Toggenburg Hits the Spot

With the most recent nor’easter hitting New York midweek, I had some serious fear of missing out. Would there be any powder left for me? I was able to get Thursday off, so I needed to choose my ski slope wisely.

Evan was in a similar predicament. The storm was hitting south of Syracuse, hard, and I suggested Toggenberg. Evan was hesitant, he had never been, and his Indy Pass (aka Greek Peak) was burning a hole in his pocket. I thought that Togg would have the goods and would remain uncrowded. We made our plan and a bit before 10am on Thursday we met up in the parking lot. As expected, it was almost empty when we arrived.

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Snow Ridge: Lost in Powder

Recently on reddit I saw a comment calling NYSkiBlog the hot toddy of Northeast ski journalism, I guess we are warm and fuzzy. I took it as a compliment. It’s true, I’m generally pretty positive about my riding experience. This year it hasn’t been hard; I’ve had four solid powder days already.

In a year where nothing is normal, for me riding is the place to find normalcy. The vertical doesn’t really matter, for that length of time it takes me to get down the hill, I forget about everything. Each resort is working to find normalcy as well.

After a summer of fundraising for a new patio and jumping on the Indy Pass, Snow Ridge has had a quiet start to the season. It was only a matter of time before the wind started blowing off Lake Ontario, and the Ridge regained epic status.

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Woods Valley: Ski Local, Be Local

This is the year of the season pass. We’ve seen the Indy pass steadily rack up new resorts, the SKI3 pass be the only guarantee for ORDA mountains, and the Epic pass shutter under travel restrictions. Then there is everyone in between, with passes to their home mountains.

Given the uncertainty of this year’s ski season, buying a local pass seemed like the only guarantee to ski or ride. For me it’s been a no brainer for years. I remember the days before I started purchasing season passes, the race against time to ski as much as possible in a day. These days my approach is much more relaxed, and just last week I logged five solid days at my local hill Woods Valley.

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