Skiing Waterville Valley
Wednesday, February 4th, 2026
Runs: 11
Distance: 12.19 miles
Elevation: 13,743 feet
Max Speed: 38.2 mph
Avg. Speed: 14.2 mph
Moving Time: 54 minutes, 50 seconds
Total Time: 4 hours, 48 minutes, 55 seconds
A few months ago, Indy Pass launched the "Learn to Turn" program, which granted participants three days of beginner lessons, lift tickets, and rentals for $189 (or $149 if they knew someone with an Indy Pass like me!). I mentioned this to Ray and he was immediately on board - yay! We wanted to redeem his first lesson at Jay Peak a couple weekends ago, but the -30 forecast deterred us (and the mountain ended up shutting down for the day). We couldn't make any weekends work, so we opted for a week day! Emma and Patrol Sarah drove down from Vermont to join us, too!
Ray and I had a relatively pain-free drive up to Waterville Valley, arriving soon after 9:00am. We got into the lodge and I got Ray all set up with clothing before we went over to the rental shop to get his gear. We got him a "1st Day of School" sign to take photos with, which was an EXCELLENT touch! Once he was booted up we went back into the lodge for final preperations, and that's when Emma and Sarah landed! We got some family photos, walked him to the lesson rendez-vous spot, took a few more photos, and then dropped him off with his instructor, St. Nick from the North Pole. Since it was a Wednesday, he got a private lesson with the man himself!
After we dropped him off, the three of us went inside to boot up and get some runs in. We were on the lifts around 10:15am with beers in pockets and ready to have a super fun day! It was chilly, but the sun was poking through snowglobe skies.
Alpine Snow Report
Current Weather: 13F, Snow Showers. Updated 8:41AM February 04 2026
This morning we have received a surprise inch of snow with flurries still coming down! Don't forget to check our Ski & Stay packages we're running through February - get discounted lift tickets included with your stays making it easy to book that trip to Waterville! Lifts open today at 9am.
Trails and Lifts: We plan to open with 58 trails on 252 acres of skiable terrain. For lifts we anticipate spinning: Tecumseh Express, Green Peak Triple, Valley Run Quad, Exhibition T-Bar, High Country T-Bar, Lower Meadows, and the Lower Pasture Carpet.
Anticipated Lift Hours: Tecumseh Express 9am-4pm. Valley Run 9am-4pm. Green Peak 9:30am-3:45pm. Exhibition T-Bar 9am-4pm (4-5:40pm for PRHS training). High Country 9:05am-3:45pm. Lower Meadows 9am-4pm. Lower Carpet 9am-4pm.
Snowmaking and Mountain Operations: Snowmaking is shutting down the system for the rest of the season this morning. Shoutout to our snowmakers! Without the hard work of our mountain operations teams day in and day out and night in and night out, we wouldn't have the excellent skiing conditions we're enjoying today.
Conditions and Weather: We anticipate partly cloudy skies today with temperatures expected to reach a high of 21 degrees at the base and 13 degrees at the summit. Northwest winds are expected to reach 14-20 mph at the base and 20-35mph at the summit.
Terrain Parks: The Exhibition Terrain Park is open, featuring 6 rails, 2 medium jumps, and 2 large jumps! The Fun Run, Banked Slalom Course, and the Boardercross Course are open. The High Country Park rails are now removed leaving 2 medium jumps. We also have 2 small rails and 2 small boxes on The Pasture! Finally, there is a terrain park being built over the next week on Stillness!
Runs 1-4
Run 1: Tecumseh Express - High Country T-Bar - Hassle - Oblivion - Upper Valley Run - Valley Run
[2.02 miles; 6:11; 2,113 feet; 37.4 mph max; 19.6 mph avg]
Run 2: Tecumseh Express - Tangent - Periphery - The Boneyard - Lower Periphery - The Pasture
[1.50 miles; 6:48; 1,765 feet; 24.3 mph max; 13.2 mph avg]
Run 3: Lower Meadows - Stemtation
[0.23 miles; 1:25; 177 feet; 24.3 mph max; 9.7 mph avg]
Run 4: Lower Meadows - Baseway
[Not on Strava]
Our first run of the day was simply to be good friends to Ray. He had bough a full-mountain lift ticket becuase he wanted to ski after his lesson, and his pass only came with carpet access. We took the six-pack up and then the T-Bar to the tippy top, skied the skier's right side of Hassle down (which was not a park run, just a groomer), and then took the easiest way down via Oblivion. I remember the initial entrance to this run being daunting as a beginner, and the headwall was an additional challenge. The snow was in GOOD shape, and depending on how the lesson went there was a chance we would bring him up here... to be determined! We absolutely bombed it down Oblivion and Valley Run, which felt fun to go fast after a bunch of days of more technical skiing.
Run #2 went down the other side of the mountain. We hopped on Tangent because it said natural snow and... it sucked. Periphery was scratchy, but the bumps on the right side of Boneyard were mostly good! We followed Lower Periphery and hoped to catch Ray mid-lesson on The Pasture, but instead we found an empty slope and a baby park. Naturally, we all hit the two boxes. We figured he must be at the Lower Meadows double, so we skied down there and found him! He didn't seem thrilled to see us, but St. Nick said he was doing a great job!
Run #3 was down Stemtation with the only goal to ski the fresh corduroy, and Run #4 was down Baseway to get back to the six-pack. Ray had about an hour left in his lesson.
