Jason's Weather: 11/30/10

By now, we all know about the impending monsoon. This forecast is for Thursday and beyond. A negative NAO finally sets up, bringing cold air from East Central Canada into our neck of the woods, and keeping it here. Temps in the mountains will remain below freezing for at least one week. This should allow for round-the-clock snowmaking.

A byproduct of the block in the North Atlantic is cyclogenesis and you know what that means — a potential storm forming on the east coast. The GFS is showing exactly that in about eight days, but its precise track needs to be worked out.

All in all, I am very excited about this pattern.

Gore Mountain, NY: 11/28/10

Topridge Opens

Ski Day 2: At 10:20 on Sunday, Gore dropped the rope on Topridge, the first expert terrain of the season. There were some water bars to manage, and a few other irregularities. The temperature/humidity was right on the borderline for snowmaking, so surfaces weren't silk you get when you make snow at 5 degrees. But it was the right kind of snow to be laying down as a base. No one was complaining and it was a blast skiing it. Pitch, swales and a very carvable surface.

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Gore Mountain, NY: 11/27/10

Ski Day 1: Temps never got as low as predicted, but it snowed an inch overnight.  It was still flurrying in the morning, so we were pretty excited as we headed over to the hill. The gondola went green right on time, and I was amazed that there was no line on opening day.

It seems like opening days are crowded and filled with technical difficulty for both mountain and skier. But today was pretty smooth. And when I walked through the parking lot, but for the lack of natural snow, it could have been a midwinter Wednesday.

The Mountain Film by Arnold Fanck

Ski Mad World is developing into a real resource. It fills a niche I didn't know existed: "the History of Skiing Geography." MadPatSki's recent post on the history of ski movies motivated me to investigate some of the story lines he alludes to in the piece.

Arnold Fanck was a pioneer in ski films. He began making documentary and action films after the end of World War I, shooting in remote mountain locations.

His movies were popular with German audiences and led to what are known as "mountain films," a style that some see as the German equivalent of the US Western: a genre unique to the country.

Working for Fanck was hard and at times dangerous. His actors suffered bruises, cuts and injuries as a result of being in some of his films. In one case, the female star in Avalanche was hauled halfway up a cliff, and "buried" by a slide triggered by a dynamite explosion on the mountain above her. Fanck did not use stand-ins.

The YouTube clip — a trailer for documentary on Fanck — is fascinating, even in German. Sit through the monologue in the middle. The whole clip is very short, but there is great footage at the beginning and end.

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Jason's Weather: 11/21/10

Thanksgiving Week: The Bad, The Good and The Ugly

Monday and Tuesday will feature a low moving straight through Lake Michigan. This will keep us on the warm side. Unfrozen precip will be associated with the trailing cold front. Temps will zoom into the 50s all the way to Montreal. A cold front passing Tuesday afternoon or evening will usher in seasonably cold air and snow showers. Temps could dip into the low teens and possible single digits in the higher elevations.

The Ugly: Starting Thursday, as an upper-level ridge builds over the East Coast, a powerful 500 mb low will move through the Great Lakes. This will bring in unseasonably warm air and the chance of heavy wet Thursday night and Friday morning. A strong cold front will pass through the region Friday bringing in much colder air and the possibility of high winds. There should be a significant lake-effect event for areas that favor a northwest flow. After that, the models are all over the place.

It looks like a slow start to the eastern ski season.

Hickory Ski Center Photo Tour

After Shawn Dempsey and I finished our conversation in the base lodge, we fired up the mountain's ATV and worked our way up the mountain.

We started at the new beginner slope, checked out the old-style operation of Poma 1, went up to see the improvements on the T-Bar line. Then we inched our way up Ridge Run to the summit.

Click here to view:

Harvey Road's Photo Tour of Hickory Ski Center

Q&A with Shawn Dempsey, Hickory Ski Center

I drove out to Hickory Ski Center last weekend to check on the progress of New York State's most recent New England Lost Ski Area Project (NELSAP) alumnus. The recently reopened ski hill is about five miles from Warrensburg, New York. The terrain of the area is unique — round, steep hills are separated by a beautiful, broad valley.

