January 1, 2009 E-MAIL PRINT

Head west to Berkshire East

by Tony Chamberlain/

Berkshire East is a classic 1,200-footer in western Massachusetts. (photo: Berkshire East)

Berkshire East is a classic 1,200-footer in western Massachusetts. (photo: Berkshire East)

Maybe you have, at one time or another, assembled a ski party with a guest list this: three families spanning the entire age spectrum — toddler to, well, old-timers of the grandparent generation. The grandparents are lifelong skiers, one of the parents was a ski racer, the other a total novice. One athletic and energetic 5-year-old would learn fast in the course of a day.

So, with a bunch like this, where to go skiing for a day?

To most diverse groups, I often recommend Mount Sunapee, largely because it features an isolated green area for lessons and practice. Across the way, there’s plenty of diversity of terrain for everyone else. Add amazing beauty and sweet snow, and Sunapee is always a decent choice.

So, now the search was on for a similarly diverse area that really could offer a non-intimidating setting to a rank newcomer, a woman in her 30s who had been a college athlete and had stayed in good physical shape.

We headed west from Boston — something skiers rarely do in New England, when roads beckon us north and south. Out on the Mohawk Trail (Route 2), I drove a route most familiar in spring when I frequent Massachusetts' finest trout stream, the Deerfield River.

Destination: Berkshire East, an area in Charlemont I have skied only a half-dozen or so times. But I remembered plenty of quality green to blue terrain there, and I was not disappointed with the choice.

Berkshire East (www.berkshireeast.com) is a classic 1,200-footer with a pleasingly steep face off the main ridge that tends to focus the attention of a new skier. But our first move was, in my opinion, something that should always be the first move: one hour of private instruction for our new skier.

This is preferable to almost every other approach except a very small group instruction. The very worst option for a newbie is to be cast into the hands of friends or, worse, a spouse. Always spend the dough and opt for the professional.

This region of the Berkshires gets an absolute ton of snow, as southern coastal storms break up through central Connecticut on their way to Vermont. So, Berkshire East boasts 10 feet of natural snow annually.

Of the 45 trails, fully three-fourths of the 200 acres are novice to open blue cruising — low stress, in the way Bretton Woods once marketed the concept.

Three new lifts service Berkshire East since my last visit. And when our newcomer joined us after her lesson, she was already familiar with the Bobcat run — superb for early learners. So is Danny’s Run and the Roundabout, a 1½-mile road with enough pitch variations to keep it interesting.

For intermediates, there’s a whole array of ego runs. Competition, Mohawk, Big Chief — these were all the old trails from the area days when it was known as Thunder Mountain. On trail, Bear Run is a narrow, twisty New England classic, while Blizzard Island is a tree-studded run built with enough space for intermediates.

On the far end of the scale, there are a few black runs. If you like pitch and bumps, Jug and Tomahawk are decent challenges while Lift Line is a classic show-off run for hot shots.

While there is cafeteria dining and restaurants in the area, Berkshire East is not a destination resort, but a first-rate day trip area in the finest meaning of that term.

Oh, yes, it's a night-trip area as well, as many of the runs are fully lit. The area also has a terrain park and tubing facilities complete with a conveyor lift.

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