New York Powder Weekend

The weekend started with lot of promise and some pre-game hype. A clipper that was going to transfer energy to the coast formed a little late to REALLY dump on New York. But the original low hung on longer than expected and both Cats and Daks did score some of the coastal love.

NY Storm

It started snowing early Friday morning and at Gore, the opening bell cord was covered in 1-to-2 inches of new snow. It’s my tradition to hit Sunway first, to harvest the cord, while making big sweeping turns. It was beautiful and quiet and snowy.

I took that first lap of the Gondola solo and on my second run I connected EDeO, Chuck, Bobbie and Dean. We headed off to the summit. We skied everything. The trails were incredible and the woods were thin. We skied all open aspects except Topridge.

Continue reading

Hunter Mountain: Determined to Fly

The history of Hunter Mountain is all about facing challenges. In the late 1950s Orville and Israel Slutzky built their resort on a mountain deemed “too steep and rocky” for a ski area. From what I can see, that spirit of determination thrives today.

Hunter Mountain

Last week winter came to a grinding halt for few days. At Hunter I don’t think they even noticed. After Wednesday’s rain event, I checked the Hunter webcam and trails were still wall-to-wall.

When we arrived early Sunday morning things were looking as I expected. Deep bases and corduroy were everywhere. If it wasn’t for the lack of snow in town and in the trees, you’d hardly know winter was struggling through another season.

Continue reading

Garnet Hill Lodge Ski Center, NY

Garnet Hill and I go way back. In 1988, I did some of my first “downhill skiing” on some very skinny skis on the hill.  On my very first run in the Adirondacks, I skied down from the Lodge to the Ski Shop on “The Cut Off Trail” — a short and fairly steep run with a 90 degree left hand turn at the bottom of the steepest part.

View from Garnet Hill Lodge

The hill had just been through a thaw/freeze cycle and it was actually pretty sporty. Yes it’s true — I crashed in the first corner and thought… “this is going to be a long day.”

It snowed overnight and conditions really improved. In fact on each of my first trips to Garnet Hill conditions were excellent. At the time I had no idea how special it was to score new snow on trips planned weeks in advance.

Continue reading