Hickory Ski Center

Shawn Dempsey, the General Manager of Hickory, met me at the hill early Saturday morning. We got spent some time exploring in the Base Lodge chatting. It is in nice shape both outside and in.

Chimney Mountain, NY

Kings Flow is a large manmade lake at the end of Big Brook Road near Indian Lake. The body of water is named for the King family, who logged and farmed the area in the late 1800s.

Kings Flow

The Kings Flow trailhead is a key jump-off point for the northwestern Siamese Ponds Wilderness. The Flow is primarily on private land, but the current owners allow access to Puffer Pond and Chimney Mountain.

Chimney is a well-known, traditional destination. The 900-foot climb is steep, but short, and leads to expansive views, caves, and the Chimney itself: an interesting geologic formation.

The Fifth Season

Some label bug season the Fifth Season. In my mind, the Fifth Season comes after fall and before winter. Maybe hunters think this way too.

Days like today defy categorization.  It's November. As a skier, you want it to be cold.  You can't call it Indian Summer — while it's way above the average temps for this time of year, it's still cool.  If it has to be 55 degrees, in November, in the mountains — I'll just have to enjoy it. Today challenged my ideas about this time of year.

Q&A with Bruce McCulley, Whiteface GM

Bruce McCulley is the General Manager of the king of New York State ski mountains: Whiteface. We had a chance to catch up with him this past week, just before the opening of the 2010-2011 season.

HR: When and where did you start to ski?

Bruce: I started skiing here at Whiteface when I was 19. I was hired in July 1981, one year after I graduated from high school.

HR: What were your positions at Whiteface before you became GM?

Bruce: I started as a lift attendant. I've been a snowmaker, on the trail crew, the night snowmaking foreman, lift supervisor and the assistant General Manager.

Jason's Weather: 11/8/10

Taking the the GFS at face value, the next 10 days don't look promising. With ridging just off both the west and east coasts, all the cold air will be funneled right down the middle of the country.

This setup keeps the East in a southwest flow for many days. As time goes on, the ridge off the east coast should relax and allows a west-northwest flow, and more seasonable weather. At this time of year, confidence in temperature forecasting isn't high, so things could still turn in our favor.

Andrew Newell: Cross Country Skiing in the Park

Andy Newell was born in Bennington Vermont. After finishing high school and some post-grad work at Stratton Mountain School, he joined the US Ski Team as a nordic racer.

Newell has competed internationally since 2001. His best finish in the Olympics was 16th place in the sprint at Turin in 2006. In March of the same year, he won a bronze in a World Cup race in China. The medal was the first in over 20 years for an American Nordic skier.

Andrew makes films as a hobby, and is the owner of X Ski Films. He's known for his aerial acrobatics and huge backflips on skinny skis. While park skiing isn't something we really focus on at Harvey Road, you have to be in awe of his ability to telemark, flip and jib on such light gear.

The Mountains Less Traveled: Le Massif, QC

For this feature, we're going back to January 2005 for Jamesdeluxe's first-ever visit to Quebec's scenic Le Massif. He's mentioned several times offline that most photos do an inadequate job of conveying the views there. Maybe I don't get out enough, but they work for me.

Le Massif will be getting more face time in The Magazine in the near future, when we publish a new piece on a recent ski safari that covered five different mountains along the northern Saint Lawrence River.

Le Massif, QC: Mountain by the Sea

Jason's Weather: 11/2/10

It's a cold day in the North Country. And it looks like more cold air is in store for later this week. A much more pronounced and deeper trough will be affecting the Northeast after tomorrow.

Ski Mountaineering on Slide Mountain, NY

Ron Konowitz, also known as RonKon, is a resident of Keene, NY. As a member of the "Ski to Die" Club, he pioneered many of the steepest backcountry descents in the Adirondack High Peaks.

In this newly released YouTube Video, Ron and Mike Whelan retrace the route of Irving Langmuir. An avid outdoorsman, Langmuir is credited for establishing ski mountaineering on this side of the Atlantic in 1907 on Slide Mountain in New York. Slide, the highest peak in the Catskills (4180 feet), was the first mountain in North America climbed and skied from the summit.

Langmuir, a prominent chemist and physicist, is probably most noted for his work at General Electric. His research lead directly to the invention of the incandescent lamp.