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Story by Tim Jones
ast season, while my son Justin was headed to Canada on a class trip, his identical twin brother, Evan, and I decided to play hooky and go skiing at Waterville Valley.
It was a rare chance for us to be alone together. I knew the time we spent in the car to and from the ski area and the time on the chairlift would be a perfect chance for us to catch up on the details of our busy lives. We had to celebrate a triumphant report card, too.
I wanted to check out the ski conditions a few days after yet another warm rainstorm followed by a hard freeze. I hoped that a bigger area, like Waterville, with more terrain to cover, could bring snow conditions up to standard in a hurry.
I needn't have worried.
As is the custom with all Jones family ski outings, we arrived at the mountain just as the lifts opened. If your goal is to get as much fun as possible out of each day and each dollar, getting to the ski area early makes sense. Early in the morning, the snow is freshly groomed and the skiing is usually at its best. Also, the crowds -- if any -- don't arrive until a bit later.
On this particular day, no problem. The previous weekend's meltdown had scared away most of the business. We parked right up near the lodge and all day didn't have to wait more than a few seconds to get on the lift.
In the morning, we skied on flawless, fresh corduroy snow. Waterville has a bunch of fairly steep, smooth blue-square (intermediate) and black-diamond (expert) runs that were just great for cruising. It was far colder than we had expected, and we had to go in after the first run to rewarm ourselves and put on more clothes from the pack of extra gear we always carry. Then we took advantage of the almost-empty high-speed detachable quad chairlift and skied our legs to jelly on the smooth, fast corduroy. Believe me, you can get in a lot of miles on a midweek morning when there's nobody else on the slopes to slow you down!
After a leisurely lunch break, we suited up like lunar explorers and headed for True Grit, the steepest trail on the mountain. They had snowguns blasting all over it, and it was like skiing through the teeth of a howling blizzard. You couldn't see much or hear anything. But what fun it was to ski on a couple of feet of new, soft, fresh powder.
aterville Valley was somewhat challenging, very fun, and big enough to exhaust me after a full day there. As we expected, the soft snow did get scraped off the center of some trails toward the latter part of the day. But there was nothing you couldn't get an edge into.
Most of the trails at Waterville are wide cruisers, so you could really get a rhythm going. Waterville definitely isn't a "three turns and you're down" mountain.
Some of the trails at Waterville are very steep, such as True Grit (a double black diamond). The steep trails are pretty short, however. Near the top of the detachable quad chair there's a long, virtually flat spot. I had to tuck and build a lot of speed to get over it.
All in all, I'd have to say that our day at Waterville Valley was one of the best days of skiing I had last year.
For more information, see Waterville Valley's Web site at www.waterville.com or call 800-468-2553.
Copyright ©1997, Stephen O. Muskie and Tim Jones. All Rights Reserved.