The Ski Season in Photos #13

The season was supposed to end, save Tuckerman Ravine, at the end of May, when Killington finally cashed in the chips. But, as she often does, mother nature had something else in mind.

Whiteface Toll Road
Toll Road photo courtesy Whiteface

In between commercial breaks, Lionel Hutz was tweeting about big Memorial Day snow in northern Vermont as early as May 22 and posted an animated GFS forecast map of the storm on May 23.

On Saturday May 25, at lower elevations in the Adirondacks, it snowed on and off for most of the day. Rafting guides, and other hardcore skiers who hold down off season jobs, navigated through the channels of life, while dreams of skiing danced on their heads.

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The Ski Season in Photos #12

After Whiteface and Gore Mountain closed on April 21, the closest lift served options were in Vermont. Sugarbush offered a final free ski day on May 4 and Sugarloaf in Maine closed on May 5.

10-Feet-on-Superstar

When Mont Saint Sauveur in Quebec closed on May 19, only the Killington in Vermont remained. The photo featured above certainly isn’t a remarkable ski photo except for it’s ubiquity.

Taken on May 5, it shows ten feet of snow remaining on Killington’s Superstar — similar photos were posted repeatedly on Facebook and Ski Forums around the internet — a testament to Killington’s commitment to a return to beastdom.

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The Ski Season in Photos #11

While New York really didn’t get much snowfall after the end of March, we had one thing we’d missed out on over the last several years: ideal spring skiing temps with cool nights and days that were warm enough, but not blowtorch.

Whiteface-April-2013
Whiteface: April 8, 2013

To illustrate the point, in 2011-12 season the last mountain to close was Whiteface, spinning it’s lifts for the last time on March 25, 2012. That year only Holimont, Hunter and Whiteface made it until the last weekend in March. In contrast in the 2012 – 2013 season sixteen New York ski mountains closed in April.

Mountains that made it to the first weekend in April this year included Greek Peak, McCauley, Peek n Peak, Snow Ridge, Song Mountain, Swain, Woods Valley and West Mountain.

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