A cog in the ski-chine

Leaders
Ketan Ahuja (coB coS), Louisa French (she/her/hers) (A coB S), Paul Lilin (B coC coI S)
Program
Winter School
Type
Backcountry skiing
Terrain level
B
Trip date
Saturday, January 17th
Difficulty rating
B
Prerequisites
Some prior experience with backcountry gear, ideally.

Do you like skiing but hate crowds? Do you want to free yourself from being a cog in the ski-lift machine? Then you should sign up for this trip!

The trip plan is to start on the western face of Mt. Washington, ascending the clearing around the Cog Railway to the edge of the treeline. Then, we'll turn around and ski down (a climb/ski decent of 1.5 miles and 2000'). We might try to do two laps depending on our time.

In the event that the snow conditions make for unpleasant or dangerous skiing, we will skin and ski at Bretton Woods instead (expect to pay for a 25$ uphill pass) which supposedly has ‘the best grooming in the east.’

This trip is intended for skiers who are comfortable on black resort runs and ideally have used alpine touring gear at least once. You should be able to ski precisely and avoid obstacles. The terrain we will be skiing will be bumpy and ungroomed, consistently with easy black in steepness, but ungroomed and narrow in parts (narrow down to 15' or so in spots).

If you can drive your own car or are willing to drive a rental car, edit the “Lottery preferences” on your MITOC profile to show this. Please budget for $30 trip fees, rideshare expenses (approx $30-50, plus $10 parking/car). There is also a $5 per person/day fee to ski on this track.

The pre-trip meeting for this trip is mandatory (even if you're not renting gear) and will take place on Thursday before WS lecture (more details in pre-trip email).


Signup

Algorithm
lottery
Maximum participants
6
Signups opened at
Jan. 13, 2026, 5:34 p.m.
Signups close at
Jan. 14, 2026, 9 a.m.
Notes
  1. Are you comfortable skiing an ungroomed, bumpy trail when your legs are tired?
  2. What is your past experience with touring gear to skin up and ski down?
  3. If you could name a ski resort trail, what would you name it?
Signups are open!
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