Friday 1-13-2017 Night Skiing at Mount Peter

Last week was a discouraging one for New York skiers. Warm weather and rain, combined with the torture of watching other regions get hammered with historic blizzards, had my spirits down, skiing wise. By Friday, I was desperate to hit the reset button and get my mind right. Luckily I live pretty close to a great little feeder hill with enough lights to keep almost the whole mountain open for night skiing.



I made sure I didn't get caught up at work and had all our gear ready to go as soon as junior was done with his after school activities. We hit the road and found ourselves parking at Mount Peter in Warwick right about dinner time. As we arrived, I noticed temps had dropped down below freezing. The lot was full, evidence of Mount Peter's dedicated local following. We counted seven school-group buses as we booted up and headed for the ticket desk.




It was crowded but they had all their lifts running so we didn't spend too much time on line. Our favorite lift there is Ole Pete and we were able to get right on.  Junior was trying out a longer pair of skis so we decided to start out on the easy trails and work up to the black diamonds.



I was encouraged to see lots of refrozen corn snow at the base area but that turned out to be the best surface available Friday. The greens were okay, a little skied off by the crowds but with enough snow laying around to make some turns between the icy patches. The Blues were in the best condition. They actually had a Little bit of corn on them and very little in terms of icy spots. The three expert trails under the main lifts were frozen but not total boilerplate.




I had again brought out my old-old skis, 195 cm 1980s era K2 812 giant slaloms, specifically to do some hot laps on these trails. They turned out to be perfect for the hard-pack conditions. I ate it up. Bombering down steep wide open trails on railroad-steady skis never gets old for me. After a couple runs my son and I started doing our own thing, meeting back up at the bottom of Ole Pete after each run. The whole scene, skiing at night on icy surfaces with school groups all over the place, reminded me of my first couple seasons, skiing under the lights at Jiminy peak. On almost every ride up the lift we were treated to the sight of beginners crashing under the chairs, one yard sale after another. I was reminded of the old opening sequence from ABC's Wide World of Sports, of the ski jumper spectacularly crashing on the ramp. I shared the memory with my son. He promised to check it out on his phone on the drive home. Junior ran the blues a little more, getting used to his new-to-him Dynastars. We both had a blast.




Around eight o'clock, the school groups loaded onto their buses and cleared out, making the already reasonable lift lines almost disappear. The snowmakers hit the slopes and started firing up some fan guns to take advantage of the cold temps. Having the place to ourselves was nice but we no longer had beginners crashing left and right to entertain us on the ride up. We kept going til they closed the lifts at nine. On the short drive home, my son found the video from Wide World of Sports and agreed it was horrifying. I remembered all my friends back then claiming the guy in the crash had spent years in a coma, never knowing he was on TV every week. Juniors research confirmed that was an urban myth but we decided to keep telling the story that way anyhow.


Sent from my iPad

Brownski... no doubt... your kids are so lucky.  Keep up the stellar parenting.  I wish I grew up with the guidance of a hardcore ski-dad like yourself.



I grew up with lots of money.  Unfortunately, the cost of an upper middle class lifestyle was absentee parents (Mom and Dad always had to be working to make lots of money).  Neither of my parents ski.  I have an older brother and sister.  Neither of them ski.  I was the freak.  Before I could drive, getting on snow was a challenge.  Often times, I felt like it was a chore for my parents to get me to the ski area.  It certainly didn't diminish my passion for the sport, but it created some pretty one dimensional memories.

Great memories have a vast array of sources.  It doesn't have to always be boot deep powder on a blue bird day... This experience was a component of the collective ski memory that will undoubtedly brings smiles for many years to come.  

Thanks Nepa. That's about the highest compliment I could ask for. I have sympathy for your childhood struggles. I didn't have skiers for parents either. I didn't get to try it out until senior year of high school. The upside of that is I have pretty detailed memory of my first day http://nyskiblog.com/first-time-skiing-jiminy-peak/ I've got a couple of siblings that got into it around the same time I did and a couple guys I meet up with once in a while but the long range plan is to brainwash the kids. So far they've been pretty willing to be brainwashed so I've got that going for me.

Nice report Brown..I remember my dad driving me and sister to Mt Peter in 1976..He sat in the lodge and read the paper..At least I got to ski..

 



 Napa that was pretty much my life..I'm not complaining I had a great childhood. But I remember my parents coming home from work and vegging out watching their TV's..
 

nepa wrote

Brownski... no doubt... your kids are so lucky.  Keep up the stellar parenting.  I wish I grew up with the guidance of a hardcore ski-dad like yourself.



I grew up with lots of money.  Unfortunately, the cost of an upper middle class lifestyle was absentee parents (Mom and Dad always had to be working to make lots of money).  Neither of my parents ski.  I have an older brother and sister.  Neither of them ski.  I was the freak.  Before I could drive, getting on snow was a challenge.  Often times, I felt like it was a chore for my parents to get me to the ski area.  It certainly didn't diminish my passion for the sport, but it created some pretty one dimensional memories.

 

GREAT REPORT!!

I've been a Mt. Peter season pass older for 4-5 years now ... such a great family hill and can't beat being 35 minutes from my door!

I owe my ski obsession to my son.  He came home from school about 6 years ago and said, "I want to learn how to ski..."  I said, "OK, we'll learn together."

I'm now 52 years young and in-love with the sport. I spent one season on the shelf with an ACL (form hoops!) but I made sure the kids got to the hill every weekend and I sat looking longingly from the base....toughest winter ever!

I don't know that I'll ever become an expert skier, but I love exploring new hills and wasting time on YouTube trying to teach myself how to carve!  I know, I know...lessons.

Time on the mtn is the best teacher, imo. The mo' ya ski the better you is.

But yea, great TR. Lots of Norman Rockwell stuff in there. We likey.

" Brainwashing the kids " hehehe.