Trip report! I skied Wachusett yesterday, Tuesday 1/12, from opening until about 2:15pm.
I didn't post beforehand but I did peruse recent posts to see if anyone was planning on being there yesterday. If anyone sees me, feel free to say hi -- I'm typically in black pants, tealish/blue long jacket or the orange/pink long jacket in my photo here, white helmet with a Ski Diva sticker on the back. I'm pretty tall, too. I'm able to ski very randomly, as multiple things need to line up -- a day I can take off work (my pass is good M-Th and I work full time), negative C19 test results within the proper time window, and the weather! I am hoping for 1 day every other week this season.
Yesterday was an overall great day on the mountain. I arrived at 8:20am and parked in Row 3. Crowds were not bad at all from about 9-11 with lift line waits of maybe 3-5 minutes. It felt like the place emptied out from 11 onwards, and for almost 2 full hours, it was ski-down/ski-onto the lift with no lines. I ended up getting in 26 runs with two breaks mixed into my time there, which for me is a big day at Wawa!
I started at the summit lift for my first run to ski Conifer. Unfortunately, Conifer was kind of a mess - the grooming wasn't great, with lots of bumps, piles, and literal holes in the snow. Very strange for Wachusett. I bailed and did my next two runs at the beginner lift to get into a better groove. The snow over there was fantastic. I then tried Conifer a few more times, and conditions seemed to improve as people skied it and flattened it out. I then switched to mid-mountain and spent the rest of the day lapping the trails off the Minuteman lift. The full park is now on Hitchcock and there are a few park features on Frannie's.
I heard from lift seatmates that the conditions were much improved yesterday compared to Monday. I'm guessing they made a good amount of snow Monday night, and temps were a bit warmer yesterday. They were making snow on Balance Rock all day yesterday. Mass Pike East was closed yesterday - it was open back in December. I assume they had to close it after the natural storm was ruined in the Christmas rainstorm. Tenth and Smith Walton were both open, but I didn't ski them. I've only skied Tenth one time (my last day of the season last year) and have never skied Smith... it was originally a goal for this ski season but we'll see.
Mask compliance was excellent, I'd say 97-98%. I overheard a Minuteman lift line attendee asking someone to pull their mask up once (though he didn't...). On the summit lift, the lift line attendee was thanking everyone for being masked up and socially distancing. This was MUCH better than what I saw the couple days I skied pre-Christmas. Crowds were bigger then and mask compliance was maybe 80%. There were lots of no maskers, neck gaiters not pulled up, or masks-with-holes back then. It seems like the "regular" weekday crowd is taking things more seriously, which was great to see. When I skied pre-Christmas, I wore a KN95 mask both times. But, my ears were absolutely killing me -- the tight pulling of the KN95 plus my snug helmet was brutal. Yesterday I wore a blue surgical mask, which I felt comfortable with as it was so much less crowded and I really was not near anyone in line for any extended period of time. I replaced it with a fresh one midday as the first one was totally wet and gross.
Looking forward to reading others trip reports!
