Crotched Mountain

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Crotched Mountain

Crotched Mountain official web site

Aerial Preview of
Crotched Mountain

December 2008

With less than thousand feet vertical drop and less than hundred acres of skiing, it is a tiny ski area not visible on the radars of most New England skiers. But it is a small jewel and here is why.
It is very close to the metropolitan Boston area where most of weekend visitors come from. Crotched is a little bit closer to Boston than Sunapee. And it is quite different from Wachusett that, in turn, is much closer than Crotched to Boston. First, the difference is in terrain: Wachusett does not come even close to Crotched. The most interesting trails at Crotched are located near a lift called Summit Quad. This lift is a center point of the mountain. Most if not all terrain is accessible from this lift. Meteor and Pluto's Plunge are two major trails that are closest to the lift. These trails are pretty consistent in terms of steepness unlike major trails at Wachusett where only small portions of trails are steep and they are nearly flat for the rest so that one has to even use the poles to get back to the base. The steepness of Meteor and Pluto's Plunge is good enough to satisfy most of the skiers.

Second, having visited Crotched many times in several seasons, I have never seen big crowds there. The lines at Summit Quad are quite reasonable. Normally, there is no any line at all for half of a weekend day. The size of the lines may vary significantly throughout the day. Most of the skiers at Crotched are locals, they have season passes and they usually ski for shorter time than non-locals. The non-locals apparently want to get most out of their investment of money and driving time. Usually the time before or after lunch is the busiest at the lift. On several occasions I was able to ski corduroy at Pluto's Plunge at around 10am which is unimaginable for all other NH mountains I know of.

The Summit Quad is not a high-speed lift. Still using this lift is quite efficient. You can ski a lot if you do not spend much time in lift lines, and you do not have to make connections to the trails of your choice. Once you get off the lift, Meteor and Pluto's Plunge are at your disposal.

There is another significant benefit of the fact that most of the skiers are locals. They ski well. Unlike Loon, normally no lunatics not knowing what they are doing on the slopes and thinking they are cool even without the ability to turn, to stop, or anything. Lack of armies of snowboarders also saves snow from being plowed away from the trails in the morning. And you know, good skiers do not plow the snow at all, they simply leave two razor-sharp lines behind.

Overall, Peak Resorts owning Crotched take a good care of the ski area. Nothing fantastic but all the maintenance is done as it is supposed to be. Grooming is excellent. The cafeteria at the mountain is pretty basic in terms of food choice but it is nice, clean, plenty of room, and sunny due to big windows. And last but not least, the lift tickets are not that expensive compared to other resorts.

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Another New England skiing destination: Sunday River