The Only Game in Town

Posted on by Brownski

It’s the middle of summer but if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re spending at least a little bit of time every day thinking about skiing. Maybe not every day but often enough. It seems the hotter it gets, the more I miss the feeling of sliding on snow.

When I was younger, I thought that by this point in my life, I’d be spending at least two or three weeks of every summer down in Chile or Argentina, skiing my ass off. Maybe New Zealand. I still haven’t pulled that off.

Luckily for me, I have an alternative forty minutes from home; indoor skiing at Big Snow American Dream in New Jersey. I mean, it’s not a perfect substitute.

Big SNOW Trail Map
Big SNOW Trail Map

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Tagged: Big Snow, Flatlands16 Comments

Paddling Lake Sebago NY

Posted on by Brownski

Lake Sebago, at 310 acres, is the biggest lake in Harriman State Park. It’s name supposedly means “big water” in Algonquin, though Wikipedia didn’t indicate which Algonquin language that was. My guide books don’t include that information either. Hopefully it’s from the Lenape language since they lived in the area prior to the Europeans arriving.

Paddling Lake Sebago

On the other hand, Lake Sebago didn’t exist in precolonial times. It was created in 1925 by damming a section of Stony Brook, flooding the former logging community of Johnsontown, which had been condemned by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission and torn down a few years earlier. Maybe they should have named it Lake Eminent Domain.

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Tagged: Harriman / Bear Mountain, Paddling4 Comments

Lightning Strikes Plattekill

Posted on by Harvey

Just before 3pm on Tuesday July 12, intense “straight line” storms came through the Catskills. In Delaware County the weather was extreme for several minutes. At Plattekill, the storm passed and after that, at the end of the workday, employees went home. At 5:45 pm an alert neighbor saw smoke rising from the base of the ski area and called it in.

fire fighters

Based on the timing and nature of the storm, those on the ground believed that lightning struck the control shack, at the base of the double chair.  If so, it may have smoldered for a while, before it was seen and reported. For the moment, until the insurance company can make their official determination of cause, the shack ruins will stay where they lay.

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Tagged: Catskills, Plattekill7 Comments