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Gore improvements....
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Dr Skimeister
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You left out an important part of my original point in the portion you edited for the quote-snowfall.
I ski the Catskills several times every season, and don't dispute that Hunter and Plattekill have terrain that can be fairly compared to Gore's. The Windham and Belleayre comparison may be a bit of a stretch. To me, the combination of terrain and the snow quality and quantity (I admit to saying quantity without bothering to look at average snowfall for southern ADK or Catskills) makes Gore my preferred destination. The 'dacks don't get quite the thaw/freeze that the 'skills do. Of course that assumes I'm able to do at least an overnight as opposed to a day trip.
Tin Woodsman
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What does that even mean?
They get 150" per year, measured (like all resorts) in a high-elevation, wind-protected spot. That's less than every resort in VT. Less than Whiteface. About equal to the Catskills (Belleayre and Plattekill), much further south. They most certainly do NOT "get the snow".
x10003q
Active member
At Gore you forgot 2 short narrow trails - Lower Steilhang and Upper Darby, and one longer steeper one - Lies. The trail under the Straightbrook quad at Gore is Double Barrel. I did not ski the BRQ at Gore that much, but has has some nice sustained steepness and is pretty long. It also has the awesome Cirque Glades. Lies is very much like the Catskills, steep at the top and mellowing farther down. Lies is also not as steep as Rumor but steeper than anything in the Catskiils except for Lower K-27. As much as I love Platekill, the 2 of 3 trails you mention (Freefall, Plunge) are not as steep as Lies and after the top 200 feet are pretty much blue trails. Blockbuster is not as steep as Lies either , but it does have more of a sustained steepness (when it is open).
Windham has a similar profile to Plattekill with a little longer steep section on the trails mentioned. Belleayre has a shorter top steep section than Plattekill or Windham. Hunter West has some nice long steeps and there are the mentioned trails on the front of Hunter.
K-27 is by far the steepest and it rivals Rumor. However the steep section is short.
The Catskills are my day areas. I enjoy all of them. If I am daytripping on the weeekend, Plattekill is my choice. When you try to compare them to Gore, Gore will always win. The glades are way better at Gore, there is more natural snow at Gore (except for Plattekill), and there is a lot more terrain( green, blue and black) to ski at Gore. As mentioned in the thread, there are less freeze/thaw cycles. Hunter is a zoo on the weekends and Windham can be crowded. At Belleayre and Hunter the blue runs are crowded roads. The Catskills do the best with what they have, but intermediate skiers have a lot more choices at Gore as do beginners (thanks to Ruby Run off the Gondola). I still will pound the black trails, but most of my family members do not. Trails like Showcase and Twister at Gore are 1500 vert feet of sustained blueness that just does not exist in the Catskills.
One more thing to remember about Gore: even when the cars are parked down the access road and they are turning people away, the lifts and trails will not be crowded. The mountain has lots of room. The only place in the Catskills that is never crowded is Plattekill and that is because it is a longer drive from the NY Thruway.
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ta&idaho
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Here's a question: does Gore get enough snow that the trees/glades have skiable coverage most of the season? In my limited experience, that's a big limitation for the Catskills.
x10003q
Active member
This is an important point. Hunter is never cheap about snowmaking, but over the 35 years I have been skiing at Hunter I can remember many seasons with little or no snow in the woods. I have been skiing Gore for 23 years and there are very few I have not been in the woods. Gore is 100 miles further north than Hunter and this does make a difference in how the snow lasts.
ta&idaho
New member
Just the facts, Tin Woodsman:
According to the highly scientific OnTheSnow.com, Bromley and Suicide Six actually get less (145 and 90 inches, respectively) annual snowfall, and Ascutney gets the same amount (150 inches). Take that, Vermont!
Whiteface snags the Adirondack title, narrowly besting Gore with 163 inches to Gore's 150.
Plattekill receives a whopping 200 inches, but its listing includes a suspicious footnote posing the age-old question: "If a snowflake falls in the woods and there is no one there to ski it, does it trigger a pre-season Alpine Zone kerfluffle?"
The other Catskills resorts all get less than Gore: Belleayre 120, Hunter 120, Windham 63 (don't be led astray by the discrepancy between Hunter and Windham...those eight miles make all the difference in the world).
;-)
Tin Woodsman
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Suicide Six is not a resort. It's a small ski hill. I intentionally used the "resort" terminology to exclude bumps like Suicide Six and Cochrans that are low elevation and not useful comparators.
