Wachusett Mountain: a great place to ski for beginners.
As novice skiers, we spent quite some time researching the best spot for a day trip to the slopes. With a reputation for being a family friendly mountain with lots of resources for beginners, we decided to try Wachusett. The mountain is around an hour from Boston, and although it may not offer many black diamonds, we were more than able to fill a whole day on their green-rated slopes.
We visited on a busy Saturday, and found the rental and locker areas to be a bit tight. The skis, boots and helmets we borrowed were in great condition, but the rental staff wasn’t as helpful as we hoped for one of our first times skiing. For instance, we would have liked more guidance after we asked how tightly our boots should fit around the toes and ankles.
After gearing up we joined a group lesson with four other adult beginners. It was a relief that our lesson consisted of adults, and our instructor was definitely comfortable teaching newbies. Each time we took the ski lift we were escorted through the ‘ski lesson’ line, which meant no waiting. This was a great perk, and helped us get lots of value out of a relatively short lesson.
We graduated from wedge turns to parallel ones (well, parallel-ish!) and were ready to venture out on our own for the remainder of the afternoon. After skiing down the green “Indian Summer” and “Sundowner” trails a few more times to practice what we learned from our teacher, we decided to try an intermediate blue trail at the top of a different lift. It was quite a bit more challenging, but we made it down “Look Mom” trail feeling pretty good about our ski skills.
We definitely recommend Wachusett to other new skiers as well as families with small kids.
Adventures for two 
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