by Albert Neubert
The calendar flipped on March 20 to start the first full day of the spring season. Of course, after a week of 60s and 70s, winter made a return appearance with some biting temperatures, winds, snow, sleet and ice. It got so cold that a bunch of ski areas in our region fired up the snow guns to patch up weak spots so they could extend the season for another week or two.
Catamount, near Hillsdale, The Windham Mountain Club, in the northern Catskills and Holiday Mountain, near Monticello, all made snow to ensure coverage for this past weekend and for the last weekend in March. Mother Nature has been so cruel to our backyard ski areas this season with an ice and rain storm pretty much wiping out Saturday operations. However, up north in the Adirondacks, Green and White Mountains, it was another epic snowstorm with two feet or more falling on resorts in those regions. The snow line has just been much further north this season and manmade snow has been our salvation. Let’s give a well-deserved congratulation to Mike Taylor, Holiday’s new owner, for persevering in his inaugural season, possibly the worst in eastern skiing history!
Mount Snow, in southern Vermont, got 16 inches, while a little further north, Stratton, Bromley, Magic and Okemo all were in the bullseye of the weekend storm and got up to 30 inches. Gore and Whiteface got 15-20 inches and the northern Vermont areas all were in the same range but they have also been getting additional snowfalls since the weekend storm. The snow stake on Mount Mansfield in Stowe, Vermont, was reading 86 inches, about 13 inches above the long run average for this time of the season. Note that’s over seven feet of natural snow!
I skied at the Windham Mountain Club, in the northern Catskills, on Friday, and you could see massive piles of snow that were fresh from Thursday night’s snowmaking efforts. They were in strategic places to help bolster bases for the final week of the season and to ensure the lift unloading points could continue to function with enough snow on the ramps.
The slopes were still in great shape despite the adverse weather this March. While the East Peak was shut for the season, the West Peak had 25 runs open and over 160 acres of terrain including all of Windham’s super steeps like The Wall, Wolverine, Wheelchair and Wedel. I skied across the summit and used Windfall, an advanced intermediate run down to Wonderama and had perfect conditions to myself for the entire time since very few skiers or snowboarders want to bother with traversing the top of the mountain using the Wide Connection trail. Windham plans on staying open through Easter Sunday, March 31.
On Sunday, I headed east on Route 23 from Catskill and over to Hillsdale and another couple miles to Catamount, which straddles the New York and Massachusetts border. Catamount also made lots of snow a couple of days last week and they actually had terrific coverage on their open slopes. All of the New York side trails had been burnt out by the ferocious heat and over five inches of rain in the first two weeks of March.
You could still use the summit Quad chair and the Ridge Run across the top of the mountain to access about a dozen runs. Two of those were Catapult and Christopher’s Leap, both double black diamond trails. Christopher’s is the steepest of the double blacks at Catamount and after skiing it on Sunday, I would say it rivals K27 at Hunter and is about the same length. That run will keep you on your toes and one mistake will have you fighting to survive to the bottom.
The scenery was stunning at Catamount with the entire top third of the mountain coated in ice from the freezing rain that fell on Saturday, finishing with a little wet snow at the tail end of the storm. The bluebird skies and bright sun softened the surfaces despite temperatures hovering in the upper 20s and low 30s even by early afternoon. Catamount’s management made enough snow where they know they will be open this Friday through Sunday and they are leaving open the possibility of extending the season one more week and finishing up on April 7.
Keep stoked, and happy skiing and riding! You can contact me at asneubert@aol.com or you can visit my Instagram page @asneubert.
