My plan was to ski Plattekill with James and Jason, and to ski Gore on Sunday and Monday. Work got in the way of Monday and ultimately Sunday too. I was daytripping the Catskills again.
If you think Belleayre is in the middle of nowhere… Plattekill is 20 miles beyond that. The snow was incredibly deep in Delaware County. So deep that with the consistency of the snow, the trees were basically unskiable. Waist deep.
Plattekill is a part-time mountain, only open Friday thru Sunday. It has the most natural snow in the Cats (190″ avg) – and they leave a lot of terrain ungroomed. Hey it’s a vibe… it’s also a smart way to run a mountain. We stuck to the sides of the “groomers” weaving in and out of the untracked and the huge soft bumps.
Gore Mountain phone call 10:30 am: Emily is out West, but her backup answered the phone. She indicated that 6 inches of snow fell before precip stopped overnight. I pushed on NCP. She’d spoken to the groomers and they made no mention of anything but snow overnight. Apparently it’s wet at the bottom, because that was how it fell. She said she’d call it packed powder.
I told her she should post it up, people REALLY want to know what is up. She said she’d talk to patrol first, and then update the site.
From the Garnet Hill Website, 9:30 am: “Friday, Feb 26th – 38″ of fresh snow. Trails are open as we are clearing down branches. We hope to commence grooming this afternoon after branches are cleared and the snow has time to dry.”
Email, Emily, 9am: Spoke to Patrol. No mention of NCP.
Email, North River, 1200 feet, 8:30 am: Snowed til midnight then NCP all night after that.
Email, Igerna Hermit, 1100 feet, 7:00 am: “Reporting from my station – 1.06″ ncp yesterday and .61″ ncp all last night ending this morning.”
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