Waterville Valley XC Ski North Side
| Date: | 4-7-2024 |
| Location: | Waterville Valley, NH |
| Distance: | 5.81 mi |
| Elevation Gain: | 343′ |
| Total Time: | 4 hr 1 min |
| Parking: | 10+ cars |
| Difficultly Rating: | Green, Blue, Black + |
After a great day at Bear Notch XC Touring Center, I decided to make the best of a beautiful weekend and head up to Waterville Valley Nordic Center. Weather forecast was for clear blue skies and temps in the upper 40’s.
I met up with my friend Jay and we headed up to Waterville. Waterville’s snow repots stated that the area near the town square was very thin, but the northern side was groomed and skiing well.
We stopped at the ticket center to purchase a $29 pass then headed up to the Greely Pond Parking lot. When we got there, we were a bit surprised when we saw the lot was already overflowing. 40+ cars. We forgot that there were lots of people in the state due to a solar eclipse happening the next day. New Hampshire is in the path of totality.
We were lucky, someone just left, and we found their spot. Others were circling the lot several times waiting for someone to leave.
After we got geared up we walked through the muddy lot and over the bridge to Tripoli Road. We started up Lower Osceola Trail. The trail has a small incline and marked as a green. The snow was a little soft but still skied well.
Along the way we saw a lot of forest signs, a Kiosk and soon came to the Osceola Campground. We decided to ski through the campground on our return and continued along.
We came to the John Deer and Moose Run trail Junction. There was a small warming hut and lots of people coming and going. We decided to start with John Deer. This is a blue and had some climbing.
As the morning warmed up the snow was getting a little softer. We soon came to the junction of Upper Osceola which is an advanced black trail. Jay decided to venture up. I would continue John Deer.
The trail had a muddy spot about 100 feet after the junction and I had to remove my skis to cross. After that the trail was in pretty good shape. There was a stream crossing that was a bit thin but skiable. This trail had rolling ups and downs.
When I got to the bottom, I waited for Jay who was not far behind. At the main junction we talked with some other skiers for a bit and then continued down Moose Run.
This is a green trail and flat. The snow is softer and a little slower now. We skied to the loop junction and went clockwise onto the Wicked Easy Trail. When we connected back to Moose Run, we took a quick break to grab a snack.
I was starting to look forward to skiing back. Most of the grade would be downhill. When we got back to the Lower Osceola junction, we took a few pics of the hut then started to ski down.
The snow was much slower than I thought it would be. We made it down to the Osceola Campground loop and skied in. We checked out some of the sites and decided to have lunch on one of the picnic tables.
The sky was blue and the sun was bright. After our break we skied out and back down to the trail head. This was a good end of xc season ski.
