Gore Conditions (2014-2015)

Better late than never to write about this...  was at Gore yesterday (Sunday) 2/1.  I was expecting frigid temps and cloudy skies but in reality neither materialized. It was an absolute bluebird day until some haze came in around 3pm. Temps were on the chilly side from 8-11am (0 degrees on summit) or so but not terrible since there was little wind.

I started the day at the ski bowl and headed for a run down Sagamore. I have to say, that was the worst run of the day. It was 50/50 hard pack and packed powder in spots not wind blown. The summit skied well and a few hard pack spots showing up after lunchtime.

They were blowing snow like crazy on Uncas, Fairview, where Fairview meets the saddle area, and on the top of Bear. Uncas was a treat and I lapped it several times.

I tried Chatterbox, Tahawus, Darby, Otter slide and Chatiemac glades. They all were decent... not great but not destroyed either. Their scratchiness will be fixed by today's powder.

The cold was brutal on Saturday with the wind chill indicated on the chalk board at the AEII as 50 below zero. I got frostbite on a tiny patch of skin that was exposed on the first ride up.  Given that the wind tunnel was alive and well at the top of AEII I wanted to avoid riding that lift again, problem was that was the only real lift open as Burnt Ridge was closed for racing. Having that lift closed on a day when only one of the main lifts was running was crazy!! This prevented people from being able to even get to the ski bowl without riding the shuttle.  I decided that was nuts and I went anyways, I pretended to be part of the NYSEF group rode the lift up and skied Barkeater (which was great) and headed over to the ski bowl.  Best decision I could have possibly made, ski bowl was great especially the partial poaching of 46er which was amazing for the 5 or so laps I got on it before it was shut down.  

After leaving the ski bowl the poach was on as it was too cold to ski trails or to worry about having the ticket pulled, so I skied Pine Brook, Upper Newts (Macintyre or whatever), Nugget (The Narrows), and Snoopy Chute (thankfully not on the map yet), with a run on Rumor thrown in there somewhere.  Overall good day for how cold it was, glades were good not great but rocks were avoidable.  

Wish I was there today as it should have been pretty darn epic!

Gore was cold today.  that is all

One of my best ski days ever. Tracks to be had every where all day. I ran into Duck which was perfect as we love the same stuff. Highlights were everything especially Abanakee. OMG.

A recommend for tomorrow?  It's that or Magic that wasn't tracked out today.....

Hands down the best day of the year. We skied untracked all day. Yes it was EPIC!  

what were crowds like? anything left?

How was High Pines?  One of my favorite trails....anywhere.

My partner for the day started me out with a couple of laps on the Gondi, then we headed for the summit via kill kare, we had to wait for them to start loading chairs but we were right there near the front of the line. The summit was wind blown at the top, we did a few laps and I noticed my friends cheeks were white so we warmed up and headed down via Upper Newtons.

We were off to the Darkside but that lift was not running and we had no desire to do the traverse nor did we want to ride the triple so we clouded out. We warmed up at Saddle lodge and we heard this soft voice off in the distance - Tahawus glades were calling. We headed there straight away and we had the first tracks after patrol. We lapped it undisturbed as no one wanted to put in the effort to get there.

Later we sampled Twister Glades, Barkeater, Boreas & Cirque and one last pass at Tahawus (still plenty of freshies) and then cycled through Pine brook & cave and capped the day off with Twin Fawns and Little Dipper, always reliable for freshies at the end of a powder day - but it seems people are learning this little secret.

We ended the day at around 2:30 as I had a wicked drive to get home, I was greeted with a good 1'+ to snow blow out of the drive but the wife had a nice hot dinner for me when I was done.

Tomorrow I think I will rest a bit as I think I might have gotten some frost bite in a couple of toes on Saturday and I have been going full out for 5 days. Later in the week I think I might visit some haunts in the HPs if the snow pack looks stable and the temps rise.

Looking at the weather, it looks like things will be quite nice for the next 10 days.

JTG4eva! wrote

How was High Pines?  One of my favorite trails....anywhere.

At the end of the day it looked like a cheap whore after a long night.

CPTele wrote

Better late than never to write about this...  was at Gore yesterday (Sunday) 2/1.… Temps were on the chilly side from 8-11am (0 degrees on summit) or so but not terrible since there was little wind.

I had been targeting Sunday since about mid-week. The cloud cover forecast kept flipping between mostly cloudy and cloudy; forecasted temps just continued to rise and rise and rise. Yeah… Sunday turned out to be far more mind-blowingly beautiful than I anticipated.

CPTele wrote

I started the day at the ski bowl and headed for a run down Sagamore. I have to say, that was the worst run of the day. It was 50/50 hard pack and packed powder in spots not wind blown. The summit skied well and a few hard pack spots showing up after lunchtime.

