• Welcome to AlpineZone, the largest online community of skiers and snowboarders in the Northeast!

    You may have to REGISTER before you can post. Registering is FREE, gets rid of the majority of advertisements, and lets you participate in giveaways and other AlpineZone events!

Hunter 3/21/09

ta&idaho

New member
Joined
Dec 11, 2006
Messages
639
Points
0
Location
Washington, DC
Date(s) Skied: Saturday, March 21, 2009

Resort or Ski Area: Hunter Mountain, New York

Conditions: frozen hard in the morning; nicely slushed in the afternoon

Trip Report:

Took the bus to Hunter today. Things had set up pretty hard overnight, so I took it easy most of the morning. Beautiful bluebird skies and rapidly warming temps quickly brought out the slushy goodness, though, and from about 11:30 on the conditions were about as good as you could expect from the Catskills in late March.

Here's a view of the valley from the top of Cliff:

cliff_1.jpg


The snow--most of which wasn't exactly heavenly to begin with--is starting to get a little worked over, but Hunter still has a huge base of it on most of the major trails.

Biggest coverage issue is getting to to the east side trails (Minya/East Side Drive/Lower K 27), as Upper K is almost done and there's a growing bare spot at the top of Minya:

minya_coverage.jpg


For the most part, though, the coverage was great, with plenty of snow piled up near the fences on Hellgate and Cliff:

cliff_coverage.jpg


Lower K 27 is a fun little run (the only previous trip when it had been open it was deadly ice bumps), and pretty darn steep at the top:

k_27.jpg


Upper Crossover has some BUMPS that pretty much had my number:

crossover_1.jpg


Hunter has more appeal to me in December--when its snowmaking prowess and my early-season eagerness make it easy to forgive its faults--but its also a pretty fun place to spend a day in the late Spring. Definitely plenty more skiing to be had up there this season...
 
Last edited:
Top