My uncle and cousin from Florida were visiting in New England and wanted to spend a few days skiing. So I joined them at Attitash on day two of their three day jaunt through the White Mountains. They experienced a temperature swing of 100 degrees between the high of Florida when they left and the low in the White Mountains Wednesday evening. But the cold and wind relented somewhat Thursday afternoon and the skiing turned out to be quite pleasant.

Wildcat shut down for the day and diverted skiers to Attitash due to the low temperatures and extreme wind chills. We decided on a late start and began skiing just before noontime. Bear Peak’s high speed quad got a late opening after the wind died down and the summit triple was offline so we “warmed up” on Attitash’s Flying Yankee.

Not much terrain was available from the Flying Yankee, only five options for limited vertical. After lunch, we made our way to Bear Peak where we found three top to bottom routes and the terrain park. The snow was very edgible and skied well on most trails. Wandering Skis was unfortunately the worst trail for conditions as mountain ops only recently flattened the whales resulting in death cookies and frozen golf balls.

I haven’t had a high speed hard pack day all season so it actually felt nice to rip some big and small arcs on the groomed. Despite the record setting cold and wind chill the previous night, temperatures after noon were pleasant and didn’t even require full face coverage. But today wasn’t about the skiing but rather seeing family that I rarely get to see. A rare non-powder day vacation day and well worth it.