The 2012-13 season started on a bittersweet note when Hurricane Sandy delivered three feet of snow in the mountains of West Virginia on the backside of a storm that devastated coastal areas New York and New Jersey.
Often with early and epic snow the jones is high, and the hardcore will travel long distances to get after it. This storm was no exception and several skiers from the NYSB and TGR communities drove hundred of miles south to ski the snow.
MadPat, mattchuck2, ml242, Moeghoul and others headed for Timberline, Canaan Valley and White Grass, which were in the bullseye for snow.
Notable was the fact that MadPatSki‘s famous streak of 85 consecutive months of skiing was on the line, and came down to that final day of October.
While there was an abundance of great ski images coming back from the Blue Ridge mountains, NYSkiBlog posted only one ski photo on our front page out of respect for those affected by the storm.
From ml242’s report: “Over the past week, skiers were excited to see video, images, and trip reports of skin tracks and powder from the forests of West Virginia. But the joy we enjoyed on the backside stood in sharp contrast to the awful side of the storm that our neighbors faced at the front.”
The end of ml’s report still resonates: “If you’re reading this in your own home, you’re probably among the fortunate, with electricity, heat and an internet connection to the world. Taking a wider view, the NYSkiBlog audience is largely a fortunate group. We’re lucky because we ski.”
It might have the craziest start of my ski season ever, surpassing Month #1 at Wildcat NH with another Hurricane generating snowstorm in October 2005.