<blockquote class=“Quote” rel=“becca_m” style=“font-weight: normal;”>i have seen tracks into that area - after the last storm from the top of Jupiter’s Storm and today when I skinned to the actual summit - there were quite a few tracks heading in that direction - not sure if they just looped back or not</blockquote>
I have hiked over to the east area and the summit during the summer. The trails on the east side are very overgrown, but you can still see their outline, in part because the new tree growth is younger (noticeably smaller) and a different species in many places.
I know that a lot of people hike over there and ski it in mid-season. “sledhaulingmedic”, formerly an active member of this forum and patrolman at CM told me about catching some powder runs over there.
There are a number of people who own condos at the east side who ski back and forth for the few weeks of the season that conditions permit it.
For ciscokid’s question: The closed area is the original Crotched Mtn. The current Crotched Mtn. is the ski area that operated previously as Onset, Bobcat and Crotched West before closing. It operated as Crotched West when it combined with (original) Crotched ca. 1985.
There was a huge master plan for combining the two areas and developing the land in between. When the area went under following the 1989-90 season, the plan was abandoned and the value of the condos took a huge hit. Public real estate records for the 1990s show series of foreclosures where the sale prices dropped as low as 15% of the original construction (1986) sale prices. My suspicion is that much of the value of the condos was based on the area becoming large destination resort comprising hundreds of acres. That would explain why current prices for the condos near the West Double are still priced below what they sold for in the late 1980s.
I will repeat what I have said a number of times in this forum: Living ski-on/ski-off changes the sport.
- No worrying about road conditions
- No worrying about shoveling on a powder day before skiing
- Ability to change wet clothes
- No loading and unloading the car
- No big deal if you forget something
- No worries about being hacked on public wifi
- etc.
The condos on the north side of Rt. 47 and those on the east-side are much cheaper than the ones by the west double, because they are not ski-on/ski-off. I do not know of another ski area of the size and quality of Crotched Mtn. where you can own ski-on/ski-off property for well under $100K. Prices are recovering following the 2007 real estate bust, so if you’re interested, don’t wait!
