Do You Love Your Home Mountain?

Late afternoon on Sunday, at the end of a long ski day, I was sitting in the bar at Plattekill, surrounded by friends. When I’m in that spot, reliving the day’s adventures, I feel like the luckiest man alive. I snapped a picture of the room, and fired off a tweet on NYSB’s twitter.

Home Mountain Tweet

“Do You Love Your Home Mountain?” The thought as expressed was actually incomplete. I could have added … “as much as I do?” to the end of the question. Smiling wide at the end of another joyful ski day, I decided to bounce it off the internet. I think Twitter is my go-to in the mountains as it seems to require minimal signal strength to function.

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The Wandering Skier, Part 2: Craftsbury

Sunday, 2 AM. A bunkmate in the hostel dormitory was snoring: the sound of Boeing 747s taking off from Newark Airport rousted me from a sound sleep. I took my bedding to sleep on the floor down in the common room. At 6 AM, I shook myself awake and got in gear. By 9, I slipped the shooting brake’s clutch, and we left New Hampshire, Craftsbury bound.

Biathlete warming up
Biathlete warming up

Craftsbury Outdoor Center looms large in my life. From the late 1980s to the early part of this century, I’d drive to Craftsbury for their 50 km marathon, and usually returned in March for the Spring Fling. When our kiddo entered our lives, I cut back the travel and racing and seldom ventured further into Vermont than Prospect Mountain.

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Snow Ridge: Dog Days of Winter

You may not want to believe it but Winter is approaching halftime. Despite a slow start, winter came back with vengeance the last two weeks delivering the goods in varying degree all across the state. I’ve been traveling for work and had some serious FOMO down south. It was bad. I had to stop checking social media and stay off the mountain webcams.

Snow Pocket T Bar
The Snow Pocket T-bar

Home for the weekend, I wanted to make the most of my time off, hoping to find some untracked snow. In situations like this, the Snow Pocket is often part of the calculation. As usual it lay dormant all week waiting for me to claim first T on Saturday morning.

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