Gore Mountain, NY: 4/18/14

I was originally going to only do Whiteface on Saturday and Sunday, but since my dad got the day off on Friday and I was on spring break, we decided to stop by Gore on our way to Lake Placid today.  We skied from about 9:45 till closing.

There wasn't much snow when we arrived in the parking lot.


First gondola ride.


View from the gondola.


I wanted to get to the summit since that was where the snow was, but my dad wasn't ready when I was, so he told me to take a gondola lap solo.  I took Foxlair...


To Wild Air which wasn't a terrain park.


My dad had just walked out of the lodge by the time I got back down, so we got right on the gondola and took a run on Quicksilver.




After that we went up the gondola again and went down Pine Knot...


to the Straightbrook Quad.


We took a run down Cloud...


to Hullabaloo...


to the High Peaks Chair.


We then went down Cloud to Headwaters and back to the Straightbrook Quad.


Uncas and Pine Knot from the Straightbrook Quad.


We decided to take a couple laps off the Straightbrook Quad, first was Hawkeye.


And then Chatiemac.


After Chatiemac, we took the dreaded Lower Cloud Traverse...


to Showcase and Wild Air to the base for lunch.


After lunch was another trip up the gondola.


Then a run on Uncas.


View of the Summit from Uncas.


Lower section of Uncas.  My dad is pictured here.


We took the Straightbrook Quad to Cloud and then took Lower Darby back to the High Peaks Chair.


Entrance to Lower Stielhang.  This thing had some poachers earlier.


Then we did Santanoni.


View from the High Peaks Chair.


After this, we did Lies.


Does anyone know what this pond is?


After Lies we did Open Pit, and then lapped the High Peaks Chair a few times.  Finally we ended the day with a few gondola laps.  I was so glad to get back to Gore this year since this was the first time I skied there this year.  It was a great spring day with absolutely no crowds.  We only had to share the gondola car once.  The terrain was limited, but there was more than enough open to keep us occupied.

This is a picture of me shortly before we left the parking lot at the end of the day.  By the way, I skied in this outfit all day, so there was no need to bundle up at all.

Great Report! Thinking of hitting Gore on Easter Sunday - looks like conditions will be decent.

don't get me wrong, that looks great - but Belle has just as much snow and should be open too.

ml242 wrote

don't get me wrong, that looks great - but Belle has just as much snow and should be open too.

And Hunter has even more, but like Belleayre, they are also an early closer.

snoloco wrote

ml242 wrote

don't get me wrong, that looks great - but Belle has just as much snow and should be open too.

And Hunter has even more, but like Belleayre, they are also an early closer.

Back in the 1980's into the late 1990's when I hit Hunter for end of season skiing, Hunter back then was NEVER an early closer. Hunter back then almost always was open til late April with DEEP, DEEP base left on about 12 to 14 trails. Deep late season base on trails like, Hellgate-Broadway-Kennedy, Wayout, Belt Parkway and more.

But then, Belleayre started staying open late into the season, and it seems Hunter got mad because this caused Catskill spring skiers to split the late season skier numbers between the 2 ski areas... and Hunter felt there was only enough of these late season skiers to support only one area.

Hunter is an early closer because of TAP New York.  It is a massive beer event held the last weekend in April.  It takes up the entire base area and for that reason, they cannot have ski operations running that weekend.  They also need at least 2 weeks to prepare after they take down everything from ski season.  TAP New York is April 26th and 27th, and two weeks before that is April 13th which is when they closed.