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Black Mountain Ski Area
3 reviews for Black Mountain Ski Area
I have sat here and started this review 15 times. I know that I love Black Mountain. I just don't know if I want to tell you about Black Mountain.
Black is a great little mountain hidden up on Black Mountain road off of 16a. It's not obvious, you can't see it from the highway. It's not big. There are no high speed quads. The lodge is small, the bar smaller. You would think all of this would be negative but it is really the reason I love it so much. There are generally no crowds at all so the small lodge doesn't matter and the mountain isn't that big so the slow lifts don't take forever to get to the top. The bartender, Joey, is great and very customer focused. On busy days you'll wait a while for food if you head in for lunch at noon - 1pm so if you NEED to eat lunch at that time bring it yourself. The kitchen is not built for big crowds.
The inn nearby is the Whitney Inn and the Shovel Handle Pub. Awesome place. If you stay there the Lift Line lodge (where the suites are) is practically ski in ski out on Black. Great for families since you can just go to your room and have lunch.
The mountain itself is small but you can find terrain for every level. My hubby is a great skier and he likes Black just fine. There is no White Heat here but there are a few steep trails. The key here is that there has to be a lot of snow for it to be great. If it's a season slim on snow, you may not get the best experience from Black. However, there are some surprising days here. There was a day this past season just after some rain and a freeze (love NE skiing) and the conditions at Wildcat were horrifying. I mean scary with ice. We went over to Black and the conditions were great. No ice at all.
Oh and lift tickets are absurdly cheap.
So if you come to Black keep in mind that it is a gem. Treat it like a gem. Have patience and reap the rewards of a small, family owned mountain.
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This is truly a hidden gem in New Hampshire.
I went on Superbowl Sunday with my two young sons. We rolled in at about 11:00 in the morning, and the parking lot was half empty. Even though there were only two lifts (a triple chair that goes 3/4 of the way up and a double chair that goes to the summit), lift lines were non-existent. The snow conditions were phenomenal - powder or packed powder everywhere, virtually no icy spots (maybe that shouldn't be a surprise since the 2008-2009 season is one of the best in recent memory). My boys are beginners, so I was a little worried that more than 1/3 of the mountain is black diamond or above, but the trails are nicely arranged in groups that allow you to pick an appropriate course down from the top of the triple (although there are only black diamonds at the summit, so we stayed away from the double chair). Most of the trails are narrow and winding with natural obstacles, plus several "glade" trails, rather than the wide-open trails found at other areas.
Lift tickets are very, very reasonable - half of what some of the mega-resorts charge. If you need to rent equipment, you can get a better deal at one of the several ski shops on Rt 16 in North Conway or Ossipee on the way to the mountain (we saved about $10 a package by renting in Ossipee instead of at the mountain).
This is a great little mountain with a good selection of trails. The lift tickets are reasonably priced ($39 for a full day, $26 for a half day, $25 for college students/full day). We were there on the last day of the extended season, so there was only one lift open but there still wasn't much of a wait. Other standard amenities: food, pub, gear rentals. Because it was the last day of the season they made a "pond" at the bottom of a slope and had a contest to see who could ski across it without sinking (most people failed). Easy to get to from the Conway area, and probably less crowded than Cranmore.