We Platte-killed it!
3.14.05 - Any mountain that has the word "kill" in it is good by me to begin with. Ski Plattekill in Roxbury, NY didn't exactly make me giddy thinking about their 1000' of vertical, two chairs (neither high-speed) and seeming lack of terrain, but I was enthusiastic about not having to sell my stereo for the lift ticket ($40) and I knew the mountain was owned by a husband and wife. There's a somewhat golden glow that radiates from your soul when you're not skiing on the Man's mountain. We cracked jokes in the morning about what we would find at Ski Plattekill: tons of kids, lots of green circles and snowplowing, a clown (literally), the conversation turned deadly cynical and then everything turned equally quiet, the kind of quiet that one finds in the back of paddy-wagons and in sports bars when the local team loses the world series. When you have a home mountain the mindset is determined. You spend most of your drive time talking about which lines you want to hit that day, big drops you've been eyeing up for weeks, and hidden stashes you heard about from some other local on the lift the day before. We didn't have that luxury so conversation floated around ridiculous reassurances that no matter what, we were going to have a great day making some turns on fresh snow on, not the Man's, but the Bro's mountain.
Plattekill boasts a unique "Lake-Effect" weather system that dumps, on average, 240 inches a year. Riding the chair there is not a lake, creek, river, pond, lagoon or even an above-ground pool to be seen. We arrived 10 minutes before the first chair took off, pulled into a spot about 50 yards from the ticket window and looked up at 1000' of steep pitch. There were license plates around us from Connecticut, Jersey, and even Vermont which we took as a good sign. As we waited in line for the tickets inside the lodge, the scene was a carnival of Carhartt-clad, bearded, telemark hippies mixed with an equal splash of backwoods hunting heads dressed in camo-duck boots and heavily quilted flannel shirts in the brightest colors of the spectrum. I had never seen so many pairs of rear-entry boots and unshaped skis as I did that morning. Seth and I were beside ourselves. We had found that mystical mountain that was equal parts unpretentious and unrefined to the point of suspicion. My first thought was to ask someone if their permits and safety checks were up to date on their lifts, I was constantly waiting for the smell of diesel fuel to enter my nostrils. Everyone seemed to know each other around us, asking each other how they had been and what their sons and daughters were up to, how that recipe for possum worked out. I felt if we made any wrong moves they might be asking how those two guys from the city tasted next week. Waiting in line Seth and I caught some odd looks, then I saw a ten year old walking around with his jacket open wearing only an unzipped hoodie, wifebeater, and thick silver chain around his neck. What was this place?
Finally on the chair, we decided it was the slowest lift we had ever ridden by a long shot. We both sat silently and looked at the uneven grooming job on the trail below us and wondered what the laws on drinking and driving grooming machines were. I looked at the vista behind me and realized this was no man's land and that means a lawless land where ski trail groomers pound jagrmeister and think about doing dark, horrible acts when they're on the job. In fact, the trail below the chair was exotically groomed with just one lane down the middle of the trail, sometimes veering off to the left, sometimes veering off to the right. It was almost as if the driver decided that like golf courses it would be fun to have a fairway on the trail with some more challenging "rough" on the edges. He most likely followed that thought by placing a rag drenched in Scotchgard to his face and drifting off to a happier, less confusing and complex world. The first couple of runs were fast, top-to-bottom cruisers. The creative grooming resulted in the unique effect of skiing through a war zone. Being some of the first people on the mountain the cordouroy would sometimes shift and there was little you could do but go with it. Was this perhaps a metaphor from the Bro? That skiing should be unharnessed and left to the wilds of an individual's tastes and inability to maintain a straight course while horrendously wasted on night train and a fat lipper of Red Man? One could only imagine.
After deciding that the groomers could have been some of the most treacherous terrain we had ever skied, we began to consider our options, which weren't many, resulting in the perennially smart decision to head into the woods. We had seen some tracks mingling amidst the birch and pines that inhabited the off-piste areas of the mountain, as well as a good amount of small undergrowth. The first couple of forays into the wilderness of Plattekill were challenging. There was definitely room to make turns, albeit a series of four and five and then hitting the brakes for dense, eastern-woods hacking, treading and the sublime power of cursing out loud with no one around to hear you. And the snow was good! About two feet of light, fluffy pow everywhere. We went east to west across the mountain, poking though any stash we could find, straightlining 50 yard sections and hollering at whatever glory manifested itself. With about 3 hours left we checked out the last section of the mountain that went unexplored.
