From the desk of Will Wesson:
After some sunny early season skiing at The Canyons in Utah, Andy and I flew home to the east coast in Mid December. We spent the Holidays with our families in Western New York State and skied a couple days at Toggenburg Ski Area with our friend Pat Cowan. It wouldn’t be skiing in NY without some rain and we spent our first day messing around on “sled dogs” or “snow runners(plastic boots with a smooth base to slide on).” Luckily, on our second day at Togg had sunny skies, warm temperatures and the rails were prime.
Next up was our second continental crossing of the year, this time we stopped to ski along the way in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. We’d already driven Andy and Shane’s(camera guy) vehicles across the US to Utah in October, now it was time to cram everyone into my tiny VW Golf. Ian Compton and Jack Borland also joined us in Ian’s Subaru aka “Black Betty.”
On New Years Eve, we packed the cars full and headed to Mad River Mountain near Columbus, Ohio. After 8 hours of driving, we rolled in around 9pm tired, but ready to ski into the next decade. Mad River far and away exceeded every expectation we had for a small mountain in the Ohio. Tons of sick features open till 3am in the morning. Shooting guns on New Year’s Day. Deluxe room and board. All dreams that came true at Mad River Mountain, Ohio.
Next, our journey brought us to Perfect North Slopes Ski Area just over the border from Cincinnati in Indiana. 2010 started off awesome. First Mad River and now Perfect North hooked us up with food and slope side lodging. Literally: We slept in the lodge. Ski Patrol had bunk beds and once we got over the initial fish-food smell of the place we all got six hours of much needed rest. (Except for Jack who had to sleep out on the medical cots and was woken up very early the next morning) I’d seen edits and videos from Perfect North in the past and I was pretty pumped to finally ski there. Countless runs were taken in with one of the fastest laps of any park I’d ever skied. We also had some fun on fresh snow making mounds around the mountain.
Huge thanks to Nick at Toggenburg, Josh at Mad River, and Ellen at Perfect North Slopes!