newjerseynewsroom.com

BY BOB WILLIAMS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

SKIING AND SNOWBOARDING

NORTH CREEK, N.Y. – Like most ski areas in the Northeast, Gore Mountain here in the Adirondack foothills is awaking from its long summer sleep, so to speak, flexing its operational muscles and preparing for yet another ski season.

And because Mother Nature last winter rewarded Gore with an overabundance of snow – and an uptick in skier visits that usually follows such an overabundance of snow – Gore, like many of its sister ski resorts here in the East, quietly moved ahead with expansion plans through the spring, summer and fall months.

Today, 160 snowguns, many of them new this season, blaze across nearly all of the resort’s 95 downhill trails, 21 glades and five freestyle areas. What’s more, Gore now offers its skiing and snowboarding guests access to Burnt Ridge Mountain, which is a massive new glade serving as a connection to the adjacent historic North Creek Ski Bowl.

And a new snow train kicks off operation next week to transport skiers here from Saratoga Springs to the south.

“The state leaders obviously see Gore as a mountain on the move,” explains Emily Stanton, Gore’s marketing manager. “Apparently we’ve made all the right investments in snowmaking and expansion at the right time.”

Gore (www.goremountain.com) is one of three New York State ski resorts that the state has a hand in operating. The Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA), a state agency, operates Gore and Whiteface in nearby Lake Placid, while the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation operates Belleayre in the Catskill Mountains.

All three ski resorts suffered budget cuts in the past year, a sign of the economic times, according to Ms. Stanton. However, she adds, none of the cuts affected daily operations.

“State leaders realize the economic impact a ski area has on surrounding lodging, dining and retail,” Stanton says. “So we continue to provide recreation as we continue to grow.”

Gore sports a vertical elevation of 2,537 feet, making its peaks higher than Mount Tremblant (2,116 vertical feet) and Mont-Sainte Anne (2,050) in Canada, Sunday River (2,340) in Maine and Mount Snow (1,700) in Vermont. Its elevation makes Gore the sixth greatest vertical drop in the East.

Gore registered 250,000 skier visits last season, slightly ahead of the previous season.

Engineers last year developed Burnt Ridge Mountain, an unused area adjacent to the main ski slopes. By cutting and grooming a massive glade and adding trails and lifts, Gore not only developed Burnt Ridge but made a connection to the nearby North Creek Ski Bowl, heretofore separated from Gore.

North Creek sports a handful of runs, a few halfpipes for snowboarders, tubing chutes and its own base lodge, all running off Little Gore Mountain, which has a 1,900-foot elevation.

Interestingly, Gore’s increase in the use of man-made snow comes quite easily, according to Stanton.

“We don’t have to worry about a reservoir for our water supply, as most ski areas do,” she explains, “because we pump water directly from the Hudson River adjacent to the slopes. With this endless supply of water, we don’t have to worry about snowmaking restrictions. So we added even more snow guns for this season.”

Stanton points out that the snowmaking procedure is even a green one, because water taken from the Hudson in winter eventually runs back into the river during spring thaws, just in time for white water rafting, boating and other river recreational activities that use the Hudson as a centerpiece.