NH ski resorts expect strong finish to season

By: John Koziol, New Hampshire Union Leader

Some of New Hampshire’s alpine ski resorts are reporting a sluggish, mixed start of the 2017-18 season, but are looking forward to a positive finish thanks to the expected snows of February and March.

In the White Mountains, ski season traditionally begins in mid-November and lasts into mid-April, and this year, according to representatives of Bretton Woods, Loon Mountain and Cannon, that remains the case.

The ski areas, with Bretton Woods foremost among them, are some of the largest in New Hampshire. Each reported Wednesday that the current season began strong, but was then hit with a cold-weather wall over the Christmas holiday. Warm temperatures followed and now it seems the weather has returned to what is usually expected this time of year.

“We’ve been doing very well. The temperatures rebounded and the skiers returned,” said Craig Clemmer, director of marketing at the Omni Mount Washington Resort/Bretton Woods. Although company policy precluded his disclosing actual numbers, Clemmer said the Saturday of the Martin Luther King holiday week was “one of the Top 5” at the resort.

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“We’ve had copious amounts of snow and we’re grooming the heck out of it,” said Clemmer, adding that what Bretton Woods “lost over Christmas, we’ll make up in January and February” and beyond.

“We’re pretty bullish,” he said, and so are Bretton Woods’ fans who have been avidly buying multi-ticket and discount packages online. The strength of those sales means the discounts will continue through Valentine’s Day.

Overall, Clemmer thinks the current season will end up being “a good one,” but it depends on “momentum and the snow gods blessing us.”

Greg Keeler, the marketing director at Cannon and Franconia Notch State Park, said total skier visits are up 2 percent over last season, but that while within the seven-year average, the season to date is down between 10 and 15 percent.

Read the complete article at unionleader.com.