oakapple
New member
My son and I skied Catamount yesterday. I wanted a day trip from NYC, but I figured the Catskills and Poconos resorts would be overrun on Presidents Weekend, and you couldn't have paid me to visit Mountain Creek.
So we tried Catamount, a bit farther off the beaten path. Except, it isn't. At two hours' drive from NYC, it is actually closer than the Catskills resorts. It's a family mountain with four chairlifts, none high-speed, but I don't think we waited more than five minutes for a chair at any point during the day, maybe ten at the most.
The antiquated main lodge is another story: the crowds in the rental queue and to get food at lunchtime were horrendous. Like many a ski area, the mountain can handle more people than the lodges can.
Catamount has 1000' feet of vertical, but despite those modest dimensions, someone very smart designed the trail layout. There are multiple long, enjoyable cruisers, including one (Ridge Run + Promenade) that's 2.5 miles of blue and green terrain.
Experts might get bored here. There's one legitimate double-black, Catapult, which claims to be the steepest run in the Berkshires. I think it would be double-black anywhere, but it's the only one, and the single-blacks might be rated "hard blues" at the Vermont mountains. Somewhat offsetting that, the mountain ops team leaves the edges of most black runs to bump up, so you can take a much harder line down, if that's your preference.
One entirely ungroomed single-black, Off Stage, was bumpier than the lunar surface, and I don't think I saw more than about 6 people attempt it all day (and several who did gave up). But that's partly a function of the kind of mountain Catamount is, appealing mostly to families.
There appears to be snow-making on most of the mountain, but they probably hadn't used it lately, as the blacks and harder blues were skied down to bare ice in many places. Aside from that, most runs (aside from the aforementioned Off Stage) appear to be groomed every night.
So we tried Catamount, a bit farther off the beaten path. Except, it isn't. At two hours' drive from NYC, it is actually closer than the Catskills resorts. It's a family mountain with four chairlifts, none high-speed, but I don't think we waited more than five minutes for a chair at any point during the day, maybe ten at the most.
The antiquated main lodge is another story: the crowds in the rental queue and to get food at lunchtime were horrendous. Like many a ski area, the mountain can handle more people than the lodges can.
Catamount has 1000' feet of vertical, but despite those modest dimensions, someone very smart designed the trail layout. There are multiple long, enjoyable cruisers, including one (Ridge Run + Promenade) that's 2.5 miles of blue and green terrain.
Experts might get bored here. There's one legitimate double-black, Catapult, which claims to be the steepest run in the Berkshires. I think it would be double-black anywhere, but it's the only one, and the single-blacks might be rated "hard blues" at the Vermont mountains. Somewhat offsetting that, the mountain ops team leaves the edges of most black runs to bump up, so you can take a much harder line down, if that's your preference.
One entirely ungroomed single-black, Off Stage, was bumpier than the lunar surface, and I don't think I saw more than about 6 people attempt it all day (and several who did gave up). But that's partly a function of the kind of mountain Catamount is, appealing mostly to families.
There appears to be snow-making on most of the mountain, but they probably hadn't used it lately, as the blacks and harder blues were skied down to bare ice in many places. Aside from that, most runs (aside from the aforementioned Off Stage) appear to be groomed every night.
