Ascutney Tues 3/26/24
Met up with Rob Painter around 2pm yesterday at the base of Ascutney. First time skiing here since it closed as a resort. Really cool that they are running in now as a community rope tow!
Handful of cars in the parking area, plenty of tracks coming down off the mountain and a gaggle of teenagers heading up when I pulled in. Definitely not a 'secret' area, but still seems off the radar for most since it isn't part of GBA or CTA zones....
Rob was kind to lead the skin track and show me around the mountain in its current condition. Uphill route is pretty nicely graded and easy to find/climb. Vertical drop is just under 2k' and the top elevation peaks out at just above 3000', so the mountain is comperable to climbing Greylock (though the skiing is not similar to the T-Bolt at all...)
They got a lot of snow on the mountain with the weekend storm---on top of zero base---but the density and warming temps created some pack consolidation and I never touched bottom on the descent once. The snow was very heavy, though, making turns tough to make without hopping or enough speed. All in all, it was a great time and I'm looking forward to doing some more on-mountain exploration in the future...
Thanks for the report! Ascutney fell off my radar because many storms have missed it in the past. Looks like the day after this recent storm was great, per other FB posts.