Gore Mtn, NY: 1/15/11

Ski Day 13: Man it was cold today. We had seven degrees at the cabin at 5am.  When we got down to the river, it was 2 below. People in the Gondi were talking about temps as low as 10 below. While it seems that it DOESN'T really go down to 20 below anymore, I guess I'm getting soft.

Ran into Duck in front of the Northwoods Lodge and he, Zelda and I skied the early morning together.




Uncas

Maybe it was the chill... I was a little intimidated by the opening of Rumor, but went with the "now or never" approach. There's a huge snow whale at the top and it's incredibly steep. The first three turns have to be over 40 degrees....


Rumor

This kid SPANKED it without an ounce of fear...




Upper Steilhang

There was a sign at the base of the Straightbrook Chair that said "The Best Snow is on Burnt Ridge." We took the advice and headed down.  The base area was crowded. We made our way through the masses and started the skate down Cedars to ski Echo.  You may not believe it but we really enjoyed it. Maybe it's different when your background is cross country skiing. Or maybe we are nuts.  Regardless, it's all good.


Cedars

Sagamore was getting hammered with snowmaking top-to-bottom.  When I saw it in the morning I didn't think it would have a chance to come on line for Sunday. This image, taken at the end of the day, showed major progress over the pics I took on our first run in the morning...


Sagamore

Echo was deserted. Down skiers left, for about 80% of the length the run there was soft piles of snow. Zelda and I felt we were earning our turns, lapping Echo, to the Gully, skating Cedars and then back up the quad.

Eventually I hit everything ... Lies, Hawkeye, Dark Side, and the North Side. The only runs I missed were off the Sunway Chair.   It snowed from 11am on, and started to accumulate on the some low angle trails that people were ignoring.




Patience my son.

Best snow was Uncas, Topridge, Twister, Showcase, Headwaters, Echo, Sleeping Bear, Sunway.

Pete Gay was actually my pick of the day, and I hit it 4 times.

Biggest news of the day for us was that Neve rode her first chairlift with her instructor BJ.

There's light fluffy snow everywhere. Like Suds says... another day in paradise.

Congrats to Neve!! Daddy is proud!

It's the beginning of the end Harv when the kids start riding the chair. Pretty soon they are lapping you in the trees and calling you old man! My favorite thing to do is to ski with my boys. They still can't quite beat me down the hill but it's getting close!