Runs 5-6
Run 5: Tecumseh Express - Sun Run - True Grit - Fun Run - Rock Island
[1.20 miles; 4:50; 1,703 feet; 31.8 mph max; 14.9 mph avg]
Run 6: Tecumseh Express - Upper Bobby's Run - Lower Bobby's Run - Sugar Shack Glades - Rock Island
[1.22 miles; 9:23; 1,640 feet; 25.8 mph max; 7.8 mph avg]
Our next two runs were our adventure runs! Run #5 brought us down True Grit, which was steep and either scrapey or wonderful. I might need to get my edges done before I go to Maine... I'm still on an upwards trajectory with my technique, but it's slow and steady and steeps are typically where my carving goes back to skidding. We finished this run on "Fun Run" which had some nice banked turns and then Rock Island, which was... alarming? Firm ungroomed base which led to endless hard mini jumps and then a few rollers that were basically actual jumps... Exciting!
Run #6 was down Upper Bobby's, which was still set up for a mogul competition with a groomer track on the left side. The groomer track was actually in awesome shape. We dipped into the woods at the bottom at the Sugar Shack Glades, which were fine. We found the mythical Sugar Shack (we didn't know about it until we found it), skied through it, and then bailed as the woods got very tracked out and lowkey miserable afterwards! We finished with another bumpy lap down Rock Island.
We finished the run at 11:58am, which was perfect! We skied down to collect Ray and they were just a minute after us. St. Nick gave us the full parent report of how he did. He said Ray did a great job! He comically said "since you're patrollers I know you won't take him to the top of the mountain" while we were fully planning on taking him to the top... He also told stories of crashing at Brekenridge and going 70mph down the Jet at Jay. Santa! We collected Ray and all went in for lunch, which involved a pendant beverage and food from the Freestyle Lounge.
Runs 7-8
Run 7: Green Peak Triple - Chandler's Way - South Street - Bourbon Street - Baseway
[1.10 miles; 5:52; 1,066 feet; 25.3 mph max; 11.2 mph avg]
Run 8: Green Peak Triple - Chandler's Way - Upper Valley Run - Valley Run
[1.03 miles; 6:09; 1,086 feet; 29.9 mph max; 10.0 mph avg]
After a long lunch it was time to get back out there! We asked Ray if he wanted to go back to the double or hit the Green Peak Triple, and he was ready to level up! I remembered the easiest way down from the triple was genuintely easy, just longer than what he'd been doing. I was ready for some sleepy introvert time, so I sent Ray on the chair with Sarah and Emma and I rode solo. We congregated back at the top, and it was time to shred! The run was good, and Ray was doing great! Emma would give some pointers and ski ahead, and rinse and repeat! The only challenging part was that there were whales at the Wayne Wong Way intersection for Ray to navigate and that Chandler's Way was closed with whales at the end of Wayne Wong Way, so Ray had his first blue run - South Street - which was a perfect soft level up for him. Emma and I got a little silly and tried hugging and spinning while skiing to moderate success? We all got back to the triple eventually, and it was time for another!
Run #8 brought us back down Chandler's, but then we brought him to Valley Run. He initially said "oh my" at the "headwall," but he was completely fine once he did it. The rest of the run involved Ray making it down successfully, Sarah disappearing into the woods, and me really focusing on dropping my hip to carve. We checked in with Ray near the bottom, and he said he was feeling good! We proposed going all the way up, making note that there is one more difficult section, and he said he was game!
Runs 9-11
Run 9: Tecumseh Express - Oblivion - Upper Valley Run - Valley Run
[1.57 miles; 6:47; 1,729 feet; 34.8 mph max; 13.8 mph avg]
Run 10: Tecumseh Express - Obilivion - Upper Valley Run - Fun Run - Rock Island
[1.52 miles; 5:25; 1,709 feet; 32.2 mph max; 16.8 mph avg]
Run 11: Valley Run Quad - Upper Valley Run - Valley Run
[0.82 miles; 1:58; 755 feet; 38.2 mph max; 24.9 mph avg]
We hoped to get a drink at the Schwendi Hutte, but it was closed by the time we got there (~2pm on a Wednesday). Time to ski! Ray (and Sarah) were big fans of the cozy seats and the bubble on the 6-pack! Ray initially paused at the top of Oblivion, but I told him the worst part is looking at it and just to get going, and he agreed. He absolutely crushed the upper portion and then got a personal coaching with Emma down the headwall. I told him to say "wheeee!" - I like to believe I helped most. We had a nice run down Valley Run, which is actually a wonderful trail when it's not inundated with weekend crowds.
Run #10 was just as good as #9, but Ray was a bit stronger on Oblivion - yay! Sarah, Emma, and I got a little ahead of him, and apparently two ski racers were skiing like jerks and were joking about the guy taking up the whole trail and cutting him off (which is a dick move but only a little funny becuase someone was equally annoyed with Gen when we were learning two years ago). Afterwards, we all decided after this run we'd do our two-more-skip-the-last on the Valley Run Quad. I went down the Fun Run and Rock Island while Ray continued on Valley Run. We all rendez-voud'd at the quad for one more lap!
We got BLESSED with chair #69 for our final run, and we all had a power run going down! Emma and Sarah FLEW down. I blased off to the best of my ability while trying to continue working on my turns. Ray crushed it with his pizza turns and traverses!
After our final run, Ray returned his rentals and we all got changed before a nice and easy drive home. We had Hooksett dinner and Ray was already asking about buying his own equipment... Heck yeah!
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