Gore Mountain: Ground Zero for Harper

Sensible people stock up on supplies and wait out winter storms. Skiers and riders load up their equipment, stock up on snacks and charge head first into the storm. It helps to have an AWD vehicle or better yet, an adventurous friend who has one.

Gore Mountain parking lot

Last week I convinced Conor to drive his Subaru through Winter Storm Harper from Central New York to Gore Mountain. By heading up Saturday night we hoped to improve our chances of actually making it to the mountain. The hour long drive to our lodging — the Red Pines B&B in Speculator — took almost twice that much time, so I think we made the right call.

We met a family from New Jersey on their winter vacation. They’ve been coming to Speculator for 8 years to ski at Oak Mountain and they couldn’t stop raving it, and it is now on my list.

AE2

The drive on Sunday was as crazy as you would expect. We beat the majority of the traffic up the access road and only had to avoid one car as it slipped out along the side.

After taking care of the tickets and gear, we rode on to the Adirondack Express to bypass a short line at the gondola. From the chair we could see it was deep and the snow was still coming down hard.

Barkeater Glades

We started our product testing on Twister: it was like riding on the clouds. We’d hope to jump into Twister glades, but the ropes were still up. That clearly didn’t stop some people, but we dropped further down to the cutover to the Burnt Ridge Chair.

The glades here are my favorite at Gore. There were a few tracks down the Barkeater Glades but more than enough fresh snow to go around. We found similar conditions in the other glades on Burnt Ridge and it was all smiles.

snowboarder

Soon we headed back to the Northwoods area and up the gondola. Nothing was off limits at this point, so we ducked into the Kill Kare glades on our way to the Straightbrook Quad.

By midday the deep snow was started to get pushed around. It was hard work to ride the Straightbrook Glades, but I didn’t hear any complaints. By the time we reached Tannery had our legs were on fire. It was time for a change of pace on the North Side.

killkare

We sent it off the “Upper Wood In” cat walk down to Powder Pass. We’d heard some hooting from the chairlift, or at least I thought I did. Powder Pass was a dream. That much snow shouldn’t be left untouched so late in the day. We did our best to tear up it up as the snow began to stop falling.

Our legs gave out around 2pm and we went inside for a celebratory beer. It was my first time in the Tannery Pub since they remodeled it and it was lively. There was a lot of laughing and smiles across the room as the band set up.

on the road home
Route 8

Twenty-two inches of powder invigorated me. The whole day I felt like I was skiing in the Warren Miller movies I grew up watching. Thanks to Conor for driving. On the long ride home, I was occupied only by grinning, my mind filled with images of a great day.

11 comments on “Gore Mountain: Ground Zero for Harper

  1. 9:05 a.m., no lifts running. OTOH, somebody has a sense of humor, and the PA music is: “Love isn’t always on time…” Good vibe.

  2. Didn’t read it yet Robert but love your pics and your reports! Keep it up
    Can you do one on Oak if you get a chance?

  3. Thanks! Oak is on the list for sure. I see they have their 70th anniversary coming up so might have to stop by!

  4. Nice.
    Gore’s been fun this year.
    Still learning how to get around and ski all it has to offer.

  5. Powqueen, I agree.
    Lies was the most edgeable I’ve ever experienced; Chat. was OK, Hawk had lotsa bumps.

    Sagamore was small moguls, and some settled pow on right side; Echo was grooomed for an upcoming GS race, so super-smooth, but the puzzling PIA was that you couldn’t go down Twister to get there, so had to X-cntry across to get to Burnt Ridge chair.

    Topridge was good, too. Showcase is almost always well-groomed and was so today. Foxlair was mixed. Quicksilver very smooth.
    Lifties generally jovial & fun.

    Great day! (had to grab it before the fn-rains arrived)

  6. Sahweeeeet powder day! Thanks to Subie for AWD. I’m stoked you made a blog post after all. Proud to be a NY storm chaser.

  7. We made it up to Gore and skied Saturday, but sadly our AWD Mazda (which lives in NJ) was clearly not prepared for “real” snow. We got stuck going up the access road and then enjoyed driving all over North Creek and getting stuck several times. Besides being complete idiots, it was the very nice and helpful people in town that helped us from being totally stranded!

  8. Oak is awesome place for families. Some fun skiing packed into a small area. Owners are fantastic people and have done an incredible job bringing the place back to life. Wish the same for Hickory…

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