Winter 2016/2017 Plans?

Just walked Raymond Brook Trail today down from Bartons  Road to Ski Bowl. Need to ski that puppy before I get any creakier. We cleared a few fallen trees fixed one small bridge and cleared a lot a lot of hobblebush. It’s now good to receive massive amounts of snow.  Also plan to ski with both grandkids more. Got my Gore pass in the mail today. I’m ready any time

Did the math.  It's actually closer to park at the Ski Bowl no matter where you're coming from, but it still makes a greater difference if coming from the north.

From the South:

Route 28 intersection to main base:  2.17 miles
Route 28 intersection to Ski Bowl:  .66 miles
Difference:  1.51 miles

From the North:

Ski Bowl Road intersection to main base:  2.64 miles
Ski Bowl Road intersection to Ski Bowl:  .20 miles
Difference:  2.44 miles

Hudsonhiker wrote

Just walked Raymond Brook Trail today down from Bartons  Road to Ski Bowl. Need to ski that puppy before I get any creakier. We cleared a few fallen trees fixed one small bridge and cleared a lot a lot of hobblebush. It’s now good to receive massive amounts of snow.  Also plan to ski with both grandkids more. Got my Gore pass in the mail today. I’m ready any time

Thanks for doing that! It's a flat ski, more of a tour but a great trip through the woods non the less.

It may be shorter to the Ski Bowl from Utica/Syracuse via Route 8 as well, if you include the walk to the lift. Not that any of that actually matters.

I remember during the 13/14 season there was a stretch of several weeks when my family skied exclusively from the Ski Bowl, accessing BRQ, the North and the Dark Side. We had several ski days where we never rode the summit or Topridge, never rode the gondola or visited the main base area.

Gore is big and awesome.  The money spent to bring back the historic site where skiing was born in NY is a drop in the bucket compared to how much money is spent on all kinds of things statewide.  The Adirondacks are the biggest range in the state and it's likely that there will only ever be two big lift-served ski areas in the park.  

You can criticize the original selection of location if you want. Gore has flat spots and Snowy, just a few miles to the west would have been a great spot for a ski area. Whiteface is isolated from other peaks and can be windy. But both mountains are really cool. Gore has incredible trees. Whiteface has lift served slide skiing for god sakes.  

One great thing about backcountry skiing is it teaches us to adapt to the conditions. Dynamite and bubble lifts and grooming are attempts to force the mountain into submission. I believe we'd all be better served if we weren't so insistent on having our way all the time.

I don't think most Gore skiers are against progress. We're a group that loves to ski and we make the best of what mother nature and our beloved ski areas serve up.

Live your life the way you want sno. But you'll go farther if you try to understand other points of view before you crap all over them.

My point of view is that the Ski Bowl terrain is great, and it was definitely a good idea to eventually reopen it.  However, they completely botched the rollout by not building proper connections right away and not expanding the snowmaking capacity and developing existing terrain first.

I think it's amazing how much Gore has expanded over the years that I've been alive.  I made Google Earth maps showing that progress.  Note that all the trail ratings are based off my master plan and may not be accurate with the official maps from today or the years listed.  Also, I combined some of the years where maybe only one connection trail was cut to save space.  For example, Ruby Run was cut before Burnt Ridge was added, but I included it in the 2008-2009 map, which was the first year of Burnt Ridge.

1998-1999 (I was born in January this season)


1999-2000


2002-2003 (I learned to ski the year after this one, 03-04)


2008-2009


2010-2011


Today


My master plan

wasn't this a thread about Winter Plans for 2016/2017?   So how the hell did it morph into a Gore expansion thread?

Why is it that you and everyone else get pissed at me if a thread goes off topic, yet if you or someone else does, it's no big deal.  I mean you hijacked the Killington thread talking about PNW snow totals.

You must be used to people being pissed off at you by now.

He's a very sensitive lil buckaroo

snoloco wrote

Did the math.  It's actually closer to park at the Ski Bowl no matter where you're coming from,

Well blow me down

Thacheronix wrote

snoloco wrote

Did the math.  It's actually closer to park at the Ski Bowl no matter where you're coming from,

Well blow me down

I see a couple nights in the 20's in the Lake Placid weather forecast.  Maybe a snowmaking test for WF?  I'm hoping for an opening on 11/19 so I can ski before I go home for Thanksgiving Weekend.  We just need cold weather!!

