Thursday, February 6, 2014

West Mountain: 02/05/2014

Snow coming down hard at West Mountain, Wednesday night 02/05/2014.

The Saratoga Skier and Hiker, first-hand accounts of adventures in the Adirondacks and beyond, and Gore Mountain ski blog.

I’m not one of the lucky people who took Wednesday off from work to ski winter storm Nika, but one of the advantages of having a local ski hill is the ability to get in some runs whenever you can, without committing the entire day. So when the storm over-delivered on its promise for powder, I left the office a half hour early, grabbed the kids at home and headed up to West Mountain for a couple hours.

Forecasters had been predicting the storm would wind down by late afternoon, but it snowed hard the entire time we skied, adding a couple more inches to the 10 or so that were already on the ground. Skiers had been tracking up West’s trails all day, so untracked powder was nowhere to be found. Instead, the kids and I skied soft, skied-up powder on the lighted trails off the summit double chair and northwest triple. Eventually we connected with my usual Wednesday night telemark group for a few runs.

Sylvie's the pink blur, Daniel the green

The icing on the cake is that the 3 of us skied for just $15. I’ve got a mid-week pass, so I’m free, Sylvie skis for free (6 and under), and Daniel skis on a $15 midweek junior ticket. You can’t beat that for value.

Skiing the Mach trail under the lights

Storms like these – a foot of dry powder snow perfect for skiing – are a rare treat. As eastern skiers know, when it snows, take advantage of it even if it’s just for a few hours.

3 comments:

  1. Nice. Glad you could get the kids out there as well. I was digging out the walks and driveways so I didn't get up there, but I'll be on my skis the next 3 days. :)

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    1. ^^ on your skis for 3 days... Jealous!

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    2. Skied West today, beautiful soft snow top to bottom, AOA and the run under the triple had beautiful soft bumps.

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