When Sir Edmund Hillary summitted Everest, he surely realized both the accomplishment and the sacrifice that had come with it. This model also applies to eastern woods skiing. Marked glades are an act of attrition, a last-case scenario that on only the most rare occasions will one experience what they set out to do. However, for those daring enough to venture off the grid, into the uncertain exposure of nature and their own tolerance of that uncertainty, there is greatness on the horizon. The eastern side of Plattekill is curiously speckled with a series of mountain bike terrain features for the summer months. Discovering these woods opened a world of rock drops and man made drops, sometimes in a series of two or three in a row, much like the idea of a wooded playground for skiers. Most of these terrain features existed on the top half of the mountain and below it was what many refer to as the "golden unicorn" of the ski experience: well-spaced trees with a steep pitch and endless fields of fresh, untracked snow to rip through. We did not see another soul in those woods all afternoon. Instead of trying to see a line that barely existed we made tracks across Lord of the Rings-esque terrain. Seth noted that he was watching me rip a line and he literally saw what looked like I was skiing over a series of waves, airing over each hump and dipping into the next trough with a syncopated rhythm. Every lift ride up, we were caked, wiping snow off our goggles and faces, grinning fiercely.
Father fate wanted to test us, however. I was attempting a remarkable act of bravery, skiing quite literally up a wooden bridge that lead to a large boulder with another wooden bridge on the other end, with an air off, onto a wooden ramp below, and about three feet out. I was so high on adrenaline and hope that I thought this was smart and even worth invaluable street cred at the end of the day. Unfortunately there was a rub. I did not approach the entire spectacle with the kind of speed and bravado that was necessary and in the process of falling backwards off the bridge, I jammed my pole and snapped it in half.
Plattekill is a friendly mountain above all things. When riding the chair people yell down to their acquaintances, saying "hey Bill! How's it hanging you old dog!?" and "Slow down Nancy, your gonna catch on fire!" I went into the rental shop with this idea in mind, hoping to exchange my license for a temporary pole for the rest of the afternoon. Old man winter behind the pole counter took one look at my pole and told me "Don't put that limp dick on my counter!" And man did he mean it. Indeed, it was a sad sight, the lower half of my pole swung lowly and defeated. I explained the situation and without a single word he disappeared to the back. Five minutes later he came out bearing a gorgeous, early-eighties, heavy-as-lead metal pole with a plastic hand guard. I offered the cranky pole magician my license and he turned it down remarking that the pole was a gift, it was an odd one, he said, and sent me on my way.
The last runs in the Plattekill woods were memorable. The truest sign of achieving what we seek as skiers is the moment you are involved in what you are doing while maintaining the feeling of being slightly removed, feeling it from the inside rather than forcing it from the outside. We tore through those woods like wrens in the heat of a fierce race. By the end of the day we were making top to bottom runs, each one different from the last, seeking out untracked lines through each run while still killing it off every big drop. By the last run the landings were stating to become less soft, our legs were tired, and all of sudden the trails that were normally to the left, were out of sight. I was in bliss, laying a wake behind me through soft powder snow, darting around the trees like a specter. We came to the end of the run glassy-eyed, ready to go home. Plattekill had one last surprise for us, being that we had inadvertently skied down to the access road about a quarter mile for the actual parking lot.
Whatever sort of indecency and judgement we passed on the mountain early in the day had been interminably wrong. To judge a mountain by the trails that cut through it is ridiculous. The universal identifiable characteristic in any true skier is someone who inhabits a spirit of wanting to break loose from whatever definitions and constructions attempt to mold them or their own style. What we found in the woods of Plattekill was that sense of reward when we were willing to suck it up, stand tall, accept it's not going to be easy until the right time when you've earned it and then it's golden unicorns all the way.
~Dan Ricciato
Termas de Chillan Chillan, Chile (August 21-23, 2005)
11.01.05 - It's day nine of a fourteen day excursion to Chile. Its our fifth ski day of a trip designed to accommodate six to seven ski days, and our second day skiing Termas de Chillan, a mountain about 300 miles south of Santiago, offering up approximately 2,300 in vertical and well over 30,000 acres of piste and off piste terrain. It's about 9:20 a.m., and I?m sitting on the El Huemul double, angry. No, El Huemul is not broken. Rather, it is moving as fast as the El Huemul travels. At this stage of the trip, being stranded on a lift was not the source of my anger...
