Windham Jan 31 2016

My son had an intercouncil race with the Daks and Cats region race programs at Windham.  Every single parent from WF, Gore, and West were very unhappy about driving many hours south to a crowded small ski area.

We stayed at HPD's suggestion at Hammo's Brewpub and Lodge about 5 mins from Windham Mt.  The rooms are nice and recently remodeled.  Its a bit noisy but otherwise very comfortable and the price was good.  The food and beer we also good.  I'd stay there again for future races.

With the new lodge they are building parking is in a different zip code and I got there at 7:30.  If you show up at 9 they must bus you up from the thruway.

I got 6 or 7 decent cruising runs in before the first run of the race.  Nothing really steep or even the pitch of Victoria but reasonably interesting blue skiing.  After about the 10 the lift line was about 20 mins on the East Peak quad which does not go back to the bottom.  I have no idea how bad it was at the base.  I really have trouble imaging paying the full window price of $89 to ski here.  The WF parents I talked to at lunch were like if this is what skiing is like for the city crowd we are really lucky to live where we do.  

Wow 20 minutes for the East Peak Lift?!  That's more crowded than Hunter was on the same day.  The 6-pack had its usual mid morning mid afternoon lines that were about 10 minutes.  F-Lift and West Side were about 5 minutes at the most and D was ski on or maybe 1-2 minutes.  I heard that Hunter is skiing better than anything else in the Catskills, so this report proved that.

Coach Z wrote

Every single parent from WF, Gore, and West were very unhappy about driving many hours south to a crowded small ski area.

So what's the solution?  Hold every single race at Whiteface?  It wouldn't be fair to force southern parents to always drive hours north and never have northern parents do that.

Coach Z wrote

...
Every single parent from WF, Gore, and West were very unhappy about driving many hours south to a crowded small ski area.

We visited Windham for a U16/19 race a weekend before: Jan. 23-24, my daughter and I skied both days. We found trails off East Peak quad Wicked and World Cup very much fun - both had huge snowmaking whales. Green groomer off that chair was uncrowded and suited well for drills. We also enjoyed some various parks all over the mountain. Wanted to do Nastar course, which never opened, was a bit of a disappointment. Never waited for a lift chair more then 3 minutes.

I heard yesterdays conditions were not the best for the race and few kids got injured, that sucks.

Coach Z wrote

My son had an intercouncil race with the Daks and Cats region race programs at Windham.  Every single parent from WF, Gore, and West were very unhappy about driving many hours south to a crowded small ski area.

We stayed at HPD's suggestion at Hammo's Brewpub and Lodge about 5 mins from Windham Mt.  The rooms are nice and recently remodeled.  Its a bit noisy but otherwise very comfortable and the price was good.  The food and beer we also good.  I'd stay there again for future races.

With the new lodge they are building parking is in a different zip code and I got there at 7:30.  If you show up at 9 they must bus you up from the thruway.

I got 6 or 7 decent cruising runs in before the first run of the race.  Nothing really steep or even the pitch of Victoria but reasonably interesting blue skiing.  After about the 10 the lift line was about 20 mins on the East Peak quad which does not go back to the bottom.  I have no idea how bad it was at the base.  I really have trouble imaging paying the full window price of $89 to ski here.  The WF parents I talked to at lunch were like if this is what skiing is like for the city crowd we are really lucky to live where we do.

So what didn't you like? ;)

The skiing I did was pretty good.  Better than when I was at Bellerye or Hunter for races.  We are lucky and spoiled to get to ski WF or Gore all the time.  I'm sure mid week Windham would be a really fun place to ski.  

The safety of our young racers has to come first.  If a mt wants the income from the race which can be considerable they need to blow at least 2 feet of snow on the trail and properly prepare it.   The gates were having to be drilled into the ground.  That just is not enough depth.  

The alternative is Gore and WF could pull out of Nyssra to join with VT.  I heard rumors that West Mt is considering doing this currently and Willard already has done this.  West , gore and Wf make up one council and we are much closer to central and northern VT than we are to the rest of NY ski areas.  The level of racing is higher which ultimately would be good for our kids and the racing venues would be top notch.  That would ultimately not be good for the other ny programs.

Coach Z wrote

The skiing I did was pretty good.  Better than when I was at Bellerye or Hunter for races.  We are lucky and spoiled to get to ski WF or Gore all the time.  I'm sure mid week Windham would be a really fun place to ski.  

The safety of our young racers has to come first.  If a mt wants the income from the race which can be considerable they need to blow at least 2 feet of snow on the trail and properly prepare it.   The gates were having to be drilled into the ground.  That just is not enough depth.  

The alternative is Gore and WF could pull out of Nyssra to join with VT.  I heard rumors that West Mt is considering doing this currently and Willard already has done this.  West , gore and Wf make up one council and we are much closer to central and northern VT than we are to the rest of NY ski areas.  The level of racing is higher which ultimately would be good for our kids and the racing venues would be top notch.  That would ultimately not be good for the other ny programs.

