After only skiing twice in over a month, I was a little antsy to make some turns. I knew the snow would be terrible. I knew it was groomer skiing following a rain/thaw/freeze event. I knew to expect a miserable skiing experience. And at noontime on the first day of this new year, I decided a miserable ski experience was better than vegging out at home.

Boy, was I wrong.

I get substantial discount to Waterville Valley which means I had minimal expense involved. The skiing certainly wasn’t worth holiday pricing or the use of a non-blacked out voucher, but my discount was sufficient to justify the attempt. I certainly wasn’t driving 2+ hours to Vermont. But a half hour drive up the Valley wasn’t a major time investment for horrible skiing. I’d make the best of it.

It turned into a four runs and done type of day. The snow surface was easily the worst I have skied in years. Those that say “a bad day of skiing is better than a good day at the office” either never have had a good day at the office or never ski on days like today.

Every skier on the mountain was pointing their skis sideways and holding on for life. This is during a holiday period no less. Some folks only ski once or twice a year and this is what they experience and what they remember. I was sad seeing all these families and young kids experiencing snow conditions far worse than early season WRODs.

I would have kept going but I didn’t feel safe. Between the reasonable amount of skier traffic and the totally frozen and iced hard pack, the skiing wasn’t even minimally fun and I constantly was in fear of another skier sliding out into me or even losing control myself.

Despite expectations of horrible conditions, it still was a waste of time and money. But at least gave it a shot, it sure beat farting around at home thinking that I could have been skiing.