02.26.06 - So, I give the Dominos guy 7 bucks on a 23 dollar bill and he looks at me like I'm the one who should be delivering pizzas in a snowstorm. Good thing me and Shmibda are unemployed or else we wouldnta caught the dump that gave way to bluebird solitude today at Mammoth Mountain, Cali. Sure their 12 foot base is the largest in the US and sure my Volkl Karma fatties had no problem pizza wheeling through the fresh half meter left over night, but what's wrong with a seven dollar tip?
The Phantom Menace: Crystal Ship
07.01.05 - Every once in awhile you stumble across a ski you didn't think existed. Gerlt and I were auditioning various websites for a potential First Chair storefront when a generously proportioned, Doors-themed ski jumped off the page at us. Neither of us had ever seen this ride before. Further investigation revealed a small ski company, Phantom, with one ski dedicated precisely to the conditions we worship: East Coast powder filled trees...
06.16.05 - Last year Line's catalogue looked like an army recruitment brochure. This year, it resembles a romp through the Playboy mansion; the Line reactor binding spread out on a pimped out velvet background. After 10 years in this business, Line has released their best skis yet. From 3 different Prophets to 2 different Chronics to a couple of women's skis, Line is putting it all on the table this winter...
Igneous Skis, "Don't call it a comeback..."
06.05.05 - When Igneous Skis closed its Jackson Hole doors and shut down operations in March of 2001, Adam Sherman (half owner) thought there was a small chance they'd be back. The company had lasted 5 years but couldn't make ends meet in a market dominated by enormous ski moguls like Atomic and Salomon. Igneous' niche, custom skis, allowed the consumer to choose between multiple options...
Insider's Guide to Tuckerman Ravine, Mt. Washington, NH
05.24.05 - Skiing Tuckerman Ravine is a ritualistic sacrifice for some of the best skiing exeriences imaginable. Mount Washington, the home of the ravine, boasts some of the world's worst weather. Extremely harsh, cold, and snowy winters pound the slopes of the 6000 foot New Hampshire resident every winter. Snow falls, builds, packs, slides, fills, and falls again throughout the season. When this weather cycle dies down in March, Tuckerman Ravine opens for business...
Salomon Releases 2005/2006 Skis
05.15.05 - Salomon has long been a leader in skiing equipment and the 2005/2006 gear continues to help set the standard. Salomon skis will feature 2 types of construction this upcoming winter. The Titanium Monocoque (for power and energy) is used in the Racing and All-Mountain categories while a Composite Monocoque (for lightness and maneuverability) is utilized in the Freestyle/Freeride series...
03.24.05 - After three great days at Whistler/Blackcomb, Reichert, Bell, and I headed back into Washington searching for more powder. We decided on the nation's leading yearly snowfall getter, Mt. Baker, for phase 2 of our trip. Although Dave tried to warn us, nothing could have prepared JR and me for the Blackcomb to Baker culture shock. I realize no ski resort in the country could live up to skiing's Disneyworld, but Mt. Baker, even with its 600+ inches of snow per year, has more similarities to a desert than to North America's ski Mecca.
03.16.05 - After 4 years of hearing about great skiing in the Pacific Northwest, I finally chose this season to visit Dave Bell and find out what exactly is going on with the often underestimated resorts of Washington state. I got the call from Bell about a week before JR and I were set to leave. "I think you should fly in somewhere else, we just don't have any snow..."
03.14.05 - Any mountain that has the word "kill" in it is good by me to begin with. Ski Plattekill in Roxbury, NY didn't exactly make me giddy thinking about their 1000' of vertical, two chairs (neither high-speed) and seeming lack of terrain, but I was enthusiastic about not having to sell my stereo for the lift ticket ($40) and I knew the mountain was owned by a husband and wife. There's a somewhat golden glow that radiates from your soul when you're not skiing on the Man's mountain...
10 Signs Jay Peak is Officially Blown Up
02.15.05 - Anyone who was at Jay last weekend noticed one thing was more abundant than the supposed 36" of snow that fell: people. An aggressive marketing scheme and a reputation as the East Coast Powder King has helped to attract skiers and riders from all over New England, Canada, and beyond. For those of us that have been skiing Jay for 5 + years, it is frustrating to see our mountain be taken over by intruders. How do I know Jay is too popular for its own good? Read on...