As for Bromley, that mountain has been described in a variety of positive ways, but "they get the snow" is not one of them. Not exactly a glade skiing/powder mecca. Though they and Ascutney likely qualify, so kudos to you for looking it up. Still, not exactly a great marketing slogan - "Gore: We beat (by 5") or tie the least snowy resorts in VT!"
Per Belleayre's website, they get 141 inches, a scant 9 inches less than Gore. They are, for all intents and purposes, equal.
Gore doesn't get the snow by nearly any reasonable definition of the term. Gore aspires to be a major ski resort. They compare themselves against the major resorts in VT and elsewhere in northern NE, as well as to Whiteface. This is born out by their publicly available economic study supporting the recent round of expansions. The only major resorts it gets more snow than in all of northern NE are Bromley and Loon (with a base elevation of 800'). Neither of those places are known as deep powder meccas.
Again, there are a lot of nice things to say about Gore, but "they get the snow" is not one of them.
ta&idaho
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Tongue-in-cheek statistical posturing aside, Gore still seems like an intriguing place to check out (I've never been, but its definitely on the list for this year). Coming from the city, its a closer drive than most (if not all) of the resorts in Vermont, and they seem to have opened up (or at least begun advertising) some interesting (if not knock-your-socks-off) terrain.
mattchuck2
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Yeah, what he said . . .
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At a distance, all I can say is Gore looks AWESOME. I wish all the major NY areas were closer to me. Would love to someday ski Whiteface, Gore, Hunter, Belleyare, Greek and most especially Plattekille. That place looks really special on a powder day......in the MRG, Magic, Saddleback category of serious terrain with minimal competition on a powder day.
Who knows if I'll ever get over there, but I can completely see why so many folks in that neck of the woods are so passionate about each of these areas.
Who knows if I'll ever get over there, but I can completely see why so many folks in that neck of the woods are so passionate about each of these areas.
legalskier
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I'm aware of those other trails, having skied them many times, but if you check http://ski-degrees.synthasite.com you'll see that most of the Catskill trails I mentioned have a steeper pitch than Lies (Yahoo at Belleayre tops it too). Also, Lies always is flat when I'm there; perhaps if they let it bump up it would present more of a challenge. And if a blue run at Belleayre is too crowded, I just move one or two runs over and have it all to myself. Don't get me wrong--I've never not enjoyed a day at Gore, even after a thaw-freeze. And I agree that for blue cruisers, nothing compares to Twister, which offers a nice warm-down after skiing the upper mountain all day. I was merely pointing out that the Catskills have so much to offer that it's a shame some people blow past the region on their way north. One thing you didn't mention, though, is the great views from the top of Gore, especially facing the snow-capped "northern peaks."
Btw, if Double Barrel is the trail under Straightbrook Quad, then what's the name of the trail between that and Rumors? Seems to me the trail map is missing one trail name, no?
ta&idaho
New member
Interesting compilation, although focusing on steepness ignores the many other factors that make a particular run interesting. Plattekill, for example, is a pretty consistent pitch from top-to-bottom. I'd wager it never gets above 25 degrees, with an average (for the double side of the mountain) of probably something like 20 degrees. But its a blast to ski. Hunter West also maintains a good pitch from top to bottom, and when the snow is decent, its also a lot of fun.
Windham and Belleayre, by contrast, both start with about 200 vertical feet of 30-degree "headwall," and then it pretty quickly flattens out. In my opinion, the bottom two thirds of most of the runs at these two mountains are boring, and often icy and crowded. In fact, I'd probably prefer a flat run-out (common at resorts with a traverse back to the lift area), where you can just let your skis run (unless the mountains are empty, there's enough slope on the bottom sections of the runs at Windham and Belleayre that I don't feel comfortable straight-lining).
kcyanks1
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They are both "Double Barrel," hence the "double" (as I understand it, at least).
But you will routinely find better conditions a Gore. Most of the time the snow just blows off Whiteface with very few options to go find it
Harvey
Well-known member
I'm with you on this X. I remember MLK in 2008 the parking lot was jammed to the point where they turned people away. I had a couple of great days at Gore and never felt crowded on the hill. If you've got the kind of mtn knowledge that Matt has...you probably never see anybody.
Gore's trees are open a lot. I have no real data, but I'm guessing some runs are skiable (vs."open") at least 60% of the season. I'd like to hear Matt's guess on that number. Would be interesting to keep data on that stat too.
