Maple Ski Ridge, NY: 12/13/2014 (Opening Day)

**Adding this trip report as requested in the "needed reports" sticky**

Today was opening day for the season at Maple Ski Ridge in Schenectady, NY.
Maple Ski Ridge is a small, family owned hill with about 450' vertical and 25 skiable acres. There is a triple (not open today) and a double chair (open today) and a surface lift at the learning area. Night skiing is available until 9 PM. Snowmaking covers the whole mountain. Half of the open areas were ungroomed. About 4-6” of heavy wet natural snow covered the ungroomed areas. The groomed areas were a mix of manmade and natural snow.

There is a separate learning area for beginners. The double chair services a couple of short runs to skiers left of the chair. At skiers right of the double chair is a small chute to a gully and then a steeper run under the triple chair that runs past the lodge to the base of the mountain (technically is wasn't open due to lack of snow coverage but we ran down there a few times without messing up our bases.)

There are also some nice x country and snowshoe trails available for when the natural cover gets good.

The published ticket rate for the full 12 hour day is $38 but the Liftopia rate purchased the night before up until midnight is $20.

The area has a base lodge that features a snack bar, a fireplace, picnic tables, a couple TVs, a rental shop and a ski school. Their best selling product appears to be afterschool programs for kids and adults that cost $185 (with lift tickets) for 6 weeks, 1 day a week, with instruction for one hour. The weekend programs are $280 with pass, run for 7 weeks and include 90 mins of instruction weekly. Of the 50 or so people that were out today, maybe 30 of them were in lesson programs.

I got a really great vibe from this place. It felt to me like the local hill in my town where we went most weeknights as kids. The lodge was cozy, parking was easy and it was a great place to lap a couple runs, check in with the kids, mess around a bit and play some games with them and then lap some more runs with them. Later in the season they will put up a rail garden and some fun boxes, maybe one or two small kickers/landings too. So that adds to cool family friendly, after school vibe the place has. You can basically just chill all day - $20 seemed to be just about the right price point for me. But I would easily pay full price when both chairs and the terrain parks are running. Not that its like adding big terrain or anything, its more like mixing up your day so you don't get super bored.

I liked the snack bar a lot. Their coffee was excellent at $1.50/cup. And you can get basics like some chicken tenders, fries, cheeseburgers and Bosco sticks for reasonable prices like you would expect at a place like this. Bosco sticks FTW!!

My brother started coming here last year and will probably get passes for his kids as they will be starting a weekend program in the new year. I travel up here a lot for work from my home in NYC and I think it my be worth grabbing a pass for me too for a couple hundred bucks. I was thinking in the winter, instead of hitting the treadmill after work when I am upstate, I could drive 10 minutes and bounce around the park for an hour instead. Add some hiking in and it would be a nice little after work calorie burner. (To clarify I don't believe this place has an uphill policy since it's so easy to hike and I would image you buy a use pass not a lift ticket, which you should obviously be cool with doing.)

I love seeing hills like this thriving and supporting this place seems like a good thing to do. Keeps the kids outdoors and off the video games right? These places definitely have an important role to play in the sport and don't just develop hard skills but also help develop a certain outdoor culture and a love for the natural world as well.

I attempted to take a video of a run so y'all could see what the place looks like. But I have never ridden with a head mount before so this is jittery and crooked. And I attempted to pan around with my head a bit but that probably made it worse. Lol. I should have checked it and tried to reshoot it but I didnt. Sorry :(

<nabble_embed>http://youtu.be/6rBabdsIfF4</nabble_embed>
Blerg. I can't get the vid to embed so you gotta click here. Thanks!
Maple Ski Ridge

OMG Harv - that was scarey, PowderPuss is right - that is sooo dangerous. There were trees, even a telephone pole and the snow was not perfectly groomed. I think I'll take up knitting.