The Central NY Blog

Toggenburg Hits the Spot

Posted on by Robert

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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Tagged: Central NY, Toggenburg12 Comments

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