Hunter 4-7-11

[Ride Delaware ?]

Sorry for the lateness of this TR, as I know that Hunter is now closed for the season, but this is the first chance I had to write it, so here it is.

 

Each year I try to get at least one snowboard trip in with one of my fraternity brothers, and although it was late in the season, our schedules finally linked up, and we decided that $25 tickets at Hunter were too good to pass up. I headed up to his place Wednesday night, crashed in the spare bedroom, and awoke bright and early Thursday morning. We got out of the house around 6:30, hit up the Quick Check to grab breakfast sandwiches and subs for lunch, and hit the road. Traffic on 287 and 87 was pretty light and we made good time. We were kinda afraid since it rained lightly most of the trip up, but it quickly ended close to Exit 20, and by the time we got to Hunter, the precipitation had stopped, there was a slight dusting on the ground, and the sun was coming out. It was just about 40 degrees and we booted up quite comfortably in the lot. I wore most of my new spring shells and was quite warm most of the day. We headed to the lodge, scored our $25 lift tickets, and then headed out to the Catskills coldest 6 pack by 9:30.

 

The farther up the lift we got, the more snow there was. By the time we had reached the peak, there was slightly less than an inch or fresh snow. It would quickly disappear under the spring sun, but it was kinda cool to see a fresh dusting on April 7th. Since my fraternity brother had only been out once so far this year, we decided to head down Belt Parkway for our first run. The primary surface was groomed corduroy, but it was quickly apparent that the consistency was mostly sugar. Belt Parkway was covered side to side with no bare spots. We then decided to head down Hell Gate which had plenty of bumps on the upper portion. We found a line on skiers left with very few bumps and got down to some of the lower trails with relative ease. We then decided to head to the opposite side of the mountain and went down Minya to Crossover. Minya had bumps on skiers left but was groomed on skiers right. Heres a shot from the top of Minya:

 

 

We kept to the right so that we would loop around back down to the quad. Here is a shot at the bottom of crossover where Off Broadway and Gateway intersect:

 

 

Most of Hunter One was closed, as was Hunter West, so we were mostly restricted to everything off of the 6 pack. Overall we had 34 trails to choose from, but it seemed like significantly less. We ended up poaching some of the closed trails, but in typical Hunter fashion, nobody gave a shit. Most of the employees were busy preparing for closing weekend. A bunch of them were at the base of the 6 pack right in front of the lodge wielding chainsaws and digging out the pond for the pond skimming event. After several more runs down Minya, East Side Drive, Kennedy Drive, Hell Gate, Racer's Edge, and Eisenhower Drive, we decided to head off the mountain to get lunch. Most of those trail had bumps with a fair amount of bare spots. It was pretty easy to navigate since there was no ice, but since the bumps were so large, it was tough to see where the bare spots were from bump to bump. In fact, the cutoff from Crossover to Kennedy Drive was only about 2 feet wide at spots and would not make it through the weekend without some snow pushing.

 

We headed off the mountain and ran back to the car to grab the subs we had bought that morning. Since it was sunny and about 55 degrees, we decided to eat outside on the deck. After lunch we headed back up the 6 pack and decided to hit the Cliff which was bumped at the top. After the headwall it got pretty dicey with some bare spots mixed in, but it flattened out quickly and got back to what I was used to. We continued to tour around the open terrain, and at 3 pm after around 20 runs, we decided to call it a day. We headed down Belt Parkway for our last run. I cut up on the lower section of the Racer's Edge headwall and took the picture below. For the second time this season I saw something out of the ordinary (bagpiper at Platty), but I was unable to get it in the picture. They had a snowgun blasting water on the opposite side of the lodge toward Hunter One. Who knows why.

 

 

After walking to the car and packing all our gear back up, I looked up and shot this picture of Eisenhower Drive and Racer's Edge. There are plenty of spring bumps to be had:

 

 

There was some traffic around the 287 87 interchange, but other than that, the drive was pretty quick. We arrived safely in Wharton, NJ around 5:30 and said our goodbyes so I could hit the road and head home.

 

Overall, great day for being April 7th. There were plenty of bumps, which were to be expected, and plenty of bare spots. The coverage was decent for this time of the year, but they definitely decided to call it a season at the right time. They may have been able to keep some trails open past this weekend, but a majority of the mountain would have been shut down. Long story short, it was well wroth the $25 lift ticket. This could be my last day, but shouldn't be. There is a strong chance I'll hit up SB or K-Mart next week if the weather is good. Hopefully I'll have another report then.

[RyanPhillip]

Nice Report. I was up Saturday and your report is spot on. Seemed like the options off the 6 pack were limited and certainly didn't feel like their were 34 trail options. Most of the trails were bump runs, but at least the snow was soft so it didn't suck to ride on a snowboard. There were a ton of barespots though, and it was actually kind of shitty that on Annapurna I got stuck on the left side of the trail when the snow "ran out" and had to traverse over mud and boulders to get back to snow and continue my way down. I figured ski patrol should have marked off that side since conditions were so shitty. Looking back up the trail there were a few others who made the same wrong turn and were stuck also

 

Overall though for $25 bucks it was still worth it to get some nice spring runs. Weather was awesome about 70 degrees all day and the party was absolutely raging from Pond skimming till closing. The party deck under the six pack on Broadway was going pretty good all afternoon with new 30 packs arriving via ski patrol sleds. One patroler was cruising around playing an acoustic guitar and all around everyone was just living it up and having a great time. Down at the base lots of moms dancing to crappy music. Props to Hunter to for keeping the lifts running past their advertised closing time of 4pm. I left around 5:30 and the lifts were still spinning.

[Ride Delaware ?]

Talk about good bumps, Upper K27 was absolutely terrifying... I had to skip that one... Full coverage, almost straight down with tight massive bumps...

[RootDKJ]

The new 6-pack at Hunter is one of the most comfortable lifts I've ever ridden. It's huge compared to Blue's.

[Ride Delaware ?]

Definitely tons of space... There were no liftlines, but I somehow ended up on a lift with 3 other people, and there was a solid 3 to 6 inches spacing between those of us who were sitting directly beside one another... Definitely a huge upgrade to their old quad... It will be interesting to see how many renovations they do to that quad as the begin refurbishing it for the west side...

[RyanPhillip]

The new 6-pack at Hunter is one of the most comfortable lifts I've ever ridden. It's huge compared to Blue's.

 

+1 for comfort