Author: Icecoastchef

Skiing into the New Year in Quebec

Posted on by Icecoastchef

In October, when I pitched a Quebec New Year’s Eve trip to my wife and friends, I was met with more than a fair amount of skepticism about the merits of a winter trip to a famously cold destination.

“Why do we need to drive 8 hours to go skiing?”
“Can we go to Quebec in the summer instead?”
“It’s going to be SO cold!”
“Can we go to a warm place for New Year’s?”

I am a salesman, so I went to work and sold the group on the food, the culture and, of course, the skiing. “Yes it will be cold,” I told them. “It will probably get close to 0° at night, but I promise everyone will have an awesome time.”

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Tagged: Quebec5 Comments

Deep into a Steep Vermont December

Posted on by Icecoastchef

In December 2016, on an early-season trip to Killington, our group planned to visit Okemo on the second day. Conditions in the region were typical for December—the snow was hard, crusty, and mostly manmade with a slick layer of ice hiding underneath. When I saw the next morning that Jay Peak had landed nearly two feet of surprise snowfall, I headed north in search of powder, with or without my friends.

I arrived to waist-deep powder runs on some of the steepest trails and glades in the northeast, making the day trip well worth the five hours of extra driving. That was my first day as a “powderhound,” obsessively checking the weather and allowing Mother Nature to steer my Subaru to the mountains I would visit.

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Tagged: Jay Peak, Smugglers Notch, VT3 Comments

Coming Home to Windham

Posted on by Icecoastchef

I arrived at Windham on Sunday morning delighted to find six inches of fresh snow waiting for me on the slopes. After grabbing the first chair, I skated along the ridge and made a quick descent down The Wall, a short double-black diamond headwall that connects to Whistler below.

new snow at windham

I stopped to admire the picturesque view of the Catskills on a perfect bluebird day, and I thought back to the weekend less than five years ago when my addiction to skiing was born.

In January 2013, my girlfriend (now my wife, Rachel), suggested that we spend a weekend skiing. I’d never tried the sport, but I loved exercise and was looking for a way to overcome the seasonal depression that plagued me annually during the dreary, gray days of northeast winters.

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Tagged: Catskills, Windham4 Comments