Queen of the Catskills

Skiing Twin Mountain (22/33) I met my friends Mendy and Lena at the Prediger Road parking lot where they joined me in a pre-tour IPA. The universe (and Windham’s Saturday Night Lights events) have helped me find a couple of women who love feats of endurance, backcountry skiing, and IPAs just as much as I do. Not an easy thing to find in the Catskills. There are some bare spots on the way to the junction, but we were able to make our way around them. There was better coverage as we ascended the blue trail to Jimmy Dolan Notch. We cut some tracks on skier’s right to make life easier and I was struck by how the time seemed to fly by. We decided to have a break and take in the views at the notch, which is one of my favorite spots in the Catskills.  The skin up and ski down the summit was Catskills backcountry skiing in all its messy glory, navigating ledges and jutting rocks, but we absolutely loved it. We managed to keep skis on our feet the entire way down through some creative metho...

Skiing Plateau via Warner Creek Trail (21/33) I can’t stress enough the importance of hiking peaks before you ski them—preferably from all the routes that get you to the summit. This past summer, I hiked Plateau from Warner Creek as part of the All Trails challenge and immediately thought to myself that this could be a very skiable route. I started with my friend Mendy a little after 9. It was pretty bony at the start, maybe a few inches on the ground of crusty snow. I wasn’t exactly mad at the crust because it allowed me to stay on top of the snow and prevented my bases from getting destroyed. I assumed that as I climbed, the snow would get deeper, but I was wrong.  Apparently, even the higher elevations got a big ice storm Wednesday. The tree trunks were glistening and coated, and at times it made traction a bit of an issue. However, some light snow fell creating dust on crust which made things easier on the way down. This tour was a total of almost 12 miles and took about 9 hour...