Gore Mountain: 03/29/2014

No longer winter, but not yet spring. The mid-winter conditions we’ve enjoyed the last couple weekends almost made it to the weekend, but rain Thursday night and Friday put an end to that. Conditions on Saturday ranged from a wet granular “pre-corn” on the upper mountain to mashed potatoes down below. The mountain remained shrouded in fog and clouds until late morning, but the day stayed dry.

Pea soup visibility up top

Gore Mountain: 03/22 & 03/23/2014

The calendar said spring, but conditions at Gore over the weekend were more like mid-winter. Winter storm Vulcan finally established the base we needed for good tree skiing a week and a half ago; continuous cold and additional snow since then have brought conditions to the best we've seen all winter.

Stowe, VT: 03/15 & 03/16/2014

Almost all of my ski days are family ski days. I get in a few “professional networking” ski days without the family, and occasionally the kids and I will ski without Beth. But it’s a real rarity for Beth and me to ski together without the kids, requiring us to plan and coordinate schedules weeks in advance. If you have kids, you know how hard that can be to pull off. So you can imagine how pleased we were when the trip we had planned to Stowe weeks in advance happened to fall right after the biggest snow event of the winter.

Gore Mountain Glade Guide

After 20 inches of snow from yesterday's storm, Gore's glades will be in the best shape we've seen all season. If you haven't explored the glades yet, now's the perfect time. Here are some tips to help you enjoy skiing Gore’s trees:

Gore's Cave Glade

Glade skiing has seen a tremendous growth in popularity over the past decade, and for good reason. Skiing the trees offers challenge, adventure, diverse terrain and the opportunity to find untracked natural snow in quiet woods away from crowded slopes and trails. Gore Mountain was among the first Eastern ski areas to develop gladed terrain for its skiers, and now boasts two dozen diverse named glades on its trail map.

Gore Mountain: 03/08/2014

Maybe it was the 5 inches of surprise snow earlier in the week, maybe it was the brief taste of spring while the sun was out for a couple runs, but the skiing at Gore on Saturday seemed a whole lot nicer than a week ago.

Strong sun and blue skies in the morning seemed to promise epic early spring conditions. While the sun was out, the lower mountain surfaces softened to a beautiful dampish packed powder, the kind of snow that peels off under the edges of your skis like the layers of an onion. But by 11am the clouds had moved back in and that was that.

A perfect morning for riding the triple

Sugarbush, VT: 03/03/2014

We had a few Sugarbush freebies burning a hole in our pockets from last November’s screening of Warren Miller’s Ticket to Ride, and we decided to pull the trigger for Monday. I know, Monday’s a school day, but outdoor physical activity and experiencing a foreign culture (Vermont) trump a day in the classroom. Plus it happened to also be Daniel’s 10th birthday.

Sugarbush's Lincoln Peak base area on an uncrowded Monday morning

The Bush is a bit too far from Saratoga (two and a half hours) to be feasible as a family day trip, so we drove up Sunday and overnighted at the Sugarbush Inn. Monday morning dawned crisp and clear, and after an excellent breakfast at the Inn (included), we were booting up in the lodge as the lifts started spinning at 9am.

Gore Mountain: 03/01/2014

Maybe I’m suffering from “Utah-itis,” but the skiing at Gore this past weekend wasn’t particularly exciting. The mountain is near 100% open, with the exception the glades and natural snow trails, but it’s what’s not open that’s most telling. Often, by late February / early March we’re enjoying some of the best conditions of the season, with deep bases on- and off-trail. While we do have a deep base on many snowmaking trails, the surfaces are firm. On non-snowmaking trails, cover is thin and scratchy. Glade skiing has been marginal all winter and the trees are currently out of play.