Snovember | November 20th-22nd, 2016
More early season snow storms calls for more play-on-words. With the foliage well past peak, early sunsets, and cold temperatures that stayed above freezing, it's been that time of the year where there's little to do. This all changed when we saw a huge November storm coming in. Just like every storm I saw predictions ranging from a few inches to two feet of snow in the mountains.
For day one of the storm Dave and I went to Whiteface Mountain to see if we could find some fresh snow they were boasting about on their social media. Aside from a few heavily wind drifted spots, we found that they were fluffing a bit. After a freezing and windy ascent filled with snow guns blasting us head on, we maneuvered our way down around the rocks and managed to get some a few powdery turns in.
For day two of the storm, we didn't have as much time thanks to classes but we still got out there and went to a small ski hill in Saranac Lake called Mt. Pisgah. Despite limited vertical drop or a steep slope, there was tons of snow so after a few deep turns we built a booter and had a quick session on it before the sun went down.
Photo by Matt Daley
Photo by Matt Daley
For the final day of the storm Dale and I made it over to Jay Peak, Vermont where I seemed like the storm hit the hardest. We were not disappointed. We pulled into the parking lot to find a few other skiers and boarders skinning or bootpacking up the mountain as well. The snow was still coming down on our way up. It looked like the areas where the wind was pushing the snow to would ski very well. This was definitely the deepest and steepest skiing I was able to get in during this storm. It's exciting that this season is off to such a great start. With six days under my belt already, I'm looking forward to getting some lift serviced days in.