North and Northeast

If you don’t live near-ish to where it’s going to hit, sometimes, even with fairly accurate medium range weather forecasts, getting the goods can feel like a military assault — as much logistics as action.

This last storm thankfully crested on a Friday. A rarity, I can assure you as my schedule is always the same and I am always watching the weather in winter. When it appeared, I knew I had to do what it took to get, somewhere. Probably the farther north, the better.

After a lot of talking and texting about Le Massif de Charlevoix and other exotic and distant locales, as the weather pattern firmed up, we settled on Whiteface and Jay.

Continue reading

Making the Call for McCauley

There’s always some fear of missing out during the season. Last month, I watched that epic day at McCauley and I felt it. I didn’t even know it was snowing that day. I had to remind myself that I too had great days there and would have many more.

When projections for Friday’s storm started to creep above a foot, I felt it again. The storm had been well advertised with Northern Vermont as ground zero. Evan and I decided to ride closer to home to get fresh snow and avoid crowds. We met in Utica for the ride to Old Forge. We arrived at McCauley early Saturday morning to give ourselves the best chance at the new snow.

Continue reading

Gore Mountain: Right Place, Right Time

I thought I had done pretty good getting to Gore by 8:40 AM but no; the upper lots were already full. I dumped Junior and our gear near the lodge and parked in Lot E. Once our tickets were squared away, we headed up the hill in a full gondola cabin. A few of our fellow snow enthusiasts chatted with us about plans to ski out west while sipping their morning coffee.

It smelled really good — a hint of chocolate maybe? One of them confirmed that they had mixed in a shot of hot chocolate. You have to make sure it’s just a shot or it’ll be too watery, he explained. I was only half in the conversation. My eyes were focused outside, checking out the snow.

Continue reading