The Powder Blog

Snow Ridge Powder Day! (Video)

Posted on by Harvey

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Over the past month, fresh snow has been a scarce commodity in New York State, the northeast and across most of the continent. After a long drought, Ullr pushed some cold arctic air across Lake Ontario and dropped a foot of lake-effect blower on Tug Hill. The just released video is from Tuesday’s Powder Day at Snow Ridge.

Snow Ridge Lake Effect from Ted Battesh on Vimeo.

“Skiing groomers on manmade snow was getting old, pretty quickly. When I heard that the Tug Hill Plateau area was about to get hammer with lake effect snow — to the tune of 2-3 feet — it got my attention. I kept an eye on the radar and snowfall totals.”

Tagged: Powder, Snow Ridge, Tug Hill6 Comments

Plattekill Mtn, NY: October Pow

Posted on by Harvey

Plattekill Mountain snagged bragging rights as the first ski area to spin lifts in New York this season. With six inches of snow on Thursday and over a foot on Saturday, Laszlo Vajtay, Plattekill’s CEO, made the call later that night.

tBatt

While the decision caught some by surprise, Laszlo had indicated as early as Friday afternoon that if the second storm delivered over a foot, he would open for business.

ML and I had been discussing the possibility of skinning the mountain for turns since Thursday. And while we liked the idea of Plattekill being the first ski area in the state to open, we were selfishly hoping to have the hill to ourselves.

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Tagged: Catskills, Plattekill, Powder10 Comments

Plattekill, NY: 2/27/10

Posted on by Harvey

My plan was to ski Plattekill with James and Jason, and to ski Gore on Sunday and Monday. Work got in the way of Monday and ultimately Sunday too. I was daytripping the Catskills again.

If you think Belleayre is in the middle of nowhere… Plattekill is 20 miles beyond that. The snow was incredibly deep in Delaware County. So deep that with the consistency of the snow, the trees were basically unskiable. Waist deep.

Plattekill is a part-time mountain, only open Friday thru Sunday. It has the most natural snow in the Cats (190″ avg) – and they leave a lot of terrain ungroomed. Hey it’s a vibe… it’s also a smart way to run a mountain. We stuck to the sides of the “groomers” weaving in and out of the untracked and the huge soft bumps.

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Tagged: Catskills, Plattekill, Powder8 Comments