The Ski Log Blog

Liftline at Stowe, May 11, 2018. The thing about late-spring skiing is it can be great or it can be awful, sometimes on the same trip, and sometimes on the same day. So it was last week when I headed to Vermont to get my younger daughter from her first year at UVM. When she picked UVM about a year ago, I thought I could combine getting her there and visiting her with some skiing, and I've done just that. I had no idea, though, that getting her at the end of the year in mid-May would be one of those times. But I kept watch on both the forecast for the Green Mountains at the webcams at Stowe and Sugarbush and decided that it could work this time. Once I made the four-hour one-way drive to get her all in one day, and I vowed to avoid that again. So I'd go up Thursday, ski, spend the night, ski Friday and load up the car and head home. That was the plan. The forecast had Thursday dawning sunny but with rain and possibly thunderstorms arriving in the afternoon. If I shoved

Every spring I tell myself I'm going to extend the ski season. I'm going to ski in May. This year, it finally happened. Barely, but it happened. Each year I look on in amazement at internet pictures from Mount Washington, Killington, Sugarbush, Jay Peak and other Northeast skiing areas that stay open or keep snow deep into the spring. And each year after I come in off the hill sometime in the first half of April I rationalize to myself that this might be the year I ski in May. But it's never happened. Usually I wrap up in the first week of April, or maybe the second. I think my latest is April 16. A freak snowstorm came through and I skinned up the far side of the then long-closed ski area one early morning. It was one of the best runs of an otherwise bad, mild-winter year. This year, though, was an up-and-down winter with a long and severe mid-February thaw followed by weekly snowstorms in March and one of the coldest Aprils on record. I kept watching the webcam for

Driving into Vermont with a New York license plate is fraught with peril. One must be on one's best driver behavior, lest one be grouped in with those relative few who have made a bad name for the state, fair or not. Similarly, one treads with care when asked "Where are you from?" One typically answers carefully and slowly in the hope that the first word conveys the idea that you're not "one of them." " Upstate New York." This is what I said last Saturday morning when asked that very question by one of two skiers who pulled up just after I did on Route 73 in the Brandon Gap of the central Green Mountains. There was little doubt they'd both seen the tag on my car. Turned out one had lived as a kid in the Catskills. The relief this offered was short-lived, however, as he went on to mention "the New York Times article." The reference was to a piece the Times had done on what I'd come to visit: The non-lift-served, accessible-ba

Some people call it mud season. Spring in the Northeast can be difficult. The snow is melting or already gone, but the weather isn't nice, and is often just plain cold. It's good for nothing, and days are long but miserable. Then there are days like this. When the weather is mild, the sun shining, the sky blue, and the snow plentiful and soft, there's no better time to be on skis than early spring. Gone is the biting wind of mid-winter, the ice of January, the dark, short days of December. Expectations are low but rewards high on sunny days that hint at the summer to come. So how could I not get out when it all comes together? Weather sites had shown consistent snow showers in the western Adirondacks for the past three or four days. The McCauley Mountain webcams showed ample snow on the hill. The sky was blue, the sun was out, and the afternoon was free. So I headed out to Old Forge and the Town of Webb trails on the former ski hill. From looking at current maps and

When the second of three -- or is it four? -- nor'easters came through the Northeast in mid-March, the prognosticated highest snowfall was on the northwest corner of Massachusetts, where lies Mount Greylock and the Thunderbolt trail. I tossed around the idea of going there after shoveling out, but my wife talked some sense into me: It's a drive of nearly three hours one-way. Lo and behold, though, a Facebook friend -- you know who you are -- made the even-longer drive from his home farther west in the hinterlands. His pictures showed deep powder on this storied trail. My disappointment in having missed the chance to ski in this fresh snow was mitigated by knowing someone who had gotten into it. He highly recommended it. So when a free day and good weather aligned, I told the wife I could pull it off, and break up the drive back with a rendezvous with an old work colleague and friend who lives in the Albany area. It was a good plan. Details come later, but here's my sy

Finally I made it to the lift at Val Bialas. Every time the lift has been running this winter, I've had a conflict. Either I was off skiing elsewhere, had a commitment off snow, or I was enjoying cross-country skiing in the park. I was determined, however, to use this wonderful resource within walking distance of our house. So on what will probably turn out to be the last day of the season at the neighborhood ski hill, I made it out. I put the G3 Alpinist climbing skins on my rock skis, the K2 Superstinx, c. 2001, and headed up the road across the street from my neighborhood. I could have just used the kickers, but I figured these glide a little better and, just in case I didn't buy a ticket or the lift weren't running at all, I'd rather have the full-length skins. This meant I needed pockets to stash them, however, so I donned my Flylow shell jacket with pockets made for this. It was more than I needed though not excessive. The snow was soft, as you