At the end of this past week, I did some storm chasing. A big low was slated to ride up the coast and bang into a big mass of fresh cold air from the Arctic.
At the same time, I was plotting my birthday ski at Plattekill.
This situation was problematic as the mother load was actually falling between me and the mountains. With moderate to heavy snows falling in the NY metro area, a state of emergency was declared by the governors of New York and neighboring states.
In 2014, the stars have aligned early for skiers in New York. The Catskills are in the bullseye for winter storm Hercules, and no one should miss out on turns tomorrow, let alone over the weekend.
Not wanting to get snowed out, I left the city late last night, GF in tow, to make sure that we would arrive at Windham bright and early.
I’d seen their trail count increasing pretty quickly since the thaw and I had been dying to check out some of their summer improvements, which include new terrain features in the form of a blue square called Windfall and a very tasty looking gladed area just off of it.
Yesterday I called in sick. I almost lost my job, but it was worth it.
It wasn’t clear to start the day that my gamble would pay off. Plattekill pulled the plug on a planned Powderdaize, when the sun rose on a disappointing three inches of frozen precipitation.
Fortunately NYSkiBlog HQ got me the information I needed and I traveled an exit farther north on the Thruway to Hunter Mountain where I met up with Lemmycaution and Scottski.
On my way in to grab a lift ticket, I ran into a Hunter employee and asked about the conditions. “They’re, um… interesting. Three inches of wind-effected sleet. I need to do some office stuff.”
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