I didn’t know what to expect from Attitash. I had a general sense that it was a tamer place than Cannon, and that we’d be skiing groomers, but beyond that, to me the mountain was an unknown.
Attitash Mountain Resort is two peaks: Attitash and Bear Peak. Bear Peak was added to the mountain in the 1990s, nearly doubling the size of the mountain. Since we were staying on the Bear side, we started our day on that peak riding the Flying Bear high speed quad.
We started with runs on Wandering Skis and Illusion. The cord was much better than we expected; some natural snow made surfaces primo. An inch had fallen over night, and in spots the snow was on top making it that much better. After our first runs, we were really smiling. The trails on Bear really flow and wander in a way that makes them a lot of fun.
Our plan was to meet Thomas Prindle for turns mid-morning. Thomas works for Peak Resorts as the Attitash/Wildcat marketing guy. He’s friendly, loves to ski and has found a great job that allows him to keep skiing as a focus in his life. And he flies.
After lunch he showed us some things that surprised us. A bump run under the Abenaki quad and various tree shots on Bear Peak. The snow was soft off the groomers and we were surprised at the cover in the trees.
Towards day’s end, we found some low angle stuff that was exceptionally soft and had some nice untracked lines. I’d found that I could lap the quad in a little more than fifteen minutes, while savoring my runs through the trees. We started to head in around 3 pm. But I just had to do one more run, three times. I finally called it a day at 3:50 pm.
I expected Attitash to feel different from Cannon, and mother nature played her part by battering us yesterday and smiling on us with sunshine today. What I didn’t expect was Attitash’s fun, rollercoaster terrain, beautifully groomed snow, liftline bump runs and trees shots harboring fresh snow. With the potential for new snow on Thursday, an interesting, fun and mellow day at Attitash was what the doc ordered.
You couldn’t have asked for a better week, eh?
I used to ski Attitrash as we fondly call it quite a bit when I had friends living in the area. I always loved it. Harv, did you ski Tim’s Trauma and was it as steep as I remember? Sometimes it was a groomed ripper and other times a steep mogul field. As for Cannon I’ve been there on days when it was so cold you could only ski 3 runs and you absolutely had to go in! Much different than Attitash. Glad to hear you’re having fun.
Sounds wonderful! I’ve never been but you have definitely made Attitash sound enticing.
Attitash was hands down the biggest surprise of this trip. I tend to be relatively easy to please, but when picky skiers like rivercOil, mattchuck, and Mad Pat all give it the thumbs up, that tells you something.
Definitely a “pleasant surprise.” 🙂
But I’ll qualify that thumbs up that Jamesdeluxe mentions in that while I had an awesome day, I probably won’t be returning to Attitash anytime soon.
However, I will add Attitash to the lower end of my New England top 20 coming in ahead of places like Ragged, Waterville Valley, Pico, Bromley, and Okemo (well, that last one was a given).
Heck, I enjoyed Attitash more than Loon!