Plattekill, NY 02.23.08

jamesdeluxe

Administrator
Good news: Plattekill got about eight inches of bone-dry blower pow.

Bad news: There was no base on the natural snow trails -- and not a hyperbolic "no base," but NO BASE. It's been a tough year for the Catskills with the constant thaw/rain/freeze bollox, and I guess that the last warm-up nuked Plattekill, which doesn't have many snowguns.

As we were waiting for the double chair to open at 8:45, a patroller skied down and said, "OK, we're opening everything, but coverage is VERY THIN." She wasn't lying. Good on Plattekill for letting people pick their poison instead of roping everything off, but a lot of the turns were a scrapefest. Too bad, as you can see from the pix of Jason, it would've been beautiful with just a bit of something to keep us from bottoming out.

Picture 065.jpg


Picture 073.jpg



We made a handful of runs, then decided to call an audible, and headed over to Belleayre at 10:15. Belleayre got the same amount of fresh snow, but it fell on a big manmade base. As long as you stayed on the blue sections, it was nice and soft, but the steeper pitches up top were loud and scratchy:
Picture 096.jpg


Picture 086.jpg


Plattekill (and nearby Bobcat) is the way I like my ski areas. It's so cool to detoxify yourself from the resort BS with these no-nonsense places. Both of these hills get extra points for having grazing cows and other rural accoutrements on the access roads. The trade-off, of course, is on a day like this, where our EC weather calls the shots. Oh well, we both ate our Plattekill day tickets, but wrote it off as a contribution to the little guys who try harder.
 
Last edited:
A very enjoyable day of skiing... :D
even with the core shot :evil:

boy that second pic doesn't tell the whole story :wink:
 
very nice pics and turns jason, i'm glad you didn't bother goin north. looks like you hit a good one even if you hit a few rocks.

rog
 
Funny thing is we skied Plattekill during a Powder Daize last year I think in a similar condition. There was 14 inches of snow down, but it was on top of nothing.

We had a great time, but my wife got a core shot, and I double ejected when I hit snow making ice under the snow on one of their trails that they do blow on :D .

It's still a really fun place, but it's like Mad River Glen's take on snow with about 35% of their snow fall. Last time they consistently had good coverage I think was 3 years ago (when they had something insane like 6 or 7 Powder Daize in one year).

-Craig
 
cweinman":eaapu2of said:
it's like Mad River Glen's take on snow with about 35% of their snow fall.

In a nutshell, yes. Actually, PK gets well more than half of MRG's yearly snowfall, but it suffers through a lot more ugly, base-killing episodes.

I don't even recall Bobcat, which has zero snowmaking, being open with such thin cover.

But hey, this is what makes us the most hardcore skiers, like, ever.
 
Does Bobcat even exist anymore? You go by their website and it discusses being open based on snow condition for the 2004/2005 season...
 
Sounds like what we skied at Plattekill.

Went on a 10" Powderdaize. It was 10" of fluff on rock. It looked nice on the surface, but we hit a lot of rock that day.

Too bad. Global warming isn't helping the situation.

It was not unlike that here in CNY. We mostly xc skied on thin base. I did a morning of telemark at Greek Peak and it was not too bad really. They have a solid base there and the glades were open, but it was thin down to the dirt in places.

Hopefull this next storm will do more good than bad...tough call at this point.
 
Well, I skied Belleayre on Sunday after 5000 people tore it up. pretty much scraps on ice. The moguls where...sporty up top and ...less sporty down below. It got really scratchy towards the end of the day...right around the time the ambulances showed up. \Lines where looooong with the super chief down in the morning. But it beats workin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Back
Top