Lupine & Lady's Slippers

At the end of the last ice age, between 10 and 20 thousand years ago, the continental ice sheet that covered Gore Mountain, Whiteface and the Adirondacks receded. As the ice melted, water became impounded in a massive lake known as Glacial Lake Albany that covered the region from Glens Falls to Albany. Eventually that water drained away, but it left behind large deposits of sand and silt. Today, the sandy soil provides essential habitat for blue lupine – the only plant that the larvae of the endangered Karner blue butterfly feed on.

Jeff's Ski Season Highlights 09-10

In some ways, the 09-10 ski season was “challenged.” We had a late start, an early finish, and a prolonged snow drought in between. But despite those difficulties, I had my best ski season in at least 6 or 8 years. A good deal of that satisfaction came from skiing together as a family for the first time and observing our son’s progress over the winter. And some of that satisfaction came from plain old great skiing. Here are some highlights from a few of those days:

Sagamore, Feb 6

Gore Mountain: 04/02/2010

PDQ on the road early


First Gondi

Wow, what a day. The upper mountain is still in great shape with good base, and even the woods are in play. Daniel, Beth and I skied Hawkeye, Chatiemac, Open Pit, everything on the Dark Side, Rumor, Lies and all of the open glades: SB, Chati, DS and Darby Woods.

Gore Mountain: 03/27/2010

It was firm and fast today. But strong sun, grooming and light skier traffic made the ski surfaces reasonably good. Pulling in at 9 am this morning temps were in the low 20s -- cold, but hardly brutal. We did our mandatory Wild Air warm up run and headed up top.

Mount Snow, VT: 03/18 and 03/19/2010

Ten of us get together each year for a couple days of skiing at a ski area in Vermont. This year’s destination was Mount Snow, an area I had never been to before. I had expected to find mostly groomed cruisers. While Mount Snow has those, happily I also found some really great tree skiing, bumps and some challenging black diamonds on the mountain’s North side. Great snow and weather to boot.