Pat T
Member
Windblown XC area was hard hit by the December ice storm. We had been following their recovery efforts on their website, http://windblownxc.com, and wanted to see for ourselves. They decided to open up a small portion of their groomed trails this weekend so we headed north to New Ipswich, NH.
There were enough groomed and tracked trails to keep us busy. We knew from their website that conditions would be fast (their website always has good, realistic information) and found the hills a bit challenging for a first outing of the season. There was nice snow on one of the ponds and several folks mentioned that to be their favorite area of the day.
All of the open trails had been completely cleared of storm debris but the surrounding woods were a different story. There was a very large piece of equipment there today (kind of like a "Transformer" logger) and they expect to continue this operation over the next weeks. The owners have been posting updates on the logging and trail conditions on their website.
After an hour of skiing, we headed in for lunch -- the always delicious veggie chili was just right. Their lodge is really nice--fireplace, woodstove, good music.
Since we were also doing some snowshoeing today, we asked for additional trail information. The Wapack Trail runs right through Windblown and Irene (she and husband Al are the owners) gave us directions to pick up the Wapack and head to an overlook called, I think, Stony Top. We had a nice mile-long roundtrip to a rocky clearing with views from Monadnock all the way to Boston. We could also see the entire section of the Wapack from Watatic to Barrett Mtn. We could clearly see the old ski trails on Watatic and caught a glimpse of the top of Wachusett. There was a small amount of blowdown in the first section of the trail but most of it was clear all the way to the overlook. We did not head any further south on the Wapack but it looked like it needed a lot of trail clearing. We appreciated the traction on our snowshoes. There was about an inch of new snow over a crust with a small amount of snow beneath. That will all change soon. There was no wind today but it was cold and damp and felt very much like we will have a good storm tonight.
There were enough groomed and tracked trails to keep us busy. We knew from their website that conditions would be fast (their website always has good, realistic information) and found the hills a bit challenging for a first outing of the season. There was nice snow on one of the ponds and several folks mentioned that to be their favorite area of the day.
All of the open trails had been completely cleared of storm debris but the surrounding woods were a different story. There was a very large piece of equipment there today (kind of like a "Transformer" logger) and they expect to continue this operation over the next weeks. The owners have been posting updates on the logging and trail conditions on their website.
After an hour of skiing, we headed in for lunch -- the always delicious veggie chili was just right. Their lodge is really nice--fireplace, woodstove, good music.
Since we were also doing some snowshoeing today, we asked for additional trail information. The Wapack Trail runs right through Windblown and Irene (she and husband Al are the owners) gave us directions to pick up the Wapack and head to an overlook called, I think, Stony Top. We had a nice mile-long roundtrip to a rocky clearing with views from Monadnock all the way to Boston. We could also see the entire section of the Wapack from Watatic to Barrett Mtn. We could clearly see the old ski trails on Watatic and caught a glimpse of the top of Wachusett. There was a small amount of blowdown in the first section of the trail but most of it was clear all the way to the overlook. We did not head any further south on the Wapack but it looked like it needed a lot of trail clearing. We appreciated the traction on our snowshoes. There was about an inch of new snow over a crust with a small amount of snow beneath. That will all change soon. There was no wind today but it was cold and damp and felt very much like we will have a good storm tonight.
