NY Ski Magazine: The Inland Northwest

Even though I’ve written three dozen resort features over the past decade, I still have a long way to go before I’ve visited all of North America’s major ski regions, particularly out west.

Inland-Northwest-Skier

Just off the top of my head, I still haven’t made turns in California, British Columbia, Montana, western Washington and Oregon, central Idaho, Maine, or Quebec’s Gaspe Peninsula. Being based near NYC (at least for the near future), that should keep me busy for a while.

Thankfully, last March, I finally got around to a region that had evaded my grasp for a while: the Inland Northwest, located in eastern Washington and northern Idaho. Within a two-hour drive of the Spokane airport, there are five interesting and varied ski areas covering the gamut from full-service resorts to entertaining off-the-beaten-path day areas. What’s more, everything is surrounded by beautiful scenery: lakes, mountains, and gorgeous vistas, along with the cute towns of Sandpoint and Coeur d’Alene. Explore:

NY Ski Magazine
Inland Northwest: Destination, Not A Gateway

The Ivy Ski Club in Warrensburg NY

Ivy Ski ClubThe Ivy Ski Club is a national alpine society founded in 2011 by a group of passionate skiers. Currently, its members hail from 15 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Armed Forces, but its home base is Warrensburg, NY.

NYSkiBlog’s Jamesdeluxe sat down with Ivy Ski Club Chairman and Co-Founder David Cronheim to find out what led the club to pick upstate New York’s Warren County as its home.


NYSkiBlog: Can you start by telling us a little bit about what makes the Ivy Ski Club different from other ski clubs across the country?

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The Rebirth of Mont Alta Ski Area

Over the past few years, we’ve published several features in the Magazine about the most underutilized arrow in the northeastern skier’s quiver: Québec.

Mont-Alta-Nov-2008
Mont Alta November Dump

From the Eastern Townships and Laurentians in the south to Charlevoix and the Gaspé Peninsula in the north, the province offers a number of great mountains, but its special sauce is the many interesting small areas similar to Hickory in the Adirondacks or Plattekill in the Catskills.

With the 2013-14 season inching closer, we learned over the past week that one of the most beloved of these locals’ hills, Mont Alta — located an hour northwest of Montréal in the Laurentian snowbelt — is going to reopen after being closed last season, with the goal of transforming it into a co-op.

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