by Albert Neubert
Finally, I got to experience my first run of the season. It came at Windham on Black Friday after management made the call that they could open with a few runs from the summit of their Westside Six detachable chair lift. First, a quick transition. By way of a little background, I had a brutal ski season last year as I was battling a disintegrated left hip so I gutted out the entire season literally on one and a half legs and lots of painkillers. On April 18, I got that hip replaced and I’ve been working out like a fiend ever since.
For obvious reasons I was going into my first outing with lots of trepidation about how my hip and legs in general would hold up. The bad hip affected my knees last season as well but that all went away with the hip replacement surgery. So, with all that as a backdrop, I said to myself, limit your runs and take only one if conditions are tough. They were which is not surprising. I decided to take the Whistler run from the summit to the base and it’s an upper intermediate trail with a couple of decent pitches but add in a quarter width of snowmaking and a mix of hard pack and uneven terrain, and by the time I got to the bottom, I said, “no mas.”
However, my hip and knees passed the test and I am really was looking forward to my next time out. Given how my legs held up I fully expect that I will be a blur on the slopes again once I strap on my long board GS skis when conditions warrant. My first day was meant for slalom skis, precise tight turns and check turns and a little bit of cruising on some of the flatter parts of Whistler. Many thanks to the snowmakers at Windham for laying down enough terrain in a very short window to open up for the season.
While at Windham, I got to spend time with Chip Seamans, their President and General Manager, and we spoke about a number of things. First, the most burning question on my mind, along with many, many other people, was the rebranding of the Resort as the Windham Mountain Club. That name alone connotes the idea of a private club experience. Seamans quickly dispelled that notion and told me the ski area remains open to the public and with pretty much the same way of interacting with day-trippers and pass holders as in the recent past. He said the idea is to maintain a high quality resort experience and mitigate the potential for overcrowding.
The Club part of the rebranding does relate to the fact that very exclusive memberships will be sold and they will come with very extravagant benefits providing for a club-like atmosphere within a very upscale resort setting. The Club aspect will be a year-round membership since Windham also has a top-notch golf course.
Seamans also stressed with me that there will continue to be a focus on snowmaking and lift infrastructure and clearly, the past five years has already seen incredible improvements. Windham already boasts four high-speed lifts which puts it in rarified air in the Northeast. Another very welcome addition from their latest big investor is a makeover of food services at Windham. I think the more operative word for the future will be “cuisine” instead of run-of-the-mill cafeteria fair. There will be fine dining available in the main lodge and the long-forgotten and tired mid-mountain lodge is getting a complete do-over which Seamans said would be ready just before Christmas. It will feature Italian cuisine and I don’t mean just pizza and chicken parmesan subs.
Now, onto a snow report update. The really good news for skiers and snowboarders in the entire Hudson Valley is that they no longer have to trek far to ski or ride. All three major Catskill resorts are now operating daily so along with Windham, you can add Hunter, in the northern range and Belleayre in the southern range. Mohawk, in Cornwall Connecticut, will be open this coming weekend and you can also count on Catamount, near Hillsdale in New York and Jiminy Peak, near Pittsfield in northern Massachusetts. Further north, there are too many ski areas to list now and that’s a good thing so start perusing ski reports to get the latest updates on trail and lift counts. I keep getting opening announcements daily, like the one I got from Attitash, in New Hampshire, which will be opening this Friday (It’s one of my favorites).
Meanwhile, Killington held the women’s World Cup giant slalom and slalom races this past weekend. U.S. star Mikaela Shiffrin managed a podium finish in the GS race on Saturday, taking home the bronze but she was almost a second off the winning time of Lara Gut-Behrami, of the Swiss national team. However, come Sunday, Shiffrin grabbed the gold in her signature event, the slalom, and it just keeps adding to her all-time record medal count in the history of the World Cup.
Every so often, I come across some interesting and creative program to entice more skier and snowboarder visits to a particular ski resort. In this instance, it turns out to be an entire state, the state of Vermont, specifically. The title of this program is called the “Free Skiing for Fifth Graders with Ski Vermont’s Passport Program.” Ski Vermont is the trade association for virtually all the ski areas in the state. Any time I see the word “free” I take notice and then look for the fine print. Here’s the program in a nutshell. The Passport program provides access to 20 alpine ski areas and 24 cross country areas with more than 90 days of skiing and riding for any fifth-grade student and just to be clear, from any state, not just Vermont.
“Snowsports participation has many benefits for kids: healthy outdoor activity, time spent with family and friends and creating an appreciation for the natural mountain environment,” says Ski Vermont President Molly Mahar. “The Passport Program helps get kids out skiing and snowboarding at an age when they are exploring what may become lifelong activities. Data shows that the earlier a child starts skiing, the more apt they are to continue skiing or snowboarding throughout their lifetime.”
The Ski Vermont Passport Program provides participating fifth graders with more than 90 days of skiing—with three vouchers to each participating alpine ski area and up to three vouchers to participating cross-country ski areas—for a $30 administration fee (there’s some fine print so not completely free). The program is open to any current fifth grade student, regardless of state or country of residence. Some holiday restrictions apply, and students must be accompanied by an adult with a valid lift ticket, trail pass or season pass. This is some more fine print but a caveat that still passes muster. For more information on the Ski Vermont Fifth Grade Passport, participating ski areas and how to purchase, visit skivermont.com/fifth-grade-passport.
On Tuesday this week, I decided to make some turns at Hunter in the morning. Hunter still had only two top-to-bottom runs including the main line down the center of the front face of the ski area and the Belt Parkway which wraps around the entire main mountain all the way to the base. I expected the snow guns to be going and they were so I did have to navigate the gauntlet and got blasted a few times on each run but the conditions were phenomenal with nary an icy patch. It was another great test for my bionic hip and it passed with flying colors. Thank you, Hunter snowmakers!
Think more cold for snowmaking and happy skiing and riding! You can contact me at asneubert@aol.com or you can visit my Instagram page at asneubert
