by Albert Neubert
We finally got a big dump last weekend and entered the snow zone for the first time this season. Winter Storm Ember dumped from seven inches to over a foot across many of the local ski areas with higher amounts in the Taconic, Berkshire, and southern Green Mountains. Ember took a strange and mostly coastal path such that the further inland you went, the lower the snowfall totals. However, the Adirondack Mountains got a decent amount so Gore and Whiteface benefited. But central and northern Vermont got five inches or less.
The biggest winners were places like Mount Peter, in Warwick, and Thunder Ridge, in Patterson, both in New York, as the storm followed Interstate Route 84 across Connecticut. Mohawk, in Cornwall, Connecticut, also got a good helping as did Catamount, in Hillsdale New York. The Catskills missed out on what was forecast to be a monster amount in the foot-and-a-half range with Hunter, Belleayre, Windham and Plattekill all getting between seven and nine inches. In all cases, it was a welcome respite from the dreary holiday week period.
I skied at Hunter, last Thursday, and it was clear that the week-long thaw took its toll as there were thin spots on major trails. This has been a pattern we’ve been in for almost a month now with weekly rains and downpours at times and very little consistent below freezing temperatures. It left surfaces with heavy granular and lots of hard and icy bases. Hunter’s management was blowing snow even though temperatures were borderline freezing but that was in anticipation of a cold front moving in and making for better snowmaking going into the later afternoon and evening.
I headed to the western Catskills on Saturday morning using Route 28 past Belleayre and out to Arkville where I connected with Route 30 to Roxbury. From there, I made my way up into Meeker Hollow where there was a dusting of snow that kept getting thicker as I climbed to the 2,300 foot base of Plattekill. Amazingly, Plattekill was covered in its very own blanket of white, a result of the unique microclimate at the end of the valley. The ski area picked up four inches of snow while the other big resorts got no more than a dusting. This was before Ember rolled in that evening.
Snow guns were going on one of the resort’s signature steep slopes, Northface, which would allow the double chair to open. Snow was also being made on Rascal’s Flats one of the more recent additions to the ski area. Rascal’s Flats provides another much needed green circle novice run for lower level skiers and snowboarders and take some pressure off of the Powder Puff trail from the summit of the triple chair.
Snow conditions were by far the best I had experienced all season. There was packed powder on every open run and with excellent grooming on all but the left hand side, facing the mountain, of the Upper and Lower Face trail where there were freshly blown snow “whales” left from a heavy dose of snowmaking. It was the coldest day of the season for me with temps around 22 when I arrived before 9 AM and never rising above the mid-20s under a cloudy sky. This kept the snow surfaces really good throughout the time I was there. As is typical, even though there was a decent turnout, I never waited for a chair more than two minutes and most of the time I skied right onto an empty chair. It was so good, I didn’t want to leave, but my legs were reminding me that I should pace myself and quit while I was skiing in control and with good form.
What impressed me most was the depth of the bases. One might not think of Plattekill as a snowmaking powerhouse but their management and operations team is steady and persistent in cranking out snow at every opportunity. The area also has a natural advantage in that its high base elevation and location make it consistently one of the coldest spots in the Catskills. While Plattekill can be really special with a lot of natural snow, you can count of good manmade snow and grooming even under adverse conditions, which seems to be “normal” for this season.
Speaking of snowmaking, I’m often asked why a ski area isn’t making snow when the temperature is below 32 or even well below 32. Snow is made by using a combination of air and water pushed up pipes under pressure and into snow guns where it is forced through tiny nozzles to atomize the water droplets so they freeze and start to form snow crystals. Manmade snow is the real thing and not “artificial” as some people called it. The only difference is the manmade snow doesn’t have the benefit of falling thousands of feet to form the intricate six-sided flakes like what you get from Mother Nature. Instead, manmade snow is really the center of a true snowflake and that’s why it’s denser.
The key is more than just the temperature, though. If the humidity is too high, you will only produce a very wet or even icy concoction or just plain water. The technical term is “wet bulb” and snowmakers keep an eye on the right combination of temperature and humidity, or ideal wet bulb, before turning on the system. You can make snow at 32 degrees but only if the humidity level is near zero. When you are in the 90 percent humidity range, it has to be very, very cold, 20ish before you can make snow effectively.
Winter Storm Ember was followed by Winter Storm Finn that surged across into the Northeast on Tuesday. Finn started out as snow in the higher terrain but changed to rain by early evening and then it was another deluge that was similar to the monsoon that swept through ski country in Mid-December. As fast as we entered the snow zone, we exited and ski resorts were left in recovery mode once again. It looks like more rain heading into the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend, so skiers and snowboarders can expect a mix of frozen and loose granular surfaces and snow guns going on the slopes as resort operators try to improve conditions.
Think ideal wet bulb, and happy skiing and riding! You can contact me at asneubert@aol.com or you can visit my Instagram page @asneubert
