CNY and PA Ski Tour - Day 4 - 2/7/2014

Day 4

The final day of my tour had me traveling back towards my home with a morning stop at Plattekill Mountain. The last time I skied Plattekill was about thirty years ago, a day of skiing in the rain, that resulted in a nasty fall at the bottom of Blockbuster and a broken ski!

Plattekill was offering a $15 lift ticket for the first 50 people to purchase tickets, so I made sure that I got there bright and early ... well, maybe a little too early.


Plattekill At Daybreak

People starting showing up at around 7:45, so I went inside to get my ticket. Once that was taken care of, I booted up and headed outside. The lifts at Plattekill are set up in a "V" pattern, with one aspect under the triple chair facing South East and the other aspect under the double chair facing North East. The trails off of both lifts are set up in a fairly similar pattern, with the trails at the outside edges of the "V" being primarily beginner and intermediate trails, while the trails to the inside of the "V" are primarily expert rated straight-shots down the fall line.

I started on the triple chair and took a cruiser on Powder Puff, which was well groomed packed powder. As in the previous days, I decided to work my way across the mountain from skier's left to right, which was a nice way to "step up" the difficulty level one trail at a time.

Most of the trails were groomed, however there were some trails left ungroomed and one side of the Upper Face trail was also left ungroomed. The ungroomed trails looked soft, but I quickly discovered that looks can be deceiving. I think that the South East aspect of this part of the mountain allowed the snow to "bake" in the sun, and then it firmed up overnight, becoming quite crunchy first thing in the morning.


Can You Say "BlueBird"?

I made my way to the center of the "V", where the Blockbuster trail was waiting. One side of the trail had been groomed, while the other was not, but given my earlier experience on the "soft" stuff, I decided I'd ski the groomed side of the trail. My memory of Plattekill from thirty years ago was that Blockbuster was really steep. I wasn't sure if I'd still find that to be the case or not, having skied Whiteface for the last ten years. When I got to the top and looked down, I realized that my memories were accurate ... Blockbuster is definitely steep!


Looking Down at The Base Lodge From The Top of Blockbuster

I was feeling a little tired, having woken up really early in the morning to drive here so I decided to take a break for a cup of coffee and something to eat. When I came back out, I moved to the double chair on the North East facing side of the mountain. From the top of the double, I worked my way from skier's right to left this time, to once again start with the easier trails and progress across back to the center of the "V" to the more difficult trails.

The snow on this face of the mountain was immediately different, and more of the trails had been left ungroomed with plenty of chopped up powder left on top. North Face was groomed to perfection, and it made for some great GS turns. Plunge was ungroomed and had a lot of fresh snow on top. Unlike the other side of the mountain, the snow here was soft and dry. I took several runs down Plunge and it was getting better with each run, as more of the piled up snow got "skied in".


Plunge With Lots of Snow On Top

Next up was Free Fall. It was also in great shape, though it didn't seem to have as much snow on it as Plunge did.


Looking Down Free Fall

I took a few more runs on Plunge and Free Fall and then made my way back over to Block Buster for one final run before heading home to pick up my family for the trip to Lake Placid for the weekend.

Plattekill definitely had a great neighborhood mountain vibe. It may not be the biggest mountain in the Catskills in terms of trail count, but there were definitely some challenging trails and enough vertical to keep me happy! I didn't venture into the woods at all, so that's something I'd like to do on a future visit.

I don't know if there was enough variety to keep me interested on an "every weekend" basis, but as a change of pace, and when compared to the other options in the Catskills, Plattekill should definitely be highly regarded.