The Central NY Blog

Labrador: Under the Radar

Posted on by Brownski

It was ski-on just about all day. There were small crowds, cheap(er) tickets, no reservations required. There was plenty of natural snow, a variety of terrain to choose from, fun low angle trees… three cool old fixed grip chairs and a T bar. I discovered that Labrador Mountain in Truxton, NY is awesome. The only thing I couldn’t figure out is how I’d gone this long without checking the place out.

road to Labrador

When I got home from my first visit there, I decided to do some research. I pulled out a couple of books I have on ski history and was surprised to find no mention of either Labrador Mountain or Truxton, NY. I turned to Wikipedia and was astounded to find that there was no page for Lab.

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Tagged: Central NY, Kids17 Comments

Ready for Maple Ski Ridge

Posted on by Stu

I’ve had it with the liftlines. I’ve had it with crowds and icy groomers and high-speed mega-resort hype. So had my daughter. We wanted someplace low-speed and low-key.

Someplace cheap and out of the way and un-intimidating. Someplace where you could glide onto the lift without hovering close to the inconsistently masked skiers.

We found it. Maple Ski Ridge, a 270-vertical-foot hill, is a few miles off the Thruway and 25 miles outside of Albany. It shouldn’t, I thought, be crowded. Outside of local families, I figured most people would head up to West or Gore or south to the Catskills. And if I figured wrong – an adult holiday lift ticket, purchased online in advance — was only $39.

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Tagged: Central NY, Kids, Maple Ski Ridge14 Comments

Greek Peak: A Rock in Central NY

Posted on by Brownski

I set three alarms, one for 5 AM, then one for 5:05 and one for 5:10. I only needed the first one and I didn’t even get any guff from Danger Boy when I went to shake him awake. He got dressed and moved to the back Subaru’s back seat where I had a pillow and a pile of fleece blankets waiting for him.

Our bags, skis, a cooler of drinks, snacks and a thermos of hot coffee were already in the car. We were on the road by 5:10. My planning and preparations had paid off. Getting my son up that early was a lot to ask so I let him sleep all the way to Virgil. We made our way out Route 17 in the dark.

We pulled into Greek’s parking lot at 8:30. It was snowing lightly under a gray overcast. My son moved to the front seat to boot up while I went to redeem our Indy Passes.

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Tagged: Central NY, Greek Peak, Indy Pass23 Comments