Skiing Burke Moutnain
Sunday, February 22nd, 2026
Runs: 13
Distance: 14.52 miles
Elevation: 14,301 feet
Max Speed: 36.7 mph
Avg. Speed: 14.0 mph
Moving Time: 1 hour, 6 minutes
Total Time: 4 hours, 26 minutes, 13 seconds
And now it was the final day of February break... Sad! Thankfully, we had plans to go to Burke Mountain for the day. It was going to be Emma, Sarah, Me, Emma's Dad, and Emma's Mom would be lodge mom for the moring. Emma's parents were planning on staying just a half day because another massive snow storm was coming to southern New England (the Snowology report said I was fine to take my time, thankfully). I was running ahead of the game, per usual. I got to the lodge and booted up quietly and slowly by myself and planned to lap the Sherburne Express until everyone else had landed. I ran into Sarah and Emma right as I was heading out for my first run du jour. It was a cold morning, but it was supposed to heat up througout the day to the upper 20s, and no wind (again!).
Mountain Conditions
Sunday, February 22
Winter is still clearly winning the game up here! Yesterday's 6 inches of fresh snow gave the mountain a fun little refresh, and today we're cashing in on the leftovers. Expect packed powder groomers with pockets of the goods tucked away in the woods. Clouds will be on the increase but temps will hang out in the sweet spot around 30 degrees. It's a Sunday Funday in the Bear Den today - check out live music 2:30-5:30.
Runs 1-3
Run 1: Sherburne Express - Binney Lane
[0.75 mi; 2:18; 607 ft; 32.1 mph max; 19.7 mph avg]
Run 2: Sherburne Express - Bunker Hill
[0.79 mi; 2:49; 614 ft; 29.8 mph max; 16.9 mph avg]
Run 3: Sherburne Express - Midway - High Meadow Pass
[1.04 mi; 4:31; 607 ft; 23.6 mph max 13.8 mph avg]
Man, I just love this mountain! I hit the three non-park green runs during my solo jaunt. Binney Lane is more or less the lift line and had wonderfully soft corduroy. I tried to hug the looker's left side of the run so I could see my tracks (and how well I'm using my edges), but I did not succeed. Run #2 was down my favorite - Bunker Hill. It has a nice, steeper pitch towards the end! Run #3 was down Midway to High Meadow Pass, past many wonderful properties that I would personally love to own (and went over one bridge that's always super fun). After these runs, I went in to pee, and I saw the Emma, Sarah, and her Dad were all ready to go!
Runs 4-6
Run 4: Sherburne Express - Midway
[0.36 mi; 1:59; 154 ft; 24.5 mph max; 10.8 mph avg]
Run 5: Mid-Burke Express - Upper Willoughby - Lower Willoughby
[1.12 mi; 3:50; 1,683 ft; 36.7 mph max; 17.5 mph avg]
Run 6: Mid-Burke Express - East Bowl - Dipper Doodle
[2.15 mi; 9:38; 1,686 ft; 30.7 mph max; 13.4 mph avg]
It was fun to be all together - I hadn't skied with Emma's Dad since Jay's closing day last year (I'm better now, I swear!). Run #4 was down Midway and apparently you can scootch through a small tree island to get a little more speed on Midway.
Run #5 brought us to the top for pole and potato pictures, and then we skied down Upper and Lower Willoughby - such a fun trail. I'm getting better at carving on steeper slopes at higher speeds, but I'm nowhere near "there" yet.
Emma suggested we hit East Bowl for Run #6 while our legs were still fresh - I was down! I had so much fun on East Bowl last time, I was more than excited to get back to it! We skated across the traverse, gawked at the partial view of the Whites, and then... skied? We were waiting for the bumps and drops and... they never came? The WHOLE run was groomed! It was a fun run, don't get me wrong, and would be categorized as a blue in my opinion, but where was the challenge! I will say, a groomed runout is nice. Maybe they were trying to preserve snowpack? We kept saying "it got Upper Milked!" At least I got a Strava PR! A whole 12 minutes faster than my last time!
Mountain Conditions
THE SHERBURNE EXPRESS IS ON HOLD.
We will communicate any updates here.
