Whaleback Mountain, NH - February 19, 2017

Today's Destination was Whaleback Mountain located in Enfield, NH, about 15 minutes south of White River Junction, VT right on Interstate 89, to meet up with a friend who had been skiing in the region the past couple of days. I left Sherbrooke this morning at 6 am for the journey, 95% all autoroute for this trip. Whaleback is very easy to find and easily accessible. Whaleback has 1 double chair, and magic carpet serving 31 trails and 700 foot vertical with a variety of different levels of ability and glade skiing. You will notice the trail names named are in relation with a sea and the whale theme. The mountain has seen a number of closures over the past number of years, at least 3, but this latest group, the Upper Valley Snow Sports Foundation, is running it as a non-profit organization. Originally opened as Snow Valley in 1956, it operated under that name until it's first closure in 1968-69. The mountain re-opened under the Whaleback name in 1970. This past summer they had a successful fundraising campaign where the raised enough money to purchased a used t-bar that has been refurbished and should be installed this summer to be ready for next season.  

I arrived at the mountain at 8:30 am to beautiful blue skies and a pretty full parking lot. Today was day 2 of their mogul and rail jam festivities. The competition was of mostly kids from the region competing under the double chair on the Lower Face trail.

The conditions on the first few runs was on groomed granular on a firm base. When I arrived the temperature was -3 degrees Celsius. A big difference from the +6 degrees and clouds when I left Sherbrooke. The temperature rose very quickly during the first 4 or 5 runs and the conditions changed to mashed potatoes and the snow softened up rather quickly. Still they had a decent coverage on the trails that were groomed and the natural snow trails started to get a bit thin in places. Spring skiing in the middle of February! I skied mainly on the left side of the mountain as the right side was not exposed to the sun in the morning. The Upper and Lower Ivory trail had been groomed but was a little tricky as there were some little natural obstacles and you had to be aware of. Nice trail though. There was an adequate amount of snow in the woods after the dumps they had earlier in the week but with the warm temperatures yesterday and today made for some tricky skiing. I didn't chance the glades today and stayed on trail.

The Upper Ivory Trail:

I skied from 9:00 to 12:30 and made 13 runs. The lift line was pretty much non-existent and only once during the morning where there was a small rush where we had to wait 5 minutes at most. Mostly everyone there were the kids competing with their parents watching and cheering them on. It's the beginning of the school holidays in the region this week so the mountain will be open all week operating on their holiday schedule Monday to Friday. When I left to head back, the temperature on the car display was reading 12 degrees Celsius! Overall it was an excellent day of skiing, and another nice discovery.

Here are some other photos of the day: