Gore Presidents Weekend TR and Revue

Had the opportunity to stay in the Southern ADK's after two previous trips to Lake Placid during the holiday. ( Hover on the pics for a description)

I shouldn't even say that I had the opportunity. Harvey's pics made it look like the best thing going in the state, making great use out of the somewhat minimal snowfall this season (~120).

My first ski day was Sunday, long removed from NeMo. Arriving after 9 meant that every lot was full on the main mountain, people were parked on the road, and people were pulling in to the H lot. Basically, the place was slammed and I was bummed not to have left much earlier in the AM, but the parking dude told me I could now get tix at the ski bowl, so the day was saved.



I had two Minnesotan's in tow. One had not skied since he was a kid, and one is pretty much as good as any skier at WhiteFace. Seriously, this was a D3 former racer and coach, it was just a pleasure to watch her ski.



Beginner bro was all over the place to start the day, but we were enjoying being out of the wind and the sunny day. Lots of soft snow was left in the Bowl, so carving wasn't a problem, and those trails (especially Moxham) were fun an interesting.



Big Red was up to the challenge after a few on the green, anyway, so we headed over to the burnt ridge where we were nuked by the wind and Ripper Chick ended up with frostbite. Some dude at the top noticed it and she didn't believe him, so we pushed her into the patrol shack where they were like WHOAH and got her face warmed up.

Afterwards, I kind of thought we could ski from the top over there to Burnt Ridge to North Side via catwalk. BIG MISTAKE! Also, huge error on Gore's Part. WTF, why would there be no way to ski over?

Beginner bro was caught up in the deadly Tawahus Glades but did ok. That was a fun little glade that still had some soft snow but was getting pretty hammered. By Sunday, everything was extremely firm and scraped. Bleh.

A sunny ride up North Side yielded not much. We hopped in the Saddle to eat. The menu and food there are limited. Seating was limited. Bathrooms were limited. I am not a huge amenties guy, aka seat by the fire is good enough, but this lodge left me a little disappointed.

North Side looked flat and boring, so I said "Let's ski Darkside, Harvey loves it there". The gang went along. Beginner bro dropped a glove under the lift line which was perfect. "Don't worry beginner bro, I will save you!" Then I skied the Hullaballo and lift line areas and all was good.

At some point, I had suggested to ripper chick we ski Lies and Rumor because they were the toughest trails on the mountain or whatever. So we ski off the chair and head to Lies, where she takes one turn to check her speed and then rips the shit out of the headwall.

I am in love with my buddies girlfriend at this point.

The rest of the day we skied windless laps off the main summit chair. Hawkeye, Chatimaic, etc are all in good shape on the sides and no one is up here skiing blacks. Rumor is closed despite experts only sign. A real expert fears no polished glass death wall, and should be allowed to ski wherever he and she want, but we didn't poach that one.



After we skied the top ridge chair, where we watched a lot of snow guns blow snow into the woods, huh?

My friends were pretty tired at this point, and wanted to go in despite the lifts still running. So at 2:45pm, we skied our way down FoxLair to the Arena.

Shitshow.

On par with the bottom of Whiteface, maybe worse. Arena was a steeper version of skiing into the six pack at Hunter on a busy day. I crossed my fingers and toes and hoped we would make it out ok despite beginner snowboarders blowing up all over the place like IED's. Sorry, DMC, these freaking kids were out to get me!

(Note, snowboarding is still going strong at Gore, and lots of people have not yet figured out that they don't have to sit down to strap on boards)

Anyway, a cold ride to ADK express led us to some traverses which then accounted for a bunch of vertical. At least we skied right onto it as opposed to waiting half an hour for the Gondy.

But, thank god for AT poles and my recent Nordic training. I wouldn't want to have a kid at Gore who was cold and needed to get in the lodge, but I liked some of the aerobic training for Alaska. Still, I must have hit every damn flat spot on the mountain. Sometimes, the flat spots were uphill, too.



Stopped by the Gear Source for coffee and gear. Jeff is the man. Talked skis for hours whilst my buddies soaked up wifi for work purposes in the fancyish tavern hotel in North Creek. I then joined them for a good beer selection and burgers and made a mental note to hit Cafe Sarah for breakfast, which was awesome.




Sunday we repeated much of this, but the damn wind had polished the mountain. We heard there were going to be wind holds but by 9:30am, everything was running. The skiing was pretty meh though. We headed down early to watch some skier boarder cross, and then get lunch at Basil and Wick's. Another awesome meal and they had the girls downhill on. Lots of crashes.

Fun weekend, loved North Creek, Gore was excellent and pissed me off quite a bit at the same time. I was pretty glad to not be somewhere experience major lift issues. At least at Gore the crowd was also 95 percent spread out, and the ski bowl was out of the wind and a ghost town. I still can't believe we skied onto every chair all weekend. It was basically the Gondola line absorbed EVERYBODY who bought a ticket other than us. Gondola's suck anyway because your hands get cold when you're waiting with you skis.




Thankfully the holidays are over and soon only the real skiers will be out soon! (except I hope the resorts make money and stay open really late due to copious snowfall)

Rumor was open from the cheater line (off of hawkeye - you can see it from the straightbrook chair). Probably wasn't worth it (skied it Friday, didn't return all weekend), but it was open.

I think they're going to fix the Burnt Ridge access to North Quad problem this summer.

It was pretty crowded in the Saddle Lodge/Sunway/Wild Air/Arena area. But I was down at the Ski Bowl around 12:00 and it was completely empty down there. Just gotta know where to go, I guess. Same thing with the flat parts. If you know where to go, you can avoid them. If not, you're going to hit them. Also, I know you don't want to look like a JONG and have a trailmap in your hand, but all of the traverses are clearly marked with dotted lines.

Gondy line was pretty lengthy all weekend. Didn't bother me because I was teaching and got to skip the line with my classes, but I can see how it would suck (especially because the Triple was pretty cold with the wind).

Awesome report ml. Wish I could have been there to help.

I like the levitating snowboarder.

I didn't know you could buy tix at the ski bowl.

mattchuck2 wrote

I think they're going to fix the Burnt Ridge access to North Quad problem this summer.

That new blue trail is going to be key IMO. (Just keep it as far to skiers right as possible please!)

From Ski Bowl to Summit without the Gore Base Area or Gondi for skiers of all levels, trees or no.  

Neve has become firmy anti-Gondi line.

"Daddy I want the longest trail and no lines!"  

Yea kid me too!

Matt

Got a lesson snowboard lesson for my 9 year old from Nick with the yellow boots.

Tell him she is starting to rip now.

You guys and girls do a great job!

Thanks! Nick is an awesome instructor. Glad you had a great time.

You can't really be pissed off at Gore. It is what it is. If it is a holiday weekend with no new snow, it's gonna get hammered and the blue/green areas will be a zoo, as will the main base lodge and the saddle lodge. The Ski Bowl is the way to go on a day like that.

Gore got a little new snow, and possibly more coming this weekend. Pammy and I are going to head up.

edited my post, i guess they're at 120" ytd. almost as much as last year!

have fun, pdq.

I have 99 inches for Gore.

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"A real expert fears no polished glass death wall"        

Gore has a few of those.

expert if a very subjective term how do you quantify it?

northerncajun wrote

expert if a very subjective term how do you quantify it?

Anyone who actually SHOULD go down the headwall of Rumor (subjective of course).

It is a bummer that ML didn't have a guide.  You can get around most of the flats by either bombing it or just not going down certain trails.  My wife is a snowboarder and she has a list of "I'll never do that again" trails. IMO its a combination of mother nature (mostly) and trail layout (somewhat).  On my recent Sugarbush trip I couldn't help but think about the differences between the mountains. Bush (generally steeper and more continuous pitch across the mountain face) and Gore (pods of similar pitched terrain separated by generally flat traverses).  You also hit a killer combo of thaw/hard freeze with wind and President's day crowds.  IMO the mountain has been in incredible condition all year but I have to say that last Monday was in the bottom 25% for me and I don't think there is much they could have done about it.  It was just windy and hard.