Damn.....first Sno caves to going to the Snow Bowl (that he's happy to have there because it's useful to him), and now he's advocating wasteful snowmaking (so it might benefit him for a day).  A progression in thought process?

If sno is a rational consumer: he chooses what he believes is best for him.

This means one of three things:

He prefers the Ski Bowl and chooses to ski there.
He believes it's easier to traverse back and forth from the Ski Bowl than to drive the ten minutes to the Gore base.
He digs that old school Ski Bowl vibe.

Are there other possibilities?

Regarding my plans for 2016/17, I plan to ski from the Ski Bowl any time it is open and I am riding lifts in North Creek.

Harvey wrote

If sno is a rational consumer: he chooses what he believes is best for him.

This means one of three things:

He prefers the Ski Bowl and chooses to ski there.
He believes it's easier to traverse back and forth from the Ski Bowl than to drive the ten minutes to the Gore base.
He digs that old school Ski Bowl vibe.

Are there other possibilities?

Regarding my plans for 2016/17, I plan to ski from the Ski Bowl any time it is open and I am riding lifts in North Creek.

I pretty much ski any terrain that is open on a mountain.  If I park at the Gore base, I would still have to traverse to get in and out of the Ski Bowl.  That means it's easier to park there and benefit from the shorter drive.  I could care less about the old school Ski Bowl vibe.  Just make sure the trails and lift are consistently open.

My biggest beef is that every year, they blow off building a proper connecting trail from Burnt Ridge and add more glades instead.  Tell me that instead of building the glade terrain park (Forever Wild, which never opened last year) that they could've at least cut the connecting trail from Burnt Ridge, if not added snowmaking.  Also, tell me why they cut the Hudson trail (which looks really cool by the way) before the connection from Burnt Ridge.  Snowmaking on 46er and Moxham is a great thing, but it's useless because Pipeline doesn't have snowmaking.  They need that connector trail more than anything now and yet they still refuse to cut it.

Glades cater to Gore's tree skiing culture. Extra trails connecting require $$$$. Snowmaking is somewhat taxed given the new weather patterns. If I ran a mtn, I would be concerned about being able to cover it with snow AND keep it covered.

How is snowmaking useless on 46er and Moxham?  You just said you would park there and ski it.

Forever Wild is a glade of course it didn't open last year.  Glades are cheap to cut or free if you assume that Gore summer employee wages are already baked in.  Snowmaking takes real money.

Back to my 1964 comment: if nothing can happen until everything happens, nothing will happen.

I was kidding about the old school vibe. I know you could care less.

Harvey wrote

How is snowmaking useless on 46er and Moxham?  You just said you would park there and ski it.

If Pipeline isn't open (which has no snowmaking) only the people who park at the Ski Bowl can access it.  That means there's zero incentive to actually use the snowmaking on 46er, Moxham, or any Ski Bowl trails.  Tell me just how many people are skiing the Village Chair if the connection isn't open.

Do you think money was better spent on snowmaking for 46er and cutting Hudson, or building a new proper connection from Burnt Ridge?

snoloco wrote

Do you think money was better spent on snowmaking for 46er and cutting Hudson, or building a new proper connection from Burnt Ridge?

I hear ya Sno but back to something I said previously. The Ski Bowl genesis-ed out of the local people's actions- not ORDA's.  It maybe the snowmaking there was part of that agreement and maybe even part of that original funding. You kinda keep looking at it like it's a private mtn and only one entity.

Watching Harv and Sno go back and forth on this is amusing.

Sno, an eager young buck, looks at it from youth's view and dearly wishes it was all done now, max skiablity! Woo Hoo !

Harv, semi old guy, " We' re lucky we got what we got kid. Quit your whining damn it.".

I have zero knowledge on the area or the events leading up to the expansion to Snowbowl but I imagine that there are lots of other factors that were part of the process that are being overlooked.

I know from being involved out here with trail advocacy there are a multitude of factors that limit plans or progress that the majority of public doesn't understand or consider. The information is available for the most determined internet searcher but it's off the radar for the majority of the masses.

The bottom line is that government works slow, painfully slow and you can't have an "I want this and I want it now" attitude if you want some success.