Thanks for replies, Cfrac and Rickster.

Now that I think of it, there are some great steep slabs to the west of the parking area in Peterskill down to the falls, I bet it would be a great ski run.

I'm hitting Belle tomorrow, hoping the woods are in good shape.

Nice touch with the couple of bloopers at the end.

Welle, Belle was near stellar today. The very few freshies they got since the sleet covered a nicely groomed surface. The corduroy was really nice. The trees and bumps on the other hand, difficult. There appeared to be lots of traffic in those areas, but what laid beneath that skim of powder were frozen ruts, tracks, craters, sitz marks, etc. So, after a few token shots at the glade trails, we bagged that and played the groomers.

I'm afraid unless you ski some very wide fatties, or weigh less than a haul bag, the crust now covering the off trail snowpack is just so wrong for any safe BC skiing. Tomorrow's weather may help alot in covering his crust, or.... either way, enjoy.

Regarding the bloopers, just honest journalism. They were far funnier when they happened.

Belle was fun yesterday - the abovetold crust nicely softened by mid-morning and all trees and bumps were soft and fun all day. The cliffed trail under the Tomahawk chair had a really good coverage. Got soaking wet in the afternoon and the visibility got close to nill, but the snow was great and Belle's moguls are the most uniform and consistent bumps I've seen in Catskills. The only drawback to the day was that my friend lost his car key somewhere in the snow, so we had to take a bus back to NYC.

Welle, that sucks about the lost key!
We had possibly the worst conditions I have ever skied yesterday. We thought that the afternoon sun would warm up the slopes at Beacon...but it didn't. We skinned up to the fire tower, which was really nice, but the ride down was terrible, mostly breakable crust and fast. Jen eventually put on her skins. I just kept crashing. It's a great trail though with plenty of open woods, hope we can make it back once things soften up for real.

From the firetower...

Went to Mt Graylock two weekends ago before the rain - super classic bc skiing. I did the Thunderbolt trail, 2 mile skin up on packed powder with about 3 inches of powder on top. Highly recommended. There is a website with history and directions.

I skinned up onto the roof yesterday, cut the cornice, tossed an M80, got out my old Chouinard Northwall Hammers and cleared the load before it avamalanched onto the dogs, the wife or me. The crust here at my house is now strong enough, the deer herd is now walking effortlessly on top.

When I took my avy course, I forget the exact statistics, but I was told that the disproportional majority of all avalanches are actually roof slides.

Cfrac, thanks for the tip on Beacon - will check it out later. Good news is my friend found a spare key and got his car and my board back from Belleayre!

Off to Slide Mtn today. I haven't been on Slide in a long number of years. The Red Trail (off of the main Yellow Trail) has grown in considerably up high, gotten narrow as a result. The glades on skier's left below the hairpin turn offer about a mile of fine glade shots alway down that aspect to the Yellow Trail. Take a right turn and follow to the car or drop off the trail on skier's left, and bearing right and down you'll come back to the PA making more than two thirds of the return a series of glades. With more flurries tomorrow, they'll be good freshies over solid base. Get it while you can before the big thaw.

so how is the thaw affecting the cats? is it as bad as down here in the city? is there any thing to talk about for BC skiing this weekend? how about the resorts?