Windham, NY: 12/2/12

I posted my Windham Trip Report on the blog, but as usual I've got more photos than a blog post can handle, so here's my supplemental report.

Ski Day 3: 4:45 am is the time I set my alarm for when I'm day tripping the Cats. 15 minutes to get out the door, 3 hours to get to the mountains, and a few minutes for chit chat and booting up. For some reason, with only 5 hours of sleep, I woke up before the alarm. Not sure how that happens.

Got to Windham and there were maybe 150 cars in the lot. I had the Lodge all to my self...



There were really no lines all day long.  Most of the peeps I was skiing with were instructors in clinics and a few passholding families...



Snow was really soft. Everything except "The Wall" was grooomed and very skiable from the start...



On my second lift ride, I started up a conversation with a very friendly guy who turned out to be the big boss..


The Boss

Chip Seamans came from Kirkwood Resort in Tahoe last year to step into the spot vacated by Tim Woods, who went back to Woods Valley, the NY mountain that his family had built.  He and his son...


Next Generation

...were rippers.  Wolverine, Upper and Lower were my picks and I lapped them repeatedly...







Not sure what the Black Patrol is all about...?



The whole base area is really pretty well thought out. Nice places to sit, and I imagine that he fireplace/deck area is cool on a sunny day...

This kid Gracie was really being pushed - IMO too hard - by her dad. She was maybe three years old. At one point she couldn't maintain her wedge in the bumps and they just started to run. She got scared and wisely hit the deck. Unfortunately she slid right towards a tower gun.  With low early season snow levels, the padding was just a bit too high, and she went under it and collided with the tower.  

My heart was in my throat. I skied toward her, but another guy beat me there and asked her if he could release her bindings. She was crying but not really afraid of this other stranger.  Her dad showed up and basically told her that she was ok.

The mind blowing thing to me was I took this picture THREE HOURS LATER...



...I was pretty shocked to see her still out.  The kid could ski but I think when she crashed she was already tired.



There were big signs apologizing for the fact that the Legends Bar wasn't open so I felt compelled to sneak in and check it out...



First time with my new camera, and honestly I don't feel like the pictures were any clearer or different.  From a functionality standpoint the s100 is really simple to use so that is something.  Maybe a sunny day will give me some point of differentiation.

Now back to the "What Ski Areas Have You Skied Thread to add Windham to my list!