BLUEBIRD DAY AT ONE OF NEW YORK’S BEST T-BAR SKI HILLS

Today was a gorgeous day in northern New York. The sun was out, and at least where I was skiing, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I’ve got a huge week of skiing planned, and I thought about taking the day off to rest up for it, but today is February 1. That may seem insignificant, but I took February 1 off last year from skiing. The next day, while skiing at Sugarbush, I broke six ribs, so this morning I decided we were starting February 2026 on a different note by going skiing.

Riding the Poma.

Orchard.

I skied at Beartown Ski Area outside of Plattsburgh, New York. For those not familiar with this ski area, it’s a non-profit hill with 150 ft. of vertical, a Poma, a T-Bar, a handful of downhill ski trails and a couple miles of cross-country ski trails. It may be small, but this place has a lot of character and charm. The skiing is good, too! It’s definitely a ski area worth checking out if you’ve never done so.

T-Bar.

North Slope.

Main Slope.

They were spinning both the Poma and the T-Bar today. All of the terrain was open, though when I got there they had racing going on off the Poma lift. I’m not sure if the run was closed, but either way, racing eventually wrapped up and I skied that run a few times. It was fairly busy on the hill, but the only run that was really busy was the Main Slope, which is right next to the T-Bar. The other runs were quieter. Despite a decent crowd, the line for the T-Bar was pretty short. I’d say it was probably around 30 seconds, and never more than a minute.

North Slope Trails.

North Slope Trails.

The snow quality was excellent. There was packed powder everywhere. I’ve been to Beartown a number of times, and I thought I'd skied all of the runs, but today I saw some tracks leading in to the trees in the North Slope Trails area. I went in, and what do you know, there was a very narrow trail through the trees in there. It had been groomed, too. It was an interesting run, and I actually got a decent amount of speed near the very bottom of it. Looking at a map of the ski area, it appears there may even be another trail to the left of this one. I’ll have to check next time.

As mentioned, I’ve got a big ski week planned. Tomorrow I’ll be skiing in Vermont, probably, but later this week I’m planning to ski in New Hampshire and Maine.

Never Quit Skiing,

Lincoln