Belleayre transfer to ORDA approved

Earlier today, Governor Cuomo and leaders from the legislature announced passage of the 2012-2013 New York State Budget.

The budget includes transferring the Belleayre Ski Center from the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA). Citing ORDA's expertise in managing the other state-owned ski centers (Gore and Whiteface), Governor Cuomo proposed this transfer to improve operations, achieve efficiencies, and enhance opportunities for tourism in the Catskills and the Adirondacks.

Ready to Run

The silver lining in this winter's mild winter - and I'll admit this ain't much of a silver lining - was being able to run outdoors all winter. Don't get me wrong: I'd trade all of my outdoor runs this winter for a single honest-to-god Nor'easter or a few more days of great spring skiing like we had on Saint Patrick's Day. But at least I've got a head start on running this year.

My winter running course is a roughly 3.5 mile loop around the SUNY Albany campus. It's lighted (I run after work, usually in the dark) and crews quickly clear any snow and ice (a non-factor this winter). Running in the dark and cold may not be everyone's cup of tea, but for me it beats the hell out of slogging out miles on the treadmill.

Gore now closed, Whiteface open through Sunday

Following a seemingly endless string of days with temperatures in the 70s, Gore closed for the season yesterday afternoon. The March 22 closing date may be Gore’s earliest since snowmaking was first installed in the 1970s. Personally, I can not remember a year where Gore’s season didn’t make it into at least early April. From Gore's Facebook page yesterday:

Unfortunately the snow is disappearing much faster than we can move it, and we are disappointed to report that today has to be our last day. We want to say thank you to everyone for all the nice words you've passed along to our snowmakers and groomers- it means a lot during such a challenging season!

As of this writing, Whiteface will remain open through Sunday on limited terrain with downloading via the Gondola, and then close for the season.

Gore Mountain: 03/17/2012

Trust the forecast. That's what I kept telling myself as we drove to Gore Mountain Saturday morning. The forecast was for sunny skies, but a low deck of clouds covered the sky for the entire drive up from Saratoga Springs. Pulling into the parking lot at Gore, the scene was not very inspiring. Everything was shades of brown and grey: mud and slush around the gondola and lodge, some bare spots poking through the ski trails, fog hanging on the mountain. But riding up the gondola, the entire scene suddenly changed when we broke through the cloud layer and emerged into bright blue skies.

Sugarbush, VT: 03/15 & 03/16/2012

For the last five years or so, I’ve gone away around Saint Patrick’s Day with a group of work associates for a couple days of skiing and “professional development.” OK, forget about the professional development, it’s really all about the skiing.

Heading down Ripcord, off the Heaven's Gate chair

Gore Mountain: 03/10/2012

It’s amazing what a strong March sun can do to snow, even with temperatures hovering around the freezing mark all day. In typical fashion for this winter, the foot of snow that fell 10 days ago was followed by a couple of 50-degree days, rain, and then a flash freeze. The last part of that equation left me fearing we’d be left with rock-hard, boilerplate surfaces today. What a pleasant surprise it was to find instead that the strong March sun quickly softened surfaces everywhere into spring conditions, even at the summit.

West Mountain: 03/07/2012

With temperatures in the mid-50s and a late afternoon sun still above the horizon, the scene was quite a bit different from last week when I left work in Albany to head up to West Mountain.

Adirondack Sports & Fitness Expo this weekend

This may come as a shock, but I think we’re going to have an early spring. As much as I love skiing and winter, I’m also looking forward to getting out on my mountain bike soon. And hiking, climbing, paddling and running.

So if you’re not out skiing, you may want to check out 7th annual Adirondack Sports & Fitness Expo this weekend at the Saratoga Springs City Center. A complete listing of exhibitors, plus schedule of demonstrations, seminars and clinics is located here. Saturday’s hours are 10am – 5pm, Sunday is 10am – 4pm. Admission is FREE.

West-West-Willard: 02/29 & 03/01/2012

If you’ve followed my Wednesday night updates from West Mountain (OK, it’s been a couple weeks) you’ll know that we’ve had more scratch than soft for surface conditions this winter. But Wednesday night this week finally coincided with one of the few (only?) snowstorms of the winter.

When I left work in Albany late Wednesday afternoon, there were a few inches of wet snow on the ground. The snow continued to come down at a moderate to heavy clip as I pulled into West Mountain’s parking lot an hour later. The 3 to 4 inches of new snow that had fallen at that point certainly improved the trail surfaces, but it was still difficult to avoid bottoming out on the rock-hard underlayer. Eventually the accumulating snow improved the surfaces enough so that the last few runs of the night were noticeably better than the first few.