Wildcat Mountain, NH, Conditions Report: Cold Week Equals Great Conditions for the Weekend

The entrance sign at Wildcat Mountain. | Credit: Author

Report from Saturday, December 7

After a week of some seriously cold temperatures, open East Coast ski areas have been popping up left and right. Natural snow had also fallen throughout this last week, which was a nice addition to snowmaking efforts. Some resorts received only a dusting, with others receiving almost a foot. Now, with 12 resorts open, skiers and riders have quite a few options to choose from.

We decided to visit Wildcat Mountain, New Hampshire, as the resort had accumulated quite a bit of snow over the last couple of weeks. Wildcat opened on Wednesday, December 4, making it the first Epic Pass resort to open up in New Hampshire. Only Stowe, Okemo, and Mount Snow of Vermont of the Epic Pass had opened prior.

We arrived at Wildcat at about 8:15 a.m. Saturday morning, after a drive that lasted somewhere around two hours. The drive would have been slightly shorter, but we stopped for breakfast at Big Dave’s Bagels and Deli in North Conway, New Hampshire. After pulling into the parking lot, we walked into the lodge to put all of our gear on. The online conditions report stated that lifts didn’t open until 9:00 a.m., which meant that we had a little while to get ready. At about 8:35 a.m., people started riding up the lift, so we threw on the rest of our gear, and headed outside.

There was good coverage on the run underneath the lift, which we hoped reflected how the coverage on the other trails would be. We were right, as the route down from the summit had a pretty solid base of at least two feet in every spot. Active snowmaking was in place, with big snowmaking whales in the middle of the trail, which were fun to ski over the top of. There were two lifts open, both of which accessed the same run. The Wildcat Express brought skiers and riders up to the summit, making for a pretty long run. The Bobcat Triple accessed the same run but about halfway up. It allowed for skiers and riders to skip the harder upper section of the trail. Crowds were also minimal, which was great, as it meant that the trails were not too congested.

After a few hours of skiing (and a lunch break), certain spots of the run started to get a little skied off. Eventually, one main chokepoint in the trail got a little too firm for our liking, so we decided to call it a day after about 15 runs in total.

While temperatures are warming up right now, cold weather will be returning by the end of next week, and snowmaking should get the resort in tip-top shape for the the holiday season.