Upstate New York snow is actually perfect powder for skiing this year
Snow way!
Skiing in New York and other East Coast states is usually the butt of snide jokes about icy, rocky conditions that can’t compare to Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, California and the like.
But this winter, multiple polar vortexes and consistently freezing temperatures have conspired to make conditions on nearby mountains surprisingly great for skiing and snowboarding.
“The fresh powder was insane!” said Shannon Groffie, a 28-year-old who lives in Hoboken, of a ski trip last weekend to Gore Mountain in the Adirondacks. “We woke up and were shocked to see fresh snow … It completely transformed the mountain.”
The avid snowboarder makes an annual trip to acclaimed resorts in the West, such as Jackson Hole. But she said the snow at Gore — a four-hour drive from NYC — last weekend was comparable.
She was particularly excited to shred the glades, a part of the mountain where you can ski through trees, which require a lot of fresh snow. “Usually, I can never count on the glades to be open, let alone have real powder,” she said. “But this time, they were fantastic.”
She has a trip planned to Colorado at the end of the month, which she now regrets.
“If I knew how great the conditions would be here this winter, I would have pushed it off,” she told The Post.
Other snow-loving New Yorkers have been just as thrilled.
Matt Stewart, 35, a strategic designer who lives in Brooklyn, has skied multiple times in deep snow in the European Alps. When he traveled to Windham over Martin Luther King weekend, his first time skiing upstate after living in NYC for three years, he had very low expectations
“I had been told that skiing in New York is skiing on ice and gravel,” he said. “[But] I did not get the rocks and ice I was promised.”
Instead, he encountered plentiful fresh, light, fluffy snow that was on par with some of the world’s greatest ski resorts.
“It was a lot better than expected,” he said. “I can’t wait to go again.”
At Hunter Mountain, the popular ski resort about two and a half hours from NYC, they’ve been able to open up more trails this year than they have in nearly a decade, thanks to the ideal conditions.
“The consistently colder temperatures this season have been a game-changer for our snowmaking operations,” said Trent Poole, the general manager of Hunter Mountain.
Scott D. McKin, Science Manager of Whiteface Mountain Field Station which is run by the University of Albany, explained the science behind this year’s surprisingly great snow.
“When you have cold air, the moisture content of the snow decreases so instead of having this East Coast cement, which we usually have, it’s this fluffy, champagne powder that is more typical of what you find in places out West,” he said. “It is fantastic.”
He said New York state hasn’t seen this type of snow in at least five or six years, and it may not see it again any time soon.
This year has been an anomaly,” he said. “People who have a West Coast trip planned to Steamboat or Alta, this may not be the winter to do that. There is really good skiing in our own backyard.”
The powder isn’t the only upgrade upstate skiing has seen of late. Options for lodging and dining are getting increasingly posh.
Last fall, the sceney Scribner’s Catskill Lodge in Hunter debuted the Rounds, 11 freestanding boutique suites, each with its own private outdoor shower and Japanese soaking tub. Travel + Leisure dubbed the Rounds one of the best new hotels of 2024.
At nearby Windham, skiers can lunch on sushi slopeside at Okami by Mr. Lee and grab dinner at Matilda, a fine dining restaurant from the celebrated chef duo behind NYC’s Contra and Wildair.
While they’re both open to the public, they’re connected to the controversial, private Windham Mountain Club, which debuted last season.
The once low key ski resort now operates partially as an exclusive members-only club with a $200,000 initiation fee and $9,000 annual dues. Members get their own dedicated lines at ski lifts, ski valets and exclusive access to certain bars and restaurants.
Windham has also partnered with Blade — the helicopter company known for ferrying Gothamites to the Hamptons in the summer months — to get skiers to the mountains in 45 minutes.
But, while the snow conditions impressed Stewart, he still found the eating and drinking options disappointing compared to Europe.
The Windham bars that are open to the public closed a 4:30 p.m., leaving him and his friends thirsty and annoyed.
“The only thing that sucked about Windham is that the apres ski is terrible,” he said. “After skiing that powder we wanted to drink beer.”
