Meathead East Coast Skiing Adventure Movies & Films

With the unforgettable trip to the Tug Hill Plateau in 2007 fresh in our minds, the Meatcrew returned this January to the region to taste what Lake Ontario had to offer.

Our first trip in mid January had the weather calling for 2-3 ft. around Turin, NY, home of Snowridge ski resort for the uninformed.  After gathering the crew of Tony Rossi, Ben Leoni and Head For The Hills All-star Erik Olson, we piled into a crowded hotel over Martin Luther King weekend to see what the storm would bring.  As expected with lake effect snow, you never quite know where the hell it's going to fall and Snowridge only got about 6 inches whereas westward about 1 hour drive got over 30 inches! 

Actually our first morning at Snowridge was moderately productive, considering the low 24 hr. snowfall.  The resort had already received 13ft. for the season so coverage was great.  A few runs through the woods with the locals and much of the steeps were played out.  

Driving to the west (closer to the lake) we found really nice snow at some old secret stomping grounds and everyone got some shots.  Back to the sledneck hotel... there must have been 200 snowmobiles in the parking lot... and a good nights rest after some ridiculously cheesy pizza. 

Next day was a exploratory mission into the unknown in a river bed up north of Turin.  Only took about 4 hours but we managed to find a way from the trail down into the river basin where all the skiing was.  Luckily we had some rope with us and a short rappel down gave us access to the goods.  With light fading fast we filmed as much of the steep river banks as we could and vowed to return again soon.

Our third and last day was a short drive down to Pixley Falls State Park where we did some roadside scouting for lines.  Without seeing too much we decided to just wing it, parked the cars, and started hiking up a ridge.  As luck would have it there was some really steep terrain up there and the skiers got some unique shots with film vantage points from opposing river gulleys.

 

After a brief hiatus out in Colorado for the Powder Video Awards (congrats to Will Wesson for "Best Jib" winner in Head For the Hills!) our first business upon returning was another quick trip back to the Tug Hill region...

Slightly different crew this time of Rooster, Erik, Pat Colbourn, and myself.  Early Saturday morning drive (left at 5 a.m.) got us to the Tug around 11.  We immediately went back to some familiar spots to reshoot a few lines.  40 more inches had fallen since 2 weeks before so the snow was fresh and deep and got some back flips and pillow hoppin down.

Found a much cheaper hotel than the first trip, Scottish Inns in case you're interested, and grabbed grub at a local Italian joint.  2nd day was calling for warming temps so we made it back into the river basin north of Turin early and knew right where to go for the rappel.  Spent the whole day along the river shooting lots of lines that we had seen on the previous trip.  The snow was super stable in most of the open areas but the woods were mad sketchy.  Rooster and Pat set off a 3 ft. crown avy in the middle of one steep woods section.  Pretty crazy, but the slide didn't touch anyone, and we were all wearing our beacons (shovel/ probe) for safety.  Just a testament to how much snow the Tug Hill receives!

Temps rose into the 40's by the end of the day, the snow was beginning to really thicken.  We banged out a few more shots in the fading sunlight and bounced back to Burlington while listening to the Superbowl on AM radio.  The Tug Hill never fails to deliver an adventurous trip and insane amounts of snow.  Huge thanks to JohnF from SkiTheEast.net and Snowridge Resort for helping us out!