Really sugar coating it there, aren't you?
Honestly as a backcountry skier (>80%) this is something that I really worry about! I'd lie if we haven't gotten cold feet nearly a dozen times, but now I think we have some momentum and are finally going to pull the plug. I realize how incredibly frivolous and privileged it sounds to be using backcountry skiing as a key metric, but once you've gotten that taste it's hard to shake.
Work or to skiing?
Say more about this please.
This is real. The comparison is laughable. I assume that comes with a catch or two.
We just spent six weeks back east in January and February to get vaccinated, so I got to ski there for the first time in years. Snowed twice. First was good, the second was the unfortunately common occurrence of a nice powder dump with a topping of freezing rain - storms tend to come up from the southwest. Hard to ski, not fun. I don't recall this happening so much thirty years ago. Warmer winters, definitely.
The high peaks down to Route 28 is the area I know for BC skiing. Some fine slide skiing but a lot of miles long approaches on narrow, sometimes steep, hiking trails with sluggish snowshoers to avoid. Don't know about farther south, maybe some good around Lake George?
I spent my time either out the back door on CATS (Champlain Area Trails) trails or driving up I-87 to Lyon Mountain west of Plattsburgh - lots of snow, 2000 foot vertical, you can put your skins on at home and there are user created lines from before the state bought the land and a cutting ban went into effect.
As to commuting - an hour to Gore, two to Whiteface (neither of which I like much), one and a half to Killington. Plenty of weekend traffic. The nearest, maybe best, is Hickory Hill outside of Warrensburg (I patrolled there in high school & college, lively place in those days). Don't know if it's operating or, if it's not, you can go climb it. See some of Harvey's trip reports of ten years ago. Fine hill.
The Vermont BC community has been getting its act together in recent years, creating ski and bike zones and trails on National Forest land on the spine of the Green Mountains. I spent a day on RASTA (
https://www.rastavt.org/) trails at Brandon Gap, a little over an hour from Glens Falls. Great fun, well populated on weekends, same crust problem as the Dacks. Brandon is not the only place it's happening. But cutting BC ski lines on NY state land is currently illegal; there's an organization been trying to change this, Adirondack Powder Skiers Association, with no results.
Developing opportunities - see
https://www.saratogaplan.org/explore/public-preserves-trails/palmertown/
https://www.betatrails.org/
If you want to visit the Adirondack High Peak region around Keene Valley & Lake Placid in summer, be aware that a serious overcrowding and overuse problem has developed, authorities are cracking down on chaotic trailhead parking, and future restrictions on hiker numbers are likely in prospect -
https://www.dec.ny.gov/images/lands_forests_images/hpacfinalreport.pdf.
We never go there; summer is the work season, off hours get spent on Lake Champlain (ten minutes away) or more local hikes.
Can't speak to GF house prices, but here in BZN there's an ordinary duplex down the street in our ordinary middle class neighborhood for sale at $900K+. No waterfront, no yacht, no room for your horse.
