Magic: You Never Forget Your First Time

Posted on by Harvey

It seems like everyone has an opinion about Magic Mountain in Londonderry VT. I certainly had one, and I’d never skied there. Over the years I absorbed enough to know that the old school hill was the place to be when storms dump on Southern Vermont.

Magic door

I started to think about skiing Magic at the end of a big pow day at Hickory back in 2014. I met GetAmped who told me he lived in Schenectady, which was as he described it, “perfectly positioned in the center of the Magic Triangle.” I was already a big fan of the other two of the vertices of triangle, Plattekill and Hickory. But I’d never been to Magic.

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Tagged: Magic, Powder, VT11 Comments

Bearpen: The Beast Resurrected

Posted on by Peter Minde

With the future of winter in doubt, what makes someone open a ski center in a remote part of the Catskills?

“Insanity, I guess,” said Bearpen Sports Center owner Howard Rennell. “Kind of a childhood dream. I fell in love with the mountain, as well. It’s been a long, arduous process.”

Bearpen fat bikes

Growing up on the east end of Long Island, Rennell recalled, “Talk about the era of global warming, out there the chances of snow were slim and none. The sledding aspect, as a kid, you and your friends would gather together and make a kind of luge track. Pack it down and go out with watering cans and douse it with water, hoping it would freeze and last a little longer. This is a bigger scale of it.”

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Tagged: Bearpen, Biking, Catskills, Interviews, Nordic Skiing13 Comments

Plattekill: The Life of Riley

Posted on by Harvey

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve improved my ability to deal with missing out. I’ve learned to smile, while sitting at my desk on a powder day, as my phone buzzes off the hook with incoming photos. At the same time, I fully appreciate those moments of logistical magic that allow me to be in the right place at the right time.

the drive to Plattekill

Early last week, a winter storm was flirting with the various weather models. Forecasts ranged from a gully-washing rainout to an epic nor’easter. One thing remained consistent across the models; if it did snow, the Catskills were in the bullseye. And as the week wore on, the chances for snow in New York were on the rise.

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Tagged: Catskills, Plattekill, Powder17 Comments