I am an expert skiier whose home hill is 7S. I am looking to meet up with a friend for a few days of skiing around Christmas this year. He lives in Boston so I'm trying to figure out a place that has challenging terrain (off-piste would be great, but I am realistic about what time of the year I am going) and is roughly midway between Boston and 7S. I also thought about Blue Mountain and maybe even Okemo. I am primarily considering Hunter but might be willing to go to Southern Vermont. Any thoughts on possible areas I could ski at, and how the terrain is at Hunter.
I'm working on an article now to be published soon on DCSki about Hunter Mtn. I believe you are correct. It is probably the most challenging hill anywhere near midway between Somerset and Boston and can be a very entertaining place under the right conditions. Exactly how many of their advanced runs will be open at Christmas is hard to say. The key to some variety in black diamond runs would be whether they are able to get any of the backside Hunter West runs open by then. You mentioned Okemo. That is quite a bit north from midway between you and Boston, but if you would consider that area of central Vermont, then a better choice for early season advanced skiing would likely be Killington. Killington has a great deal of legit black diamond terrain when it is firing on all cylinders. It also has a great snowmaking capacity. My son plans to instruct at Killington at Christmas time and one reason he chose to go up there is for the potential they have for opening advanced terrain for skiing and instructing at that time. Another, slightly smaller mtn that you might consider in Western MA is Berkshire East. Never been there, but it's known to have some good advanced terrain. As you can imagine Killington and Hunter could be quite crowded at Christmas. Berkshire East perhaps less so.
Here are some photos of Hunter from last March, plus a tip on an affordable place to stay if you go that way: http://www.epicski.com/a/hunter-mountain-ny-a-pictorial
I forgot to agree with Fish that Elk is also a good candidate for what you are looking for. But Killington would trump all others mentioned in this thread if they have some good terrain open and you don't mind the detour.
Whiteface? It's not much farther than Killington - and it's high enough to maybe have nice nice natural snow.
JimK,
Thank you for your comments and advice about Hunter Mountain and the recommendation of Killington over Okemo. I'll have to check out Berkshire East.
If you decide to head to Hunter, consider a day at Belleayre. It's just enough farther away from the NY Thruway to be slightly less of a destination for families driving up from NYC. There are a few interesting tree areas. I only spent half a day there in late March last season so didn't have time to explore everything. Not particularly steep but more than you can find in PA from what I know.
Here's an intro to Belleayre with some pics:
http://mag.nyskiblog.com/Belleayre-NY-Low-Key-in-the-Catskills-td1012205.html
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