iSkiNY Deal Day at Hunter 1/9/14

My SO and I went to Hunter Mountain yesterday to take advantage of the iSkiNY deals.  I’m living in central MA now, so the closest NY ski areas to us are Windham and Hunter, with Belleayre and Plattekill being an extra half hour further.  I decided Hunter might be the better bet after last week’s thaw.  I know Hunter has good snowmaking capacity, but I wasn’t so sure about Windham’s capacity.  This was my second trip to Hunter, and it was a million times better than my first trip there a couple years ago.  The first time I’d gone, we’d gone on the last day of winter break, and the place was so packed that we were constantly dodging other skiers and snowboarders.  This time, the mountain seemed comparatively empty, and it was awesome.
 
E. broke and dislocated his heel over the summer, and while his recovery has been pretty remarkable, he still has some trouble getting his edges in when conditions are “firm,” so he wasn’t up to riding black diamonds yesterday (he snowboards; I tele—what a mismatched pair we are!).  We spent the afternoon cruising down the blue trails that were open:  Beltway from the summit and the two on the front face of the mountain.  As we were riding up the chairlift, watching kids launch themselves off various jumps, boxes, rails, etc. and watching employees build a couple new features in the terrain park below us, I mentioned that I am intrigued by all those rails, boxes, jumps, and pipes.
 
E’s eyes sparkled a bit when I said that, and the next think I knew, we were over on the bunny hill checking out the jumps and boxes in the kiddie terrain park.  I said, “Maybe we should have one of these little whippersnappers show us how it’s done!  I bet they can teach us a thing or two.”  Hehe!!  “It’s like mountain biking,” E. told me.  “Use your legs as your shocks and keep your tips straight!”  E. isn’t much of a terrain park kinda guy, either, but he went first and made the jump and box look pretty easy, so I gave it a go, too.  My landings were something less than graceful, but I did manage to stay upright upon landing.  I was satisfied with just a couple small jumps and one wobbly landing onto and then off a box for the day.  We went back to cruising the blues until the sun set behind the mountain, and it started to go from “firm” to downright icy.  All in all, it was a stellar day under bluebird skies.  I’ve got Hunter back on my list of places to go, albeit only mid-week when the place is deserted!

Sorry, no pics!  Too busy having fun.  

It's funny  how many people who return to Hunter are amazed at how the experience differs from even a decade  ago. My memories of Hunter stemmed from the 80's, and only after a few people cajoled me , did I go back three years ago. I was pleasantly surprised. They seem dedicated to their slogan as the snow making capital of the world, their grooming is usually spot on, the 6 pack gets you up even when it's crowded,  and there seems to be a higher level of skier and boarder than in the old days. Yes there are some wild men and ladies on the mountain but they seem skilled enough not to do anything worse than scare the crap out of you as they pass. There are more families and youngsters. The mountain reminds me of the smaller Vermont places, like Pico. It rarely gets enough snow, and is too far South  to get much  glades skiing, and by necessity if the bumps go icy , as they often do in the Catskills , they need to groom. But hey 90 minutes from my home , while Killington and Stratton are over  4 hours, I'll take it. Now if they'd only make snow on Annapura, groom half bump half it would be super primo