In 2010, I began work on NYSkiBlog’s Directory of NY Ski Areas to educate myself about New York skiing. In the process, I learned about Dry Hill, the other Tug Hill ski area. It’s a beautiful ski hill on a ripple in the terrain, a few miles south of Watertown. Dry Hill has a magic all her own.
There’s a lot to like about Dry Hill. Dry has a double chair, a T-bar and a magic carpet serving 7 trails on 42 acres; 1.5 miles of terrain with 300 feet of vertical drop. It’s not too surprising that both the double and the T-bar were made by the venerable Hall Ski Lift Company — which was also based in Watertown NY — from 1955 until 1982.
In 2022, long-time owners sold the hill to Boo Wells and Patrick Jareo. I spoke with Boo at that time, and I liked the vision of a community-based ski area. I promised her, I’d come to Dry Hill ski.
Two years later, this past Monday, I had to be in the Adirondacks for a meeting. To get the most out of the trip, I considered my options for skiing over the weekend.
Sunday was forecast to be the last day of a four day Winter Storm Warning for Tug Hill. I considered the drive. I texted @bjwillies, and he was thinking the same thing. He’d already reached out to Boo for permission to take pictures and ride.
Meanwhile, back in NJ, on Saturday morning we picked out the perfect Christmas tree, and stood it up in our living room. Then, in the afternoon, I packed my skis and drove to the Adirondacks. I started a fire when I arrived, and thought about adding a Dry Hill alarm on my phone.
I plan to arrive an hour before first chair where ever I ski. Google maps spec’d the drive across the Adirondacks at 2 hour and 28 minutes. If I’m driving in a nor’easter, I’ll add another hour to the drive time, setting an earlier alarm. For example, my standard Plattekill Alarm is set for 3:45am, while my Plattekill Noreaster Alarm goes off at 2:45.
I don’t have too much experience with lake effect and didn’t really know what to expect. I decided to leave four hours for trip, with 90 minutes of extra time built in.
Dry Hill is a long drive from the Gore Mountain Region, past McCauley and then past (way past) Snow Ridge. Especially if you’re driving in lake effect snow. Coming north on Route 12, I was prepared for it, but it never really snowed during my morning drive. In Lewis County I saw generally clear skies, with lake effect clouds to the north and wind turbines everywhere. As I got closer to Watertown, the snow on the ground was deeper and the wind picked up.
I was in the parking lot at Dry Hill Ski Area nearly an hour early. A large loader had just begun plowing, and I was clearly in the way. The operator graciously created space for me, waving me into my own parking spot. Thank you very much, kind sir.
It started to snow. I booted up, and post-holed around the lodge to peak in the windows and take a few shots of the hill. The lodge is just what you’d expect, centered around a big fireplace cone in the center of the room. The hill itself has an interesting layout, a little bit of a bowl with two distinct pitches. As it turns out, the upper half is steep enough to ski with thirty inches of dense new snow.
Another crew member showed up on a Bobcat to clear space near to the lodge. I introduced myself to Stewart Wells of Mountain Ops. I hoped we would ski together later in the morning. He didn’t have skins; he was all about the bootpack. Stewart estimated that 36 inches of snow had fallen over the last two days. He also guessed that the warm ground probably ate some of that up.
Right on time, Brendan and Bailey arrived, our first time IRL face-to-face, we said hello, and talked about the hill and the snow as we transitioned into uphill mode. Those guys are almost as local as you can get, and they were all about skinning, and I followed their lead.
Stewart recommended that we skin the Tbar lift line, going directly up as far as we could, and then traverse off to the left when it got steeper. He’d decided he was going to boot it straight up the lift all the way. It looked like hard work.
When we got to the top, it was agreed that we’d start on The Face, and then work our way over to skier’s left, to ski the steepest lines, Suicide and El Cid.
Unlike nor’easter snow, lake effect can be fluffy. But even if it isn’t blower, it’s usually consistent, not grabby. Borderline temps are less of an issue with lake effect. It happens when the cold air rushes in.
The upper pitch was enough to make skiing the deep and dense snow fun to ski. You could keep moving forward down below, but it wasn’t quite enough to dance in three dimensions, the way you could up above.
It began to snow hard.
I have to admit limited experience with skins, having used them maybe 20 or 30 times, in the last 30 years, aka my entire career. One thing I’ve never done is make multiple skin transitions while it was nuking snow, more than two inches an hour. I had trouble keeping snow off my glue.
When we got to the top after the first climb, it was agreed that we’d start on The Face, and then work our way over to skier’s left, to ski the steepest terrain, Suicide and El Cid.
Halfway up my third climb to the top, I blew out a skin on a kick turn. I knew I’d never get them to stick again, without taking them inside to dry. I wrapped them up, stuffed them in my pack and set my own bootpack to the top in the deepest snow ever. When I got to the top, I was sure I was done for the day.
I was cold and wet. I put on my shell and dry mittens and waited for the rest of the group to lap me. I figured I was done, so I savored the view from the top, while the other guys skied down. I moved over to the top of El Cid to wait for them there.
El Cid is the steepest trail on the mountain and maybe the most photogenic. No doubt, it was fun to slice it up. At the bottom of the pitch I was going to ski down, when Stewart said “try the bootpack man, it’s not like the trail breaking you were doing over on Bump Run, it’s the stairway to heaven.”
For a place like Dry Hill, I’m now with Stewart on the bootpack. Suffer on the first lap, and reap the rewards later. I banged out three more laps with ease.
I quit shortly after noon. The lake effect band had shifted to the south, and I was going to be driving in it on the way home. I wanted to get out of the lake effect zone before dark.
On the way over in the morning I opted out Google’s suggested route, via the Moose River Road. It’s the shortest time and distance to Snow Ridge from our place, but I’m usually driving it when there is lake effect. That road scares me.
On the way home, I decided to take Route 12 south all the way to Route 28. Certainly farther, but two major roads that would be priority for plowing.
My drive back into the Adirondacks wasn’t easy. At one point it was snowing so hard, I had to stop the car, and turn on the flashers. I’m going to try to avoid that situation forever.
Editor’s Note
I’d hoped to focus this piece on Dry Hill itself, but clearly that didn’t happen. Sorry I missed you Boo.
We will interview Boo and Stewart soon. We can share that the new magic carpet should be installed by the end of the year.
One goal I have in retirement is to ski every alpine area in New York. Based in the Adirondacks, there will be some low hanging fruit —Oak Mountain, Royal and Woods Valley. I think 3 seasons will be enough to ski most everything in Central and Western NY. After that I want to ski the nordic centers too.
Great piece, Harv. In the late 80s, I drove to Sandy Creek NY for the Tug Hill Tourathon 50km. We got bussed from the Sandy Creek school to the start. 300 or so people standing around, freezing as it pelted down snow, waiting to race. After 45 minutes, organizers canceled the race. Snow coming down harder and faster than they could groom it.
Driving south on I 81, I couldn’t tell the hood of my [white] car from the road or the horizon. Total whiteout. By the grace of the gods, I encountered an NY DOT truck. Dude was in the middle lane, both auxiliary blades down. He saved my bacon. DOT plow drivers are gods walking on earth.
DEEP!
Yep I skied there in nipple deep LES once, it’s work given the pitch, course was on Atomic SC 10’s not exactly floaters.
Looks like a wild day. Excellent work.