Another Big Mac Wednesday

My season has been a mix of things: handling my transition into retirement, managing the construction of our home and chasing NY lake effect snow. I was at it again last week, rolling over my 401k and scoring a powder day at McCauley.

It’s weird being retired. It struck me again early last week when I realized the potential for another Big Mac Wednesday. McCauley is closed on Tuesdays, and if you pay attention, you can score some deep untracked from a two-day snowfall. I thought hell yea, I could be there. On Tuesday I drove to our camp in the Adirondacks, started a fire in the woodstove and skied our woods.

Before I turned in, I needed a new alarm for McCauley. My thinking has changed, I now add an hour of drive time, when chasing lake effect, for a day trip into any of the NY lake effect zones. For me, traveling from our place near Gore, this includes Dry Hill, Snow Ridge, McCauley, Woods Valley and likely Titus.

For McCauley, with a 9am lift opening, I’m looking to arrive at 8. It’s a little extra buffer that gives me a chance to connect with ski partners, boot up and be first in line.

The Google maps drive time is almost 90 minutes from our place.  That would mean leaving HQ at 6:30, but with the added hour of drive time for the lake effect effect, departure would be 5:30 am.  And that translates into a 4:30am alarm.

I went with it. The added hour is “standard” but drive times in wandering snow bands are hard to predict. The falling snow added 45 minutes to the trip and I arrived at 7:45, fifteen minutes early. As I got my gear together, it continued to snow steadily.

I’d tried to line up a ski partner for the day, without success. Robert is my CNY go-to guy, but on a short notice day midweek, I was on my own.  I haven’t been to McCauley more then five or six times, but I remembered the other guy in the lodge with me an hour before first chair. I said hello, his name was Bruce.  I convinced him to ride first chair with me.

Obviously a regular, I asked him what he’d ski first. He looked below us and said “totally untracked like this, I’m coming right down Sky Ride.” We jumped off the lift and it was a bit of a surprise. 20 inches of beautiful snow, powdery enough to be called powder. But as I plowed through it, I was getting tossed around a bit by firm bumps underneath.

It would have been more of a funhouse if you could actually see the undulations in the terrain, but it was snowing hard enough to eliminate any real depth perception. Don’t get me wrong, it was a blast. That’s a roundabout way of saying, I tried, but I couldn’t take that photo above, and still keep up with Bruce.

It snowed all morning, moderately hard, with occasional extended blasts of truly intense snowfall. Based on my car at the end of the day, I’d say we got another six inches, and most of that fell in the morning.

When it’s really snowing hard it’s often easier to ski the trees. This wasn’t the first time at McCauley that I felt the need to move into the trees, because it was snowing so hard I couldn’t comprehend the terrain in front of me.  This was the first time I was skiing at McCauley alone. I slowed down and enjoyed it. I tried to ski slow enough that I could absorb the terrain as it came my way.

I focused on the low angle trees. I knew from my own experience that Barkeater was at least another 20 inch dump away from skiable. Big Dipper and even the top of God’s Land looked a bit thin in spots. For much of the morning I was living in Rambler Glades, Lower Glade, Hanks Hollow and Lost Trail.

In the afternoon the snow slowed and then stopped. Eventually the sun came out. I never thought I would say this in my life, but the skiing got better after the snow stopped. You could see the terrain and for me it was significantly more fun to ski it.

I couldn’t ignore the rest of the mountain forever.  Call me the optimist, I’m thinking the front side steeps were probably better in the afternoon when I got there. You could see the sharks teeth, and leap around them into deep piles of new snow. No doubt that funky fall line on Olympic is also more fun in the full light of day!

Much of Helmers was cutup and in the sunlight it was a dream. I tried to quit skiing several times, but just kept lapping it. For my last run, I made a friend on the lift who showed me the Big Mac sidecountry (lol) I remembered skiing a few years back.

With the new snow on our own nordic trails calling me, I quit at 1:30, so I could be back to track them out before dark. If you have evening appointments, you’ve got to remember to add the extra hour for lake effect driving. On my return drive heavy lake effect slowed me more than one extra hour, but I still got my ski in before dark.

I’m happy when it snows hard. And I’m stoked to be living 200 miles closer to McCauley.