by Albert Neubert
A strange foreign substance coated the slopes for the President’s Holiday weekend and week. It landed on ski areas throughout the Northeast in amounts that varied from a few inches to two feet way up north in Vermont. That rarest of rare stuff was natural powder. It was light and fluffy and fell throughout the holiday weekend and provided skiers and snowboarders with the best conditions of the season. We had “powda” in the snow zone and it stayed that way for the entire weekend and the following week with cold temperatures and low humidity.
I skied at the Windham Mountain Club, in the northern Catskills, last Thursday after they got a couple inches of natural snow a day earlier. When combined with the manmade surfaces, the groomed in natural snow created one of the best surfaces I have skied this season. Virtually the entire mountain was open and I was able to ski the East Peak which features some really gnarly terrain including Wing’n It that runs adjacent to the East Peak high speed quad chairlift and Wicked, a broad counter fall line run with a steep and extended pitch at the top.
The East Peak also has one of the best, long green circle trails from the summit of any mountain in the East with the Wanderer trail. Neither Belleayre, nor Hunter, have any novice terrain from the summit with only Plattekill having its Powder Puff trail from the top. There aren’t many novice trails from the summit of New England ski areas but Wanderer is one of the best since it is wide and with only one minor drop and turn along its length. The East Peak is actually the higher of the two summits at Windham which is located on Cave Mountain, the original name for the ski area.
In between the East and West peaks is an area called the “saddle” and there are two of the newer trails at Windham located in this heavily wooded section. They are Wolf’s Prey and Wildcat and both were open with manmade snow coverage. The trails are accessed off of the Wrap Around trail and you have to go through a fence with a narrow entrance and a warning sign that indicates the terrain you are about to enter is for advanced skiers and riders only. That is certainly true. Both trails are very narrow and have very steep and sustained pitches before mellowing out into intermediate level terrain. For really strong skiers and snowboarders, I highly recommend these runs. I now consider them both my favorites at the Resort.
On Saturday, I headed to Holiday Mountain, near Monticello, and a couple miles off of Route 17. When I arrived in the parking lot at 9:00 AM I couldn’t believe my eyes. About four inches of ultra-light powder had fallen overnight and was sitting on the trails untouched. Holiday skiers and snowboarders tend to arrive mostly around 9:30 to 10:00 AM so that untracked snow was sitting there waiting for me and I took advantage of it. I hadn’t experience powder like that in over three years and it was heavenly. Skiing perfect powder is like gliding through feathers but it also takes some nerve since your ski tips disappear into the snow.
I was riding up the chair with a fellow who was rejoicing over the newly fallen powder but who also expressed concern about the right technique to ski it. He was telling me that he was going to lean back in his stance, presumably because of the resistance the powder would create while going through it. I have heard this comment many times over the years and it is without a doubt the absolute wrong way to ski powder.
Your stance should remain the same stable stance you use on any surface. Leaning back will only guarantee that you are in a bad position to deal with any bump or uneven surface and likely leave you on your butt. All of your movement is from below your waist, letting your hips rotate while letting your skis float through the powder. A stable stance is essential to maintaining good balance over any terrain including bumps and fresh snow. You’re also likely to encounter ice patches underneath the new powder and leaning back too much will mean a certain skid and loss of control.
I had the chance to finally get back onto the Turkey Trot double chair for the first time in six years. The Kroeger Pass novice trail and the Turkey Trot intermediate runs were open. I also saw the Independence intermediate run, which was not open. The addition of this lift and trail network completely changes the dynamics of the ski area, adding much needed diversity and spreading out the skiers and snowboarders and putting less pressure on the snow surfaces.
Owner, Mike Taylor, has plans to replace the ancient double chair with a much more modern quad chair in the near future. As of now, the uphill capacity is far greater than the parking capacity and you will never encounter a lift line, as was the case during my visit there.
On Sunday, I headed southwest to Montage Mountain, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. And, yes, it is within the city limits of Scranton, with only one other ski area within a city in the Northeast (Can you name the other ski area?). Montage is a member of the Indy Ski Pass program, which entitles you to two free visits during the season, and which is why I get one each season. Montage is less than two hours from most locations in the lower Hudson Valley, and the resort is only a few minutes off of Interstate Route 81.
Montage has a 1,000 foot vertical drop, one quad chair, three triple chairs and one double plus some surface lifts for beginners. The upper five hundred feet of vertical drop is very mellow and there is not much difference between the green circle and intermediate trails. They are all very wide and can handle a large number of skiers and snowboarders on busy days, comfortably, as was the case on Sunday.
What really separates Montage from any other Pennsylvania ski area is the bottom 600 feet of vertical drop. There are six expert slopes in this section, three of which are rated single black diamond runs and three that are rated double black. The two double black trails, Boomer and Smoke, are steeper than the single black runs but are not overly daunting, except when they are scraped off, like on Sunday afternoon.
The trail that really stands out is White Lightening. It is the second steepest slope in the East, second only to Ripcord, which is at Mount Snow in southern Vermont. The trail starts out like an intermediate run before a more expert like pitch takes over and then there is the 250 foot vertical that is like the side of a building. If you cannot make short and strong check turns or hop turns, you will not be able to navigate this trail without winding up on your backside and sliding all the way to the bottom. Falling will result in an uncontrolled slide and endanger yourself and any others in your path. Think twice about venturing onto such terrain. You don’t get an award at the bottom for skiing it and your objective should be to have fun and not fear for your life!
Think more “powda,” and happy skiing and riding! You can contact me at asneubert@aol.com or you can visit my Instagram page @asneubert.