Dude, not to nitpick but in the other thread you said that Windham had surprisingly strong racers. Are you pulling a Trump?

Also, you may have noticed that this season has been dogshit for southern mountains to make snow. It definitely sucks someone got hurt, and there is little to excuse for that. But you did notice the crowds and the fact that the mountain has to open up terrain otherwise the Snoloco's are going to complain. I am sure it was not their intention to come off as sub-professional in any way. It is not my favorite Catskills skiing but I have never felt like the mountain itself, from its top-notch snowmaking to light-years ahead of its time Adaptive program has been anything but classy.

Windham has a big program with some fast kids but compared to racing against 5 or 6 top VT programs it's really no contest.  Both Hunter and Bellearye race programs are really weak.  When you get to U16 the strength of the field you race against aids in your quest to lower your points.  

And I get if you make more snow on the race hill you can't make as much else where.  Unfortunately you have to have 2 feet depth or the ruts will go thru to dirt which simply is totally unacceptable and unsafe.  

So they either need to
1 blow more and properly prep the race trail or
2 turn away about 10 grand and have thier team drive north to somewhere can can properly host that large a race
3 limit the field somehow so the snow does not need to be as deep which would mean not hosting an inter council race which cuts the field in half.  It would have been ok with a field of 60ish compared to 130.
4 cancel - earlier in the yr WF canceled several races when they couldn't afford to blow Drapers to the proper specs

It's a shitty season so as a area they need to make choices to best serve thier interests but the racers safety has got to be before Snoloco or someone like him bitching about not having other terrian open.  A couple hundred parents were holding thier breath hoping all ended well.

Coach Z wrote

Windham has a big program with some fast kids but compared to racing against 5 or 6 top VT programs it's really no contest.  Both Hunter and Bellearye race programs are really weak.  When you get to U16 the strength of the field you race against aids in your quest to lower your points.  

And I get if you make more snow on the race hill you can't make as much else where.  Unfortunately you have to have 2 feet depth or the ruts will go thru to dirt which simply is totally unacceptable and unsafe.  

So they either need to
1 blow more and properly prep the race trail or
2 turn away about 10 grand and have thier team drive north to somewhere can can properly host that large a race
3 limit the field somehow so the snow does not need to be as deep which would mean not hosting an inter council race which cuts the field in half.  It would have been ok with a field of 60ish compared to 130.
4 cancel - earlier in the yr WF canceled several races when they couldn't afford to blow Drapers to the proper specs

It's a shitty season so as a area they need to make choices to best serve thier interests but the racers safety has got to be before Snoloco or someone like him bitching about not having other terrian open.  A couple hundred parents were holding thier breath hoping all ended well.

Well if you cater only to racing you'll end up with the disaster that Mountain Creek has earlier this year.  They had only one trail open on the entire South section up until recently because everything else on that section was closed for racing.  It was a royal shit show that made me decide not to go at least a few days.

Hunter must have way more snowmaking capacity than Windham because Hunter had full width coverage everywhere and was 100% open with the exception of Westway and the portion of Hunter One served by the "little Poma that couldn't".  

I thought I had to say Snoloco three times? jk. And yea, they do have more firepower but in the past few years that hasn't seemed to matter on the hill.

Coach, I hear your gripes. Glad no one got hurt.

ml242 wrote

I thought I had to say Snoloco three times? jk. And yea, they do have more firepower but in the past few years that hasn't seemed to matter on the hill.

That's because it matters most in a shitty year.  They could put out a great product with zero natural snow all year.  Can't say that about most other mountains.  I know Gore and Whiteface would have thin cover and shit conditions on limited terrain if that happened.  Gore appears to already be losing trails, some that they just opened.  Hunter isn't losing any trails anytime soon, and even if they did, they'd have no problem resurfacing and getting them back.  Gore would take weeks to resurface everything that stayed open before they tried to expand terrain or reopen terrain lost to a thaw.

So much for keeping the sno-liloquies to the 'I'm Not Happy' thread......

That's not material for the "I'm Not Happy" thread.  I was responding directly to ml242, not posting some other rant, which is what I created that thread for.

ml242 wrote

I thought I had to say Snoloco three times? jk. And yea, they do have more firepower but in the past few years that hasn't seemed to matter on the hill.

Coach, I hear your gripes. Glad no one got hurt.

There were two sled rides
A broken leg and a concussion
Racing has some danger to it just like skiing does
The conditions were iffy and it had parents worried

Not to be argumentative but the race itself is the reason lines were unreasonable. Windham isn't ever deserted but I always found it to be a slightly less crowded alternative to Hunter. Midweek it can even be pleasantly laid back. If you're hanging with less dedicated, casual types skiers, it's a good choice. That being said, you really are lucky to live where you do. Most of us don't have a 3,000 ft behemoth in our backyard.