It’s finally time to let your worries subside - New England just received a 72 hour pounding of snow under near zero temperatures, covering resorts from Vermont to Maine with 8-24 inches of dry, fluffy white stuff. Three distinct systems lined up to provide 10-12 inches each, starting early Friday afternoon and ending on Sunday night across most of the region.
The real winners were many of the smaller resorts in southern New Hampshire, where snowfall topped two feet in many areas. As of late Sunday night, Crotched Mountain was reporting 24 inches, as was Killington, Vermont. Nobody was left out of the action - snowfall totals in parts of Connecticut and Rhode Island topped 15 inches, while Sunday River and Sugarloaf in northern Maine received 4 inches.
This is, to say the least, a real shot in the arm for the season. No more chocolate chips peaking through - a good foot of base on top of what resorts have been able to pump out puts everyone on target for the big holiday vacation week. With local attendance way up at many of these areas, a showing of how great eastern skiing can be would be a real PR boost, especially after several painful winters in recent memory.
A few members of the Access Road team had the pleasure of getting up to Wildcat in Jackson, New Hampshire for the weekend, leaving right at the height of the snowfall on friday afternoon. The ride from Boston to North Conway, which would typically take 3.5 hours or so, came in at well past 6 hours, and was torturous to say the least. But the wind held off, the snow literally never stopped, and the skiing was worth it. Look for a field test of the Rossignol Phantom SC80, a Freeskier 08/09 Best Buy, from this epic day at Wildcat.