Runs 7-10
Run 7: Mid-Burke Express - Upper Dipper - Wilderness - Dixiland - East Bowl - Deer Run - Big Dipper
[1.59 mi; 12:34; 1,680 ft; 31.9 mph max; 7.6 mph avg]
Run 8: Mid-Burke Express - Upper Dipper - Big Dipper
[1.32 mi; 4:47; 1,683 ft; 31.7 mph max; 16.5 mph avg]
Run 9: Mid-Burke Express - Upper Fox's Folly - Upper Bear Den - Ledges - Lower Bear Den - Graham Slam
[1.15 mi; 6:09; 1,670 ft; 35.2 mph max; 11.2 mph avg]
Run 10: Mid-Burke Express - Deer Run - Big Dipper
[2.16 mi; 9:06; 1,677 ft; 30.5 mph max; 14.3 mph avg]
Once we got back to the Mid-Burke Express we noticed that the Sherburne Express was down - bummer! We got back on the Mid-Burke. Lines were getting longer, but we never waited more than five minutes. Lines also go faster with friends! We skied Upper Dipper to Wilderness and then went into the trees at Dixiland - my first double black at Burke! The glade started off pretty steep, and then got steeper with a few reprives. The snow was low tide on the steeper spots and we all took turns hitting rocks. I felt validated becuase both Emma and Sarah said that this was a difficult run (Emma's Dad was flying). Sarah was my biggest cheerleader here - after one impressively steep spot she said "look - you did that!" which was very nice! We had a few small traverse sections, and eventually we came to a wonderful, mellower, open area where I could make some decent turns, and soon enough we were back on the East Bowl runout. Sarah and Emma led us onto Deer Run and Big Dipper, which has a short uphill stretch that nearly took us all out!
Run #8 was another cruiser - we took Upper Dipper to Big Dipper, and it was just lovely! Such a fun, wide, steep trail with a few reprives. It reminds me of Ullr's Dream at Jay, but bigger, mightier, and truly, better.
Run #9 was down Upper Fox's Folly - the old lift line. It was fun! Felt like a spooky abandoned land. We then continued onto Upper Bear Den, which was scrapey between bumps. I will 20% blame my skis lack of tuning for my poor skiing on the scrapy stuff recently. We then hit Ledges, which split partway down. Sarah and Dad took the main ledges and Emma and I took a narrower chute that had better snow. Once back on the main Ledges trail, I hit a patch of ice, lost my edge, and slammed into the trail. Ouch! We wrapped this run up with Grahahm Slam (great name), which was a fantastic cruiser. Emma was also having some problems, but the opposite of mine. She was saying her skis were over tuned, or something, and the shop tuned her tips and tails so it's hard for her to get out of a turn. I have no idea what that means, but I support her!
Run #10 was Emma's Dad's two more skip the last, as we were meeting her Mom at The Bear Den for lunch before they headed back to Rhode Island. We decided to follow all of Deer Run, which let me just say is such a delight! It's a little tricky to follow at times, but we corrected any mistakes and successfull connected all the dots, finishing up on Big Dipper!
The Bear Den is a phenominal, cozy little dive at the Mid-Mountain lodge. There was one bartender (and she was STUNNING) who was preparing drinks and serving up either soup or chili, and in the main Mid-Mountain Lodge there was a hot dog stand that was equally as wonderful. We had a nice lunch, enjoyed a pendant-ski drink, and then said goodbye to the parents!
Runs 11-13
Run 11: Mid-Burke Express - Upper Willoughby - Lower Willoughby - High Meadow Pass
[1.93 mi; 7:15; 2,110 ft; 35.4 mph max; 15.9 mph avg]
Run 12: Carpet - Learning Area
Run 13: J-Bar - Carter Country
[0.17 mi; 1:04; 131 ft; 18.7 mph max; 9.8 mph avg]
We were also ready to put a bow on things for the day, so the three of us got back on the Mid-Burke Express and took Willoughby down to High Meadow Pass. I did eyeball the magic carpet and I proposed a baby run, and they reluctantly agreed (of course they had fun). Emma, pretending she didn't want to do this, then said "does that mean we also need to hit the J-Bar?" This was somehow also Sarah's first J-Bar! We rode up (Sarah got stuck after we got off... again), and hit the XS/S Park "Carter Country" to wrap things up, and this was truly my favorite run of the day. We held hands the whole time, went over the rollers going "whee" on each one, hit the banked turn, and attempted a sharp turn back to the lodge (we had to let go for that one). What a DREAM.
We all quickly wrapped up and I decided to blast off from there to get home before dark and the snow (they had talked about going to beloved Parker Pie). I did stop in Littleton to hunt for a new snow shovel (no luck), and made it home around 7:00pm - just in time to get another 18" of snow!
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