by Albert Neubert
We finally had a solid week of the best conditions of the season at the higher-elevation resorts in the Northeast, including the day-trip ski areas in the Catskills and Berkshires. For lower-lying local ski areas, manmade snow and frozen granular surfaces were more typical. The weekend weather was about as perfect as it could be with no precipitation, bluebird skies, and comfortable temperatures in the low 30s to low 40s during the daytime sessions.
Skiers in the Catskills, Adirondacks and mountains of Northern New England were treated to some of the most spectacular scenery in years. The last major storm was very wet at the start and stuck to trees at higher altitudes. The subsequent cold and cloudy days last week created a condition called rime frost, which is when low lying and moisture laden clouds hover on mountain tops and keep adding layers of frost to everything, including trees, lift towers and chairs on lifts. When it gets thick enough it creates snowy sculptures that are called snow ghosts.
It wasn’t quite that thick in the Catskills but from about the 2,700 foot elevation levels up to the mountain summits, there was a heavy layer of rime frost that made the mountaintops appear ultra-bright white. You could tell it’s been a rare event in the Northeast recently by the number of people stopping on the slopes to shoot pictures, including yours truly.
The latest cold spell allowed for some snowmaking to help add to bases and even open up a few more slopes. Holiday Mountain, near Monticello, was able to get their Turkey Trot double chairlift open this past weekend. The chair has a higher vertical than the Roman Candle triple chair and significantly longer trails. The Turkey Trot chair hasn’t been operational in six years and the one run that was open, Kroeger Pass, a green circle novice run, hasn’t been open for much longer. The hope is that with additional snowmaking temps that the Turkey Trot intermediate trail will be able to open for this coming weekend.
I skied at Catamount, near Hillsdale, New York, last Thursday and conditions were by far the best that I experienced so far this season. The ski resort is a member of the Indy Pass program, which means two complimentary visits per season for Indy Pass holders. Catamount straddles the border with Massachusetts so you wind up traversing between the two states during your typical skiing session at the Resort. The Ridge trail from the New York summit allows you to cross over to Massachusetts and access the very enjoyable novice and intermediate terrain on that side of the ski area. There are two triple chairs serving the Massachusetts side’s trail network so you can ski that side separately, especially if you feel intimidated by more advanced terrain.
The New York side is served by the Glade triple chair and the Ridge summit quad chair. This side has a couple of long intermediate runs in Shawenon and Sidewinder, and some decent expert pitches on trails like Glade and Alley Cat. For steep freaks, Catamount can be a real surprise. There are three super steep trails that are accessed using the Ridge Run trail and the first off the summit lifts is Catapult, followed by Ripper and then Christopher’s Leap. I skied Christopher’s Leap while I was there and it is as steep as anything in the Catskills and New England.
I’ve skied Ripper and Catapult many times in the past and both have about 600 vertical feet of serious sustained pitch that will leave your legs rubbery if you ski them slowly and in total control. Of course, if you can’t control your speed you will wind up going very fast and a fall on any of these trails could result in an uncontrolled slide. There are signs at the top of each that warn that these trails can be dangerous and should only be skied by true experts.
A good test to ski these types of steeps is to go to a lesser steep pitch like the Glade or Alley Cat trail and try to ski one side as if the trail was no more than eight feet wide. If you can hold a tight line like that over a sustained pitch it means that you have the requisite skills to attempt the steepest trails, like the three aforementioned double black diamond runs at Catamount. I see many people come down these trails and survive but they are not doing themselves any favors by putting themselves and others at risk if they lose control.
Catamount’s owners have invested a lot, as in many millions of dollars, over the past three years on infrastructure projects to essentially rebuild the ski area. There are three new lifts that include a summit triple chair, a quad chair that covers the racing slopes and a triple chair to supplement the other triple chair on the Massachusetts side of the resort. There is now so much uphill capacity that you will never encounter any meaningful wait on a chair given that the parking lot limits the amount of visitors to the ski area. Snowmaking upgrades abound with an increase in water capacity and a much larger arsenal of modern and efficient guns. That was very evident with what I saw last week with deep and edge-to-edge coverage on every run I skied.
I headed to the western side of the Catskills and one of my favorite resorts in the East, Plattekill. “Platty” got the most natural snow from the recent storms and had almost all their terrain open. When Plattekill is fully open it features the best ski terrain in the Catskills and much of the Northeast. The snowmaking improvements also mean that most of the triple chair side of the ski area gets excellent manmade coverage and four of the five signature steeps are buried on the double chair side of the Resort. Note that Blockbuster, the steepest of those runs, can also be accessed from the triple chair.
Conditions were even a tad better than what I experienced just a few days before at Catamount and the rime frost covering the top third of the mountain made you feel like you were in ski and snowboard heaven. Plattekill had a capacity turnout and even with that I never waited in any line for more than a couple minutes. I was able to ski three of their steeps including Plunge, Giant Slalom and Northface and often with no one around me from the top to the bottom. Free fall was ungroomed and with natural snow while Blockbuster was piled deep in manmade snow and groomed but got all the attention from skiers and riders trying to prove their mettle on this double-black and aptly named trail.
Platty’s double black trails are as steep as their equivalents at Catamount with the exception that they have at least 300 to 400 more vertical feet. These runs are so long and consistently steep that you will find yourself going too fast and getting out of control quickly unless you can carve and check tight turns. My Saturday visit might well be the best skiing of this season for me and I’d be happy with that.
Think steep and in control, and happy skiing and riding! You can contact me at asneubert@aol.com or you can visit my Instagram page @asneubert
