Greylock ski area?

Yeah, ski resorts in that area are an absolute gold mine:

http://www.nelsap.org/ny/petersburg.html

Maybe try to at least do some research before forming dumb opinions, PowAss.

PowderAssassin wrote

...there aren't a lot of the ski areas in proportion to the amount of people/crowds. Got to Quebec and you'd be shocked how many ski areas there are in proportion to the population.

There's Especially no ski areas far south with that much snow and vertical(that's the FIRST area that should have been made into a ski area in MA)

I always assumed that you had more small ski areas in Quebec because you didn't need to spend as much on snowmaking to survive... fewer mid-season rain events.

Hiking sucks? Have you ever ski toured?

Personally I think skiing on groomed, mostly machine made surfaces with a million other dip sh$ts from the city sucks. I can barely sit through lift rides for that kind of skiing and I would much rather be away from the crowds climbing for my turns. At least that way I can get a work out. And the money people are spending for a day of that eastern ski area (or anywhere really) experience when there isn't any natural is unbelievable to me.

You sound soft. Out in the country we call that....city soft.

One more thing.......that picture of Greylock looks beautiful, I would hate to see ski runs cut all over that thing scaring it for as long as we are alive.

I thought was great that the state was allowing the local club to clear brush and maintain the historic trail.  Are they also cutting glades?

Coach Z wrote

I thought was great that the state was allowing the local club to clear brush and maintain the historic trail.  Are they also cutting glades?

I hiked the thunderbolt back in October while I was coming back from visiting a friend in NH, thought it would be fun to see it again. It did not look like there were any cleared glades but there are lots of trails and old logging roads criss-crossing the mountain.

raisingarizona wrote

The powerline on Greylock looks like it might be a fun ski as well.

If you are referring to the line on the east face going straight down the mountain, I believe that is the old 1907 slide line, it has been skied but I have heard of no one in recent history.

I've roller skied, run and hiked Greylock plenty.  It's a beautiful, magical place with no need for a ski area with lifts.  There's already a ski trail there, that would be the Thunderbolt.  Running down Thunderbolt full gas scared the you know what outta me.   Go get you some skins and go up under your own power.

This thread got a bit off-topic, but for the record, there was an attempt to create a ski area on the lower flank of Greylock (the plans never involved going to the summit) but it fizzled.  Some of the infrastructure was built and you can still see ruins of old lift machinery in the woods.  The Thunderbolt Ski Runners do not cut glades, they maintain the existing trail that was originally built by the federal Civilian Conservation Corp in the 1930s in an effort that cut ski trails across New England.  Here is a great Ski Magazine feature on that history: http://www.justinmuseum.com/jfjmuseum/cccski.html

The Thunderbolt was one of a few class A ski racing trails in the northeast and the other two main ones are now lift-serviced runs at Stowe in Vermont and Wildcat in New Hampshire.  So if you want to ski vintage trails without hiking, snowshoeing, or skinning -- you've got options.  But backcountry skiers deserve options as well, and we have precious few in the northeast given our minimal terrain above treeline.  So I definitely join the chorus that has absolutely no desire for a ski resort on Mt. Greylock and I'm very thankful for the legacy of conservation stewardship that has preserved this unique trail.

http://www.thunderboltskirun.com/history.html 

That was a cool post Atlantic. Wonder if NELSAP covered this trail ?

Great looking hill.

mattchuck2 wrote

Yeah, ski resorts in that area are an absolute gold mine:

http://www.nelsap.org/ny/petersburg.html

Maybe try to at least do some research before forming dumb opinions, PowAss.

Yeah I've never seen that site before or realized ski areas went under before