Hunter Mountain, NY ― Backcountry Skiing in the Catskills

I'm not 100% sure what's ahead of us. I did a little bit of research on the trail that I want to do today. One third of it is up the Hunter Ski Resort but the rest of it is on the ridge going towards the summit of Hunter Mountain. It's about seven kilometers. I tried to find if anybody has done it on skis before but there is no information. Ski touring is not big in this area so we're actually quite south. I don't know how much snow is gonna be up there or if the trail is actually skiable. I have some other ideas how to get back down. We're gonna go into the unknown. We are at the top of Hunter Resort. I think it's called Colonel's Chair. It took about an hour. The snow was really good. Weather was pretty good. The resort people were very friendly. We have about two thirds of the trail still ahead of us. It's hard to tell what it's gonna be like. So I think it's a hiking trail. There was a lot of snow lately coming in. So this trail here says it's closed but I'm gonna cross it anyway because I'm trying to get all the way up there. It seems they don't let us get inside of the top of the tower to check out the view. We are at the top of Hunter. It took about three hours to get up here with all the photo taking and videos. Not too bad. Anyway very pretty. Go back to the resort. There's a bunch of friends waiting so I'm gonna ski with them for the rest of the day. So I'm back to the resort now. It took about three hours to get to the top and only one hour to get back down. My original idea was actually try to go through the ravine, go through the woods down there but there is about a foot and a half or a foot of fresh snow on top of it. It's also crusty in those tight spaces. It was a lot harder to get on top of the skis as it is. So I had my hands full. I didn't even make any video on the way down. It was quite challenging. Anyway I'm back. It was pretty good. I don't know if I'm gonna do it again but if anybody is interested in trying one tip I would have is on the way down keep your skins on. You can still ski with them. It's gonna slow you down on the on the steep pitches and there's a lot of cross country that you'll have to handle. There's a lot of flat areas so if you take your skins off at the top hoping that you're gonna be able to ski most of it then it's gonna be very hard unpleasant. Anyway good day.