Stratton, VT: 03/06/2015

Stratton’s faux European base village, well-heeled clientele and excessively groomed terrain are generally not my cup of tea, but I had such a fun day of skiing this past Friday that I’m reconsidering my past bias against the southern Vermont mega-resort. It’s been four or five years since I last skied Stratton. The base village hasn’t changed and there are just as many Connecticut Volvos in the VIP paid parking lot, but I can overlook those shortcomings and appreciate Stratton for its excellent snow conditions and surprisingly varied and interesting terrain.

Gore Mountain: 02/28/2015

A beautiful, cloudless sky took the edge off Saturday morning's single-digit cold. Although the mountain could use some new snow to soften things up, overall Gore is in great mid-season condition. Today was a "boys only" day on the hill for Daniel and me as Sylvie and Beth had a birthday party back in Saratoga.

Steamboat, CO: 02/19 - 02/23/2015

Although our 2 kids have been skiing almost since they could walk (they are 7 and 11 now), I’ve been waiting to do a family ski trip out west until they were both at an ability level that would allow them to fully enjoy the experience. This is the year, and we just returned from 5 days of skiing at Steamboat, CO. The trip couldn’t have worked out better.

Despite being cold and snowy here in the east, it's been something of a lean year out west. Steamboat has been having a better season than many western ski areas, but still the locals were all apologetic about the lack of snow when we arrived. I can’t tell you how many times we heard “you left all that snow to come ski here?”

Backyard backcountry

It’s been an excellent winter for out-the-backdoor nordic skiing. I've been kicking and gliding around the few hundred acres of woods that I call my backyard since before Thanksgiving, often solo at night with my headlamp. There's not a ton of vertical relief, but there’s one particular ridge with beautiful hardwoods and a perfect pitch that I’ve been waiting to ski until conditions were just right. Our 10-year-old son Daniel has joined me on some of my cross-country tours through the woods this winter, and with the lifts at Gore and Whiteface on windhold, Sunday was a perfect opportunity for a father-son backyard backcountry trek to earn some turns on the ridge.

Gore Mountain: 02/14/2015

Apparently the forecast for cold and wind later in the weekend kept people at home on Saturday, because the crowds you would expect on a holiday weekend never materialized. In a way that’s too bad, because Gore is in prime mid-winter condition. With temps in the low teens and little if any wind, it was a very comfortable day for skiing.

Lies