Gore Mountain, NY 03/20/11

jamesdeluxe

Administrator
I've been waiting all season to visit recently reopened Big Tupper in the northern ADKs, so I left my house at 4:30 am and girded my loins for a 5+-hour trip. But when I arrived at North Creek around 8:30, BT's website was only showing 11 trails open and it didn't make sense driving another 1:45 for that, so I detoured to Gore.

I hadn't skied Gore since 2002, and the mountain has -- as far as I can see -- added a lot of terrain and associate infrastructure since then. If you spend time on Harv's site, a decent amount of the forum posts are about Gore, and to be completely honest, I (Jason too) was getting overloaded/fatigued by the sheer amount of information provided by locals and/or season pass holders, similar to the situation here with LCC. Great if you want to know EVERYTHING viewed from every possible angle (including official and non-official names for every glade, rock, tree, and shrub on the mountain), but to a casual observer, sometimes a bit overwhelming.

I started by parking at the revived North Creek Ski Bowl/aka "Little Gore," which had a whopping 12 cars there:
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Since the ski bowl is lower than the rest of the mountain and faces east(?), it was already in prime spring condition when I got on the lift at 9:45. I was by myself, so no decent in-action shots:
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The trees there (to the left and right of the 46er trail under the lift) were ready to go by 11 am:
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Then I crossed over to the main mountain and rode the Burnt Ridge quad, which has two nice cruisers off it, along with some long glade shots.
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People often complain that Gore is disjointed with many different trail pods -- i.e. you can't really ski the mountain's advertised 2,500-ish verts, or you can, but it's a bit misleading. However, the good thing about that kind of hill is that it a) spreads people out and leaves certain places overlooked by the hordes, and b) provides a bunch of different facets, which works out well on a spring day like yesterday.

Today, I'm heading over to Gore's polar opposite, Whiteface. What was originally forecast as a wintry mix may turn into five inches of fresh snow today.
[-o<
 
You should be in phat city up at Whiteface. Looks like at least 5" of snow for today.

Sorry I didn't see you at Gore yesterday. You picked a great day to go there.
 
James - glad the audible, and all that went with it, worked out for you.

jamesdeluxe":2u7m5nm5 said:
People often complain that Gore is disjointed with many different trail pods -- i.e. you can't really ski the mountain's advertised 2,500-ish verts, or you can, but it's a bit misleading. However, the good thing about that kind of hill is that it a) spreads people out and leaves certain places overlooked by the hordes, and b) provides a bunch of different facets, which works out well on a spring day like yesterday.

Saturday I skied Gore and it was a very similar day to Sunday. Upper 20s at opening, climbing into the 40s, and sunny.

With regard to vertical - you're pointing out something that I never considered before.

It's common to hear people say "Oh yea they've got XYZ feet of vertical, but you can't use it all."

I never really cared about 1500 foot runs or whatever the goal is. But I realized this weekend another advantage of having a large vert. You have more choice with regard to elevation you ski.

I'm done with all this whining about the interconnect. It's too hard to get to, blah blah. Gore delivered a great weekend of skiing below 2800 feet. Terrain above 3000 was OK but not nearly as much fun. All that new terrain, including the much maligned Sagamore, was key. The whining is actually great because that terrain was almost deserted.

Tomorrow could be the day at Whiteface, if wind cooperates.
 
Powderqueen":ixhdhtx8 said:
Sorry I didn't see you at Gore yesterday.
Last night, Harv asked me if I ran into you. While Gore isn't the size of Whistler or even Killington, with seven different terrain pods it's hardly a given that you'll eventually run into someone there, especially on a busy weekend.
 
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