With all the superb reviews which have been posted right here this season, my spouse and I had been hoping that our four-day journey to Syracuse is perhaps an excellent alternative to attain a few of the upstate powder we’d been seeing on TV.
A sobering weekend forecast took that off the desk and whereas driving north from New Jersey underneath gloomy skies, it seemed like we had been lined up for a kind of “at the least we’re snowboarding” type of days.
However virtually on cue, our luck modified whereas crossing the state line into New York’s Southern Tier. The clouds parted, the solar got here out, and by the point we pulled into Greek Peak round 10 am, it was pushing 40 levels with deep blue skies above.
As a Central New York native, I do know that these kinds of days don’t occur usually in winter, which made us really feel like we’d gotten a late Christmas reward.
Strolling towards the bottom lodge, I began ticking by means of an entire listing of firsts that had been on the docket. It was my first journey upstate since my mom moved out of the world 5 years in the past (I forgot how a lot I really like the open rural landscapes). It was our first ski day this season, greater than a month not on time).
It was additionally the primary time that we’d be utilizing Indy Passes. How nice is it to solely ski the locations that haven’t been absorbed into the mega-pass empire? Lastly, it was the primary time my spouse and I had skied collectively since earlier than the pandemic. Exhausting to imagine given how a lot we take pleasure in it.
I counted possibly 75 automobiles within the car parking zone; nonetheless, as soon as we obtained booted up and on the hill, it felt like a non-public ski space. We bumped into nearly nobody on the paths or on the lifts. The solar and delicate temperature had turned the quilt into gentle springlike sugar and I ducked into a few glades that held surprisingly first rate cowl. Greek’s 900 ft of vertical had been greater than sufficient for our out-of-shape legs.
The was additionally the primary time I’d been to Greek Peak in 16 years — lengthy sufficient for me to see that some issues had modified considerably whereas others hadn’t modified in any respect. Since my earlier visits within the 2000s, I knew that Greek has leaned arduous into changing into four-season operation with various destination-resort extras; nonetheless, it’s wrapped round a ski space that’s nonetheless very old-school at coronary heart.
Whereas fixed-grip chairs from the ’60s and ’70s are nonetheless doing the vast majority of the uphill transport, Greek has added plenty of snowmaking firepower in recent times, which confirmed on a day when protection was much better than the forecast steered. The bottom lodge downstairs feels roughly frozen in time, however upstairs the roomy Trax Pub provides a snug place to loosen up, with a strong beer choice and good meals.
With empty slopes, gentle snow, and no stress to chase circumstances or rack up vert, the day unfolded at a simple tempo. It wasn’t the powder day we’d imagined a couple of weeks earlier, nevertheless it turned out to be a terrific — if belated — first day again on snow.
