It’s one of my first ski memories — the early 70s, I am 10 years old, and making my first trip to a “real” ski area. After a few fitful starts at some local t-bar/Poma-lift hills, Dad took me with him to the mountain where he skied with some of his grownup friends.
The place is called “Gore,” just over an hour drive from the Colonie area north of Albany, and for this wide-eyed boy, it was if he had set me down somewhere in Austria.
I spent a season on the Goree Gully beginner lift, a long shuffle from the base lodge — “skating” was an adult technique I couldn’t comprehend at the time. I learned to connect turns, do a “stem Christie” (the popular intermediate turn at the time), and found myself making progress.
