Newbury, New Hampshire – We always make the first ski outing of the season during winter break–the school vacation week between Christmas and New Years. This year, we didn’t get around to it until New Years Day. Welcome to 2024–new year, new ski season!
In the past, we always got the kids an Indy Ski Pass, which allows for two days of skiing at each of a dozen independent ski resorts in New England. The pass is an incredible deal for kids age 12 and under, paying for itself in just two outings. Unfortunately, the twins aged out of the kids’ pass this year. The adult pass offers a savings if you ski more than four times in a season (which we usually do not). So we decided to forgo the IndyPass.
At the last minute, I stumbled on the Epic Pass, offered by Vail resorts. Besides the famous one in Colorado, Vail has ski resorts all over the country, including six in New England. Best of all, Epic offers multiday passes as well as seasonal passes. So basically, you choose the number of days you want to ski, and Epic lets you do it for half-price at certain resorts.
So we spent New Years Day at Mount Sunapee, the first I had been to this beauty in southwestern New Hampshire. The drive is almost two hours–a good 30 minutes farther than our former favorite destination at Pat’s Peak. But Sunapee has a lot going for it. At 2743 feet, the mountain is nearly twice as high as Pat’s with double the vertical drop. Half the trails are blue “intermediate” runs (good for me!), where as most of the trails at Pat’s are green “novice” runs. So Sunapee is definitely a step up (which–frankly–the kids need).
I was nervous about skiing on New Years Day. I thought the resort would be crowded on a holiday, but the opposite was true. It was nearly empty when we arrived in the morning and it never got too busy. After several days of rain, the resort had been making snow all night. And there was hardly anybody to ski on it except us! Great start a new year and a new ski season. Let’s go, 2024!
