McCauley: Back in Action

Winter storm Landon dumped snow all across the New York, but north was the place to be. I wanted to avoid the big name resorts as I knew most would be crowded. McCauley seemed like a good choice, especially because I didn’t make it there once last year.

Snowmaking on the bottom of Olympic

Even better, I was rejoined by my favorite chairlift partner Farah and McCauley is one of her personal favorites. We had plans for first chair but had a rough start when we got on the road. The snow was so caked on from my drive to work the previous day that the whole car shuttered at any speed. After a little work to clean out the wheel wells we were back on the road and headed up route 8 to Old Forge.

Continue reading

Gliding at Paul Smiths VIC

It’s not uncommon to see people snowshoeing at a cross-country ski center. But near the end of my tour of Paul Smiths College Visitor Interpretive Center (VIC), I espied a veritable gang heading towards me on snowshoes. Thirty or 40, mostly guys and a few women. They were all wearing hard hats, and Carhartt or buffalo plaid and Malone pants. Heavy gloves. They were all on one side of the trail, so I had no worries gliding by.

corduroy

I accosted a straggler adjusting his snowshoe bindings. They were doing an outdoor session for a class in civic culture: How to manage a woodlot for a client. With a name like that, one would think the class covers polite debate, or how to hold a cup of tea with your pinky finger sticking out.

Continue reading

Mount van Ho: I Learned to Love Manmade Snow

What a difference a day makes.

New Year’s Day this year, is the latest I’ve ever started a ski season. When Mount van Hoevenberg opened in November, the shooting brake was racked up in the shop with a warranty issue. By the time I got it back – with an entirely new emissions system – we were knee deep in December. December skiing and a job the retail wine business don’t play well together.

More and more, Christmas week is like the old meme of Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown. Promise packed powder conditions, then give them a slushfest. Clouds pelted us with intermittent rain as we drove north on New Year’s Eve.

Continue reading