Black Mountain! It has been a half dozen years since my last visit and I was LONG past due. Black is one of my favorite “smaller” sized mountains. Mostly a family paradise, Black Mountain in Jackson, NH has sensational character and charm (not to mention cheap lift tickets). Despite the general lack of pitch, Black has several short but awesome trails that ski exceptionally well on a powder day. Aside from my skiing partner and myself, I counted no more than a half dozen other powder hounds on the mountain. I skied untracked snow from open until I left at 12:30pm and for sure there will still be pockets of untracked snow left tomorrow.

Today was the first day the double was open to the summit. So I wasted no time in taking first of the season tracks on completely untouched Lostbo, Lostbo Glade, White Knuckle, and Carter Notch Glade. That involves three individual laps off the summit yielding three completely untracked first of the season runs. Boot to knee deep. KILLER!!! Three unadulterated face shots resulted from those first three runs. The cold smoke was blowing right over my shoulders and up into my face. SICK!!!

Lostbo Glade was really only good for the first few tracks and later deteriorated quickly. White Knuckle got better as tracks were laid so you could keep speed up on the flat parts. Carter Notch Glade has some crap under foot but hardly noticeable. Not many people were hitting Carter Notch Glade and the cliffs were mint for launching. Black crams so many decent sized 6-16′ cliffs into so little terrain. Later in the day, I was ducking for mint snow on Upper Maple Slalom with a huge drop due to a snow making whale. Sickness. And Galloping Goose yielded good tracks late in the day under the lift.

Lower mountain trails had been hit yesterday. But at any other mountain, it would have been played out by 10am the day before at the latest. At Black, there were left overs from yesterday that were only 33-50% tracked out at most. T2 was more crunchy than Carter Notch Glades but good huckability factor and nice snow below that. Roller Coaster was sensational with untracked lines well into the early afternoon. I can not believe how little that trail gets hit despite being right under a lift. Maple Slalom…. YES! Right under the triple was untracked as well.

All this for only $39? Meanwhile, just up the road a spell at Wildcat….. tracked out from yesterday and this morning’s refresh went quick. I will always take a leisurely untracked boot to knee deep on any run over fighting for sloppy seconds. I tried to put Black Mountain on the map a half dozen years ago. Today I have to wonder if I really want to follow up on that report with another publicity generating report. I certainly don’t want Black to become like Jay Peak on a powder day. But Black is unjustifiably under rated and under appreciated and could certainly use one or two more skier visits.

Photo Gallery