02.08.05 - This winter sucks, plain and simple. Nearly any Jay bird will have career low ski days this year. I can count my powder days on one hand and my face shots on one finger. December was descent up until the 30th; then the rains came. The east coast rang in 2005 with a month of boilerplate trails leading to injuries and fatalities. However bad it seems here, it's as bad or worse in other places...
01.25.05 - You can twiddle your thumbs, follow a sport you don't care about, take up knitting, or put your head underground and bang the topsoil like a drum, but when it's not snowing, you feel crazy, cheated, gypped, depressed, anxious and underwhelmed. Part of the magic of the skiing lifestyle is the anticipation of the BIG DUMP. Driving up north on a Thursday night in blizzard conditions is what keeps us young, vulnerable and appreciative. Skiing is nothing without the risks involved and the glory in overcoming the odds both inside and outside of ourselves to reach the mountain...
10 Things To Do At Jay This Year
01.15.05 - The lack of quality skiing this season has sent Jay regulars in search of alternative activities in the Northeast Kingdom. Some people may not know exactly which hot spots to hit, while others may just need a little encouragement. Here are a few ideas to keep the sanity levels in check while waiting for the next big dump.
01.09.05 - Jay is in bad shape. Really bad. The worst I have seen it in 5 years. The recent warming trend and rain events have basically ruined what looked like a promising year. If you are looking for a cruel joke, refer to the article I wrote 370 days ago (A.P.B. - Jay Needs Snow) to see the same thing happened last year, it just wasn't this bad. Last year also had help from the 200" of snow we got in December. Out of 30 people I know who ski Jay Peak regularly, not one went up there this weekend. Half of us found deeper snow on Berardi's roof Friday night than we would have in Beaver Pond. And despite partying on his Boston roof top past 2am, we were a lot safer compared to skiing Jay's glades.
12.04.04 - "Could it have really snowed 5' in Tahoe?" I pondered as I read an email from this tele-skier Chiquita I know. It was October 22nd. I had no reason to believe there was 5' of fresh goodness out west. It was still 65 degrees in Boston. It was October in the western hemisphere. Nope. No reason to believe. So I did what any ski-geek-bum does these days: I checked the Squaw web cam.
11.28.04 - With a packed parking lot and a cold spell in the air, big things were in store for our first day of the year. None so big as my willingness to leave after 3 turns. As I navigated my way down the only open trail, I quickly realized that every type of skier was strutting their early season style. Race teams practicing race drills, beginners practicing sucking, and everyone in everyone else's way was the recipe for ski day # 1 for JR and me.
Older Archives
11.19.04 - Let's Get This Season Started
09.29.04 - 5 Tips to Skiing Better This Season
09.18.04 - Summer Meditation
07.27.04 - Pics of the PNW
07.14.04 - Line's New Line: 2004/2005
07.06.04 - Yesterday
06.15.04 - Cathedral
05.13.04 - Tech Tip#2: Post-Season Tune-Up
05.01.04 - Atomic Releases 2004/2005 Skis
04.13.04 - First Chair
04.07.04 - K2 Releases 2004/2005 Skis
03.25.04 - Redemption
02.29.04 - Big Jay on Leap Day
FC Mag Goes Colorado Styles:
02.11.04 - Day 1: Vail
02.12.04 - Day 2: A-Basin
02.13.04 - Day 3: Breckenridge
02.17.04 - Days 4 and 5: Crested Butte
02.22.04 - Day 6: The Other Vail
01.27.04 - Part 2: Champagne on New Year's Eve,
Utah Style
01.20.04 - Freedom
01.12.04 - Part 1: Champagne On New Year's Eve,
Utah Style
01.05.04 - A.P.B. - Jay Needs Snow
12.28.03 - Big Jay
12.27.03 - 6th Chair, 1st Chair, 1st Tram...A Great Day
12.08.03 - Big Monday
12.07.03 - Anticipation
12.05.03 - Opening Day
11.22.03 - 10 Ideas to Kick the Pre-Season Blues
11.01.03 - Tech Tip #1: Pre-Season Tune-Up
10.04.03 - Tenney Mountain Opens – October 4th
09.01.03 - FC Magazine Launches Online Winter Home