Mrs. Scersk and I skied Sagamore at about 3pm and also felt it was the worst run of the day, yet we thought it was just because it had gotten scraped off as the day went on and that we should have hit it earlier in the day. I guess we were wrong on all accounts!

The other "interesting" spots were over on the North chair trails, where I got some slush stuck to my skis somehow, and the Saddle, where it was literally (snow-making) dust on ice.

The summit was indeed beautiful—beautiful enough for this developing blue to make his way down Chatiemac without much trouble as his wife zoomed ahead. But the run of the day was the first one, as suggested by patrol on the way up in the gondola: Twister, with opalescent snow, long views, and few other skiers.
 
Second time at Gore, and I'm starting to understand how, even with its quirks, it really gets under your skin.

Tuesday February 3...soft.  Basically everything open but I only skied three trails: Rumor by accident because I was trying to get to cleavage from the cut through and couldn't get in, Sagamore, which may have been my favorite run of the day, and Showcase, because I stayed way later than I was supposed to and had to get down,  Whether it was packed or untouched, including groomers as I had to ski part of Twister to get to twister glade, it was soft.  Don't even want to think about what it must have been like yesterday.  I skied my first 2.5 hours exclusively Dark Side...Thanks for keeping it closed Monday

sudsnbumps wrote

Tuesday February 3...soft.  Basically everything open but I only skied three trails: Rumor by accident because I was trying to get to cleavage from the cut through and couldn't get in, Sagamore, which may have been my favorite run of the day, and Showcase, because I stayed way later than I was supposed to and had to get down,  Whether it was packed or untouched, including groomers as I had to ski part of Twister to get to twister glade, it was soft.  Don't even want to think about what it must have been like yesterday.  I skied my first 2.5 hours exclusively Dark Side...Thanks for keeping it closed Monday

Good on ya suds.  

There was so much to ski that we really didn't need it...

Serious bud glad you got some untracked.

hate to say it but railing groomers was more fun than pounding woods bumps

Sagamore probably best snow of the day for me.  That run will kick your butt it's so long! :D  Getting bumped up from the skiers, since it's all that snow from the other day and not the usual manmade stuff that turns to ice, though it was getting scraped down to that ice in some spots.  Hawkeye still had some of that snowfall on it, though again, scraped down to that ice in spots.  Hope we get some more snowfall.  Kilkare, Chatterbox and Otter Slide Glides all had nice cover.  It was pretty cold out there, so a gondola ride was key to keep me going!  Blue skies in the AM were turning to clouds and the temperature was dropping in the afternoon.  Plan for colder temps tomorrow.  It was in the teens today. They dropped the rope on Rumor in the afternoon and I watched a couple of people fall on that run.  Talk about scary!  Made my first run in the bumps under the Straight Brook Quad today.  Yippee!  Encouraging to hear someone say "Nice!" as they passed on the lift above me!

Did the last 3 days after about 2 weeks off.  All the main runs are really excellent.  Today, glades were in bad shape.  Only about half the ropes dropped around the hill.  Big thing today was a freshly groomed sagamore.  That thing has the best coverage I have seen in years.  Didn't get a chance to make it over to the bowl so no help there.  Doing 3 or 4 days next week.  Hoping this storm works out.  

Great day today. Started at the ski bowl, worked my way up and around (but never skied the Gondy area at all). On the map/off the map, everything was good.

Noticed that they put up big signs at the gondola last time I was at Gore that said "Burnt Ridge Quad is open.  Intermediate and advanced terrain, total mountain access."  Looks like they were trying to direct people away from the bottleneck that is the gondola to use the BRQ-Hedges-North Quad route.  I still think the AE2 is a better route to the saddle, but the BRQ does get you to it's own section as well as the North Side and next year, the Ski Bowl.  How have the crowds been spreading out lately?  With the new High Peaks Chair hopefully coming soon which will give access to all the Straightbrook trails, there will be no need to ever ride the gondola except for direct access to Uncas, Pine Knot, and Topridge.

New thread regarding High Peaks Chair.  http://forum.nyskiblog.com/High-Peaks-Dark-Side-Chair-Replacement-Speculation-tp4054451.html

They had those last year.  That is nothing more then to tell people that you can go there.  They used to do that on the chalkboards.  I don't think anyone considers burnt ridge as proving access to anything but itself and the bowl.  

....and back to actual conditions please....

Anyone know how wet the snow was up there today?  The stuff in that fell in Saratoga was pretty heavy.  

Freezing mist rain and fog made the day pretty miserable snow was pretty good considering especially on sagamore