Mont Sutton, Amen

Most of the billboards in The Townships are in French. There’s a conspicuous one near the top of Mont Sutton’s access road that simply says “Amen” branded with the logo and a picture of some beautifully rimed trees.

mont-sutton-skier

It’s a little ambiguous, but after skiing there last weekend, I’d probably define it as “divine bliss and sheer joyfulness from sliding over a soft base of perfection.” Skiing is serious business, after all.

Overstatement? Je ne sais pas. While it hadn’t snowed at the mountain for a few days, life is more than recent snowfall, uphill capacity, double black diamonds, and super fast lifts. Sutton seems to get the fact that those metrics don’t directly translate into fun. From heaven, not hoses, en français.

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Un Bon Voyage

With the promise of a few centimeters of snow in the forecast, my eyes were glued to strange webcams and blogs of a foreign land. I wanted to ski something different, to see the world, in a country that invented the word neige.

Sutton-skier

El Nino’s agua brought with it air in the mild flavor, but my research — or maybe it was wishcasting — paid off.  One forecast called for 2 degrees and rain and another -1 and snow. You know which one I chose.

I arrived after what was sure to be the first of this season’s many white-knuckle drives. My new (ok used, but still with lots of tread) Michelin X-Ice tires felt pretty good in their first winter frolic while winding steep roads in the Sutton Mountains, news as welcomed as the winter precipitation.

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New Lines: Ski What We Reap

Nothing gets me more excited for the season than getting in the woods to craft some skiable lines for the winter. Fortunately, the community in New York is #blessed with more than a few like-minded maniacs, and the owner of a mountain that is just as ski-obsessed as we are.

Plunge

In typical Plattekill fashion it seemed like the weather report could be thrown out the window. It was much colder than forecasted, and snow seemed imminent in the Catskills.

Our merry band was ready for the challenge and well prepared this year, we stayed warm by sawing and swinging; hot chocolate breaks can wait for the winter.

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