I just got home from the final leg of an extended Christmas family visits trip.  This was seeing my sister in Rochester, NY.  The NY State Thruway (I-90) was closed for about 100 miles for nearly 2 days, from just S of Rochester to the PA line.  The problem there was massive lake effect snow off Erie.  The Lee side of Ontario was supposed to be getting even bigger Lake Effect, 5-7 feet in intense bands between Syracuse and Watertown.  I was 1 day delayed leaving for home anyway and on the second day decided to see if I could get to Snow Ridge in Turin, NY.  Know where that is?  Didn't think so, nobody does.  It's in the middle of nowhere.  That's one of the things that makes it special.  The other is the reliable powder that hits the Tug Hill plateau coming off Ontario.  The good news is that I could get there.  The bad news is that they got skunked on the 5-7 feet, Watertown got that.  They claimed 15", I think it was more like 10. Nevertheless it was light and silky smooth, unless you ticked the old hard bottom which happened every 10th turn or so, and there were perhaps 100 people there to share it.  Unlike the mid A, they left almost all of it ungroomed.  I got uncut snow on at least part of every run.  The trick was to simply go far skiers right and accept a long trudge back to the one operating lift.  And oh, by the way, my senior lift ticket cost $16.

I know where it is - but then again I grew up in upstate.  A bunch of my friends learned to ski there.  I normally gets hammered by snow and the typical pattern has Turin/Lowville area getting way more than Watertown.  Too bad, at least you can check Snow Ridge off your list.

It was darn good.  I had a lot of fun, just it's hard to live up to the dream of 5-7 feet.  The area is skied mostly by locals and has very active kids programs.  Lots of families with little kids.  I am especially fond of ski areas like this.

i had walked perhaps 50 feet from my car toward the lodge when I ran into my friend Sharon who lives in Ithaca and joined me for a couple days in Montana last year.  We were probably #s 1 and 2 on the list of who came from the greatest distance that day.