning now... i don;t realistically expect minor leaguers like cannon and attitash and black to be spinning the last week of april....but between loon and it's good location /bretton- with all it's money and cat... 2 of the 3 , if not all 3 should have been spinning at a minimum, this past week into tomorrow

 

[riverc0il]

It is interesting that Bretton threw in the towel this year three weeks earlier after making a push for last to close last year. Also, last year they had to make snow for Bode Fest where as this year they are completely covered with April snow.

My suspicion is that the new owners know better than to waste money, but they probably missed the boat on this one as the big storms seem to have brought people to the mountains for late season skiing this year. The other ski areas are not extending their season to loose money, that is for sure.

On the other hand, I do not think Bretton makes for a good late season mountain. Relatively flat, not know for challenge, not known for bumps, etc. Most folks still skiing a this time are not looking for something to cruise around on at low elevation and would probably pick Loon or the Cat over Bretton. Now Loon, I have absolutely NO idea why Loon is not still spinning.

 

[sszycher]

2 quick thoughts:

places that make a pint to position themselves as late season destinations, such as BW, should really consider opening on wknds when the coverage is good, and demand is reasonably strong. Staying open last year just to meet an arbitrary date is counterproductive, just as closing early to meet an abritrary closing date is similarly counterproductive.

Also, on the Jay issue, you're both right. I have fond memories skiing Jay in the early 90's when most flatlanders had never even heard of it. You could leverage the big snow & lack of crowds into some great pow skiing.

However, while I'm glad the resort is doing well, I will admit that they occasionally go overboard on their reports, and it is now quite competitive there for powder. There is no longer abundant powder on the 2nd day after a storm, which I think is part of the reason that so many N. VT locals are hitting the b/c of Big Jay, etc.

Again, that's the price of success, but Jay is no longer a sleepy area that you hit when other resorts are tracked out. Of course, they still do get the most snow East of the Rockies. Heck, some years they get more snow than the Front Range. The Jay cloud is for real.