With regard to how much snow Gore gets... because Gore doesn't do a season total, I kept track of reported totals in 08/09. I came out right at 150". While the early and mid-season was pretty good for snow and had limited freeze/thaw...March and April had minimal snowfall. And I checked those totals against numbers at our place (2000') when I was up there. I thought they were pretty legit numbers. I actually think they are measured at the base.
With regard to destination/day split of skiers...a very non-scientific study does seem to classify Gore as more of a day trip mountain. I think there were somewhere around 225,000 skier visits last year. If there were 100+ ski days you'd be putting up 2000+ people a night in the area. I don't see that the room inventory for that. Even if you include Indian Lake and Chestertown etc.
One thing I really like about Gore...I can't really imagine the whole mountain in my mind at once....there are so many nooks and cranies...if the whole mountain is open (and that's a big if midweek)....there is a lot and official and unofficial lift served terrain. I don't have a lot of experience at other mountains, but to me Gore has a lot to ski for what some consider a second or third tier mountain.
x10003q
Active member
Thanks for reminding me of the steepness site. I forgot I had it in my favorites. There is one line in your quote I want to focus on:
"I was merely pointing out that the Catskills have so much to offer that it's a shame some people blow past the region on their way north."
I hate blowing past the Catskills. It angers me when you come around a bend on the Thruway between exits 18 and 19 and you see the 4000 foot peaks of the Catskills and you know you still have a couple of hours of driving left. Somehow the only ski areas that have developed are 1100-1600 verticals with a max acreage of 267 acres (Windham). With the exception of Plattekill, the glades at the other 3 (Hunter, Windham, Belleayre) are more miss than hit. For me these places need more trails and if possible more vertical. Hunter cut that long liftline on the west side maybe 20 years ago. What happened? Did the Slutzkys piss off the DEP in NYS so much that they can never expand? About 5-7 years ago there was a Hunter expansion map on the internet. Was that just a wish? Lazlo Vajtay does a great job at Plattekill. He owns the much of the back side of the mountain. He cannot develop it just from the mountain's cash flow so he continues to run a tight ship that is mostly open Fri-Sun and holidays. Plattekill is awesome. It takes me about 2 to 2:15 to get to the mountain and the last 1 hour plus are 2 lanes of towns and lights. But in an easy 3 hour drive I can get to Gore with its claimed 400 acres. I do not know if this includes the marked glades and there are plenty of unmarked glades that are not included.
There is a huge mountain past Hunter called Bearpen Mountain. It was a ski area in the 1950s called Princeton Ski Bowl with 1900 vert feet. Here is a link to some info:http://skikabbalah.com/lostNY/BEARPEN STORY.htm
This could have set the standard that others could shoot for and maybe the Catskills would have been a mecca for eastern skiing instead of mostly day areas for the NYC metro region.
As I have indicated I enjoy the Catskills. There is just not enough to hold my attention for the 7 to 10 weekends I ski each season plus the occasional midweek fun. We all make our decsions on many factors. As much as I enjoy Gore I certainly would rather be skiing Sugarbush and MRG on those weekends, but a 5-6 hour drive is out of the question.
Maybe if I was 5 hours form Gore I would be a regular at Hunter.:smile:
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Only been once and on an incredibly horrible day conditions-wise (read: frozen granular). Definitely looks like there is some fun skiing, especially the lift lines. Will have to try and re-visit after a dump, and it does seem like sometimes Gore is in the bullseye. Problem is at a 3 hour drive, I could be at Magic in less time and Killington in the same amount of time. Still, would like to get back for something different eventually though.
ta&idaho
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Wow...quite the blog. I've spent most of my morning poking around and checking out the Gore pics. Love your little cabin: http://harvey44.blogspot.com/2008/10/cabin-in-north-river.html
Time to get some work done...
legalskier
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So what could have been the largest ski area in the Catskills was destroyed by a defective title...but only after the true land owner slept on his rights for years while many worked so hard to build up a remarkable destination. Ben Lane, the young ski entrepreneur, believed he had taken good title from record owners who evidently had the imprimatur of the State of New York, only to watch his dream slip through his fingers in a court of law of the State of New York. (He also lost his father to the mountain.) One wonders whether the trial focused on a claim of adverse possession, why he lost, and why he and Goff couldn’t have come to an amicable settlement that kept the ski area alive. What a sad story–both for him and the skiing industry in the Catskills. Thanks for the link.
