Gore Mountain: 01/28/2012

Sunny skies and grooming helped to make Saturday a surprisingly good ski day, despite two rain / thaw events last week. The snowmaking and grooming crews must have been working overtime following Thursday night's rain, because there was plenty of good skiing just about everywhere on the mountain except for the summit black diamond trails.

Grooming made all the difference on Wild Air

NELSAP’s Jeremy Davis to Speak at Alpine Sport Shop, 02/01/2012

On Wednesday night, February 1 at 7pm, the Alpine Sport Shop will host a presentation by local author and founder of the New England Lost Ski Areas Project, Jeremy Davis. Davis will talk about his past books and give a sneak peak of his third book, “Lost Ski Areas of the Southern Adirondacks,” due to be published in August.

West Mountain: 01/25/2012

In “you don’t know if you don’t go” fashion, conditions last night at West Mountain turned out to be better than I had expected. To be sure, I hadn’t expected much: recent rain and warm weather killed any hope for great conditions. But coverage is fine, and surfaces last night were reasonably edgeable and soft enough for a couple hours of fun skiing with friends.

Gore Mtn: 01/21/2012

The level of excitement at our house over the couple inches of snow that recently fell is testament not only to how much our family loves snow, but also to how meager the offerings from Ullr have been this winter.

Since we hadn't skied at Gore Mountain since two weekends ago, we were curious to see current conditions first hand. The big news for skiers this weekend was the opening of the Burnt Ridge trail pod, with Echo and Sagamore now online.

Sagamore and the Burnt Ridge Quad

World Cup Moguls Competition Results from Whiteface Mountain: 01/19/2012

Whiteface Mountain hosted the FIS Freestyle World Cup moguls event yesterday, Thursday. I was particularly interested in this year’s competition since we had just skied Whiteface on Sunday and Monday and observed preparations underway on the Wilderness Trail, the site of yesterday’s competition. In typical rollercoaster fashion for this winter, the arctic temperatures we had during our days on the mountain were followed by rain Tuesday night. Then, returning cold temperatures turned the trails to boilerplate and high winds knocked out power and forced the closure of all lifts on Wednesday. Course workers must have put forth a monumental effort to restore the course to safe, competition-ready condition for Thursday’s events.

I was a bit surprised to find no coverage of the competition in this morning’s Times Union, Saratogian or Post Star. I guess that just means I’ll have to go up next year and cover the event myself. Following is the press release from ORDA / USSA.

Whiteface Mountain: 01/15 & 01/16/2012

It can be hard to impress a 7-year-old. You never know for sure if you’re going to get a reaction of “Awesome!” or “yawn.” So even though Daniel is a very enthusiastic skier, Beth and I made a point of not building up his first-ever visit to Whiteface too much before our trip. With crisp blue skies, new snow, and temperatures well below zero for our drive up on Sunday morning, the stage was set. Daniel’s reaction to our first glimpse of the mountain was the same as virtually every other first-time visitor: “Whoa!”

First view of the mountain

West Mountain: 01/11/2012, UPDATED 01/14/2012 WITH SNOWMAKING VIDEO

Wednesday telemark night at West Mountain, week 2. While those who skipped last week missed out on a fine night of skiing, those who skipped this week probably made the right call. Loose granular snow over a hardpack base plus crowded slopes (mostly school groups) added up to less-than-stellar skiing. It’s still skiing though, and those of us who braved the slopes were all smiles by 9:15 (in the bar) as the first beers were poured.

Gore Mountain: 01/08/2012

Before I'm accused of being a complete shill, I'll tell you that the skiing on Gore's lower mountain today was not very good. We found uninspiring conditions on our warm-up lap down Wild Air: loose frozen granular ice shavings over a hardpack base. Given yesterday's warm temperatures followed by a (relatively) cold snap today, I wasn't surprised. It took just that one run down the front side to convince us that the summit was the place to be.

Lies

West Mountain: 01/04/2012

Cold temperatures and a generally lackluster start to the ski season kept away quite a few of our usual Wednesday night telemarkers. But cold doesn’t really bother me, and I figured the skiing would be pretty good under the guns at West Mountain. Too bad for those who skipped, because the skiing turned out to be quite good: cold temperatures over the past couple of days produced nice, silky manmade packed powder conditions last night.

Gore Mountain: 01/02/2012

Yesterday's wet granular conditions are today's frozen granular surfaces. Sure, the skiing was better on yesterday's soft snow, but at least today the mountain felt like winter might return.

Gore Mountain: 01/01/2012

It was a classic case of "You should have been here yesterday!" Other skiers told us how yesterday's weather somehow defied the forecasts, with morning showers giving way to clearing skies and snow that softened all the way from the base to the summit. We had decent snow today too, but gray skies and a socked-in summit.