My First Woods Valley Powder Day

I’ve wanted to ski every ski area in New York for a long time. It’s a big job, and now I have the flexibility to do it. Based in NJ since I started skiing in 1990, until now, logistics have focused my attention on eastern New York and Vermont.

I have more time now, and I’ve set my sights on filling the holes in my resume in Central and Western NY. I’ve got 30 lift-served areas to ski, over the next three years, if things go according to plan.

This winter, I’m still based in New Jersey, but I’ll be in the Adirondacks a lot more. First, I’ll be focused on the hills I can ski in a day from the Adk and NJ. Next year, I’ll look further to the west with some overnight roadtrips.

Last week, at the beginning of this adventure, I skied Woods Valley.

Woods is 99 miles from our Adk HQ, and like other drives through the mountains, you should never underestimate it. After this trip I decided it should be automatic to add more drive time, when skiing lake effect. No matter how you well you think you can dodge the band, you just can’t count on it. My rule of thumb is to add one hour.

On my drive to Westernville NY, the last 40 miles were right in the narrowly-focused band of lake effect that I was chasing. I worked my way through the storm, keeping it well under the posted speed limits. I arrived at 8:15 there were few cars in the lot and the lodge was empty.

I met up with Robert outside, he was booting up. It was windy and cold, and I wanted to start out warm and sealed up, so I headed into Wood’s newly renovated basement to layer up.

It snowed all day the day before, all night, and now there was a 100% chance for snow during the day.  The snow on the ground looked to be at least two feet deep. It continued to snow and by noon Woods reported thirty inches.

We were among the first to few skiers to load Big Chair. We plundered skier’s right on Copy Cat, followed by first tracks on the Bowl.  The hill was nearly empty at this hour and convention wisdom would dictate skiing untracked trails before jumping into the trees.

Not deterred by that wisdom, we jumped into Deer Glade and then Valhalla Woods. Being first ones meant we had to break trail at the top.  The snow was so soft and deep that at one point, Robert crashed and needed my help unbuckling his board so he could get upright once again.

For me, Timmy’s was the trail of the day. The unofficial upper portion had big snow whales covered in a foot of powder. We pumped through the whales and made our way to Lower. Skier’s left was deep, turny and largely untracked. We skied this over and over.

We made another tour of our greatest hits, down the front and along the sides. At one point I traversed past a patrol hut along the reservoir, dropping in Rabbit Hole before heading back to Valhalla and Valkyrie trees. I had a long drive ahead and we called it by early afternoon.

Woods is very cool.  What a great thing to be spinning Hall lifts in a snowy spot so close to Rome NY.