Incidentally, there was a claim of adverse possession recently established in Pennsylvania against owners who slept on their rights. Unlike Goff and Bearpen Mountain, they lost their land:
Couple loses land to squatter's rights law
The Standard Speaker ^ | October 5, 2009 | JIM DINO
Posted on Monday, October 05, 2009 7:34:30 PM by Daffynition
If you own a piece of property, it's a good idea to know what is going on there. If you don't, you could end up losing it. A Valley woman can attest.
The woman and her husband purchased a large parcel of land a few miles away from their home as an investment, and sort of forgot about it. Meanwhile, a neighbor to the land used it for 21 years and then claimed ownership, using the old "squatter's rights" law in Pennsylvania. "We purchased it in the 1970s, as an investment," the woman said. "We paid the taxes on it every year, but never looked at it. We thought, who is going to steal it? It's land. You can't put it on a flatbed and haul it away." Also, the neighbors of the land were friends of the couple. "These were people we knew all of our lives," she said. "We were not aware what was going on with the land." When the couple decided to sell the parcel to raise money for their four children, they discovered the plight of the land. "We had a buyer, so we hired a surveyor," she said. "That's how we found out about it. When we hired the surveyor, we got served with papers that (the neighbors) had put in a claim." Then, lawyers for both sides began to negotiate and the result was that the neighbors ended up with 55 percent, the lawyer for the couple 25 percent and 20 percent for the couple. "Hopefully, we can still sell it," she said. "One of the reasons we didn't keep up with what was going on there was that the land was off then beaten path. The land was a few miles away from our house. And the land was landlocked. We went out to see it, and it was a very bumpy ride "
But the woman wanted to use her unpleasant experience to educate others. "It's just not ethical," she said. "I wouldn't do that to somebody. It's so much like stealing. (The neighbors) didn't pay the taxes on it, nor did they have the deed. We paid the taxes on it, all those years. I think people should be made aware that this law exists," she continued. "I don't want to see this happen to someone else. We should teach children in school skills they will need to live, like how to balance a checkbook and how the stock market works. We should also teach them about the law."
The law is called adverse possession, and what happened to the woman is relatively common across the United States, according to attorney William Hoffmeyer, of the Hoffmeyer & Semmelman law firm of York, experts in land law. Hoffmeyer said any neighbor who permits use of their land for 21 years can lose the land to the person using it. Hoffmeyer said the law arose when Pennsylvania was being settled by William Penn. "It started when land was going to waste," Hoffmeyer said. "The law was created so that if someone else could use the land, they got it." Hoffmeyer said there are four key concepts for someone to claim, or lose, adverse possession. "Those words are open, notorious, hostile and visible," he said. "Open means if someone is doing something with the land right out in the open and not hiding it," Hoffmeyer said. "Notorious is if anybody knows what is happening on the land. Visible means one can see what is being done with the land, and hostile means what is being done with the land is against the rights of the true owner." There are some ways to fight the law. Hoffmeyer said. "If the landowner could take action to eliminate any of those words," he said. "For instance, to eliminate hostile, the landowner can take specific legal action against the user. They can tell them they are no longer permitted to use the land, and if they continue to do so, a trespass action will be filed against them. Or a court injunction could be filed, that forbids the people on the land." Hoffmeyer said he encounters many cases of adverse possession in his daily practice. "We see it quite a bit," he said. "It happens many times with people who inherit land from their parents. They don't live anywhere close to the property, so have no idea what is going on there. Out of loyalty to their parents, they pay the taxes on it every year, but never look at the property until they discover a neighbor is trying to take it from them. "It also happens when neighbors around a property inch over a boundary line," Hoffmeyer continued. "A less-than-desirable neighbor may mow the lawn over the line; or plant trees, flowers or shrubbery over the line, or install a fence over the line." It is up to the property owner to monitor such activity, and stop it as soon as he or she learns it is happening, Hoffmeyer said. "You can write a letter to the neighbors, telling them they are trespassing," he said. "In the letter, you tell them if they don't cease and desist, you will initiate a trespassing action against them." Hoffmeyer said in one case, a landowner who had sold land around him noticed his new neighbors were moving in - literally - toward him. "The landowner sent the neighbors a letter which stated they all acknowledged and understood they were not acquiring ownership of the land, but were being permitted to use it," Hoffmeyer said. "They were also told they had to assume the liability for the property they are using."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2355560/posts
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