Do You Love Your Home Mountain?

Late afternoon on Sunday, at the end of a long ski day, I was sitting in the bar at Plattekill, surrounded by friends. When I’m in that spot, reliving the day’s adventures, I feel like the luckiest man alive. I snapped a picture of the room, and fired off a tweet on NYSB’s twitter.

Home Mountain Tweet

“Do You Love Your Home Mountain?” The thought as expressed was actually incomplete. I could have added … “as much as I do?” to the end of the question. Smiling wide at the end of another joyful ski day, I decided to bounce it off the internet. I think Twitter is my go-to in the mountains as it seems to require minimal signal strength to function.

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Catskill Double: Birthday Surprise

Each year I find a way to make my birthday fun. I get a few days off work and drive north to the mountains looking for adventure. When I pull it off, for the moment, I can forget I’m a year older. There’s really only one rule for the trek: it has to include skiing Plattekill.

driving at night
Required element

For me, being born in early January was a blessing.

When I was a kid, it stunk having a birthday right after Christmas. Nobody was the mood to party. But now, there’s something I really want, that I can give myself, every year without fail. My present to myself is a solution to a problem: how can I avoid pondering the relentless march of time on the annual reminder of my birth? It’s simple, go skiing.

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McCauley to the Rescue

After a nice big storm in mid-December, I think it’s fair to say we dodged a bullet at the end of last week. A second big event, originally in the long range as snow storm, looked more like a sure thing for rain as it got closer.

Adirondack cabin

Then, at the last minute, the storm track moved a bit east. Not east enough for a full-fledged happy ending, but enough to deliver both front and backend snow in NY.

I’ve been watching NY snowfall radar for 20 years, and I’ve rarely, if ever, seen that kind of significant last minute reprieve, even if it wasn’t complete.

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