Ski Butternut, Otis Ridge creating a big, happy skiing family following mountain purchase

As I drive the 90 minutes south from Mount Snow on a Friday afternoon — contact lenses practically fused to my pupils, sucking on the remnant grounds of the morning's coffee and housing the one dud clementine from a baggie of Halos — I'm curious about just one thing: When is the next powder day coming?

More realistically, I'm just rehashing the epic Founders Day at Mount Snow. I met up with a friend from college who is an advanced skier, and we took the day to sacrifice ourselves to the gods of Southern Vermont powder. Founders Day there is hands-down the best deal you'll find in New England all winter. A top 20 vertical drop (1,700 feet) with top 10 skiable acreage (600) in the region, and all for $14 on a — bless you, Pope Gregory XIII — week day. As my bargain-hunting grandmother always says, "How can you go wrong?"

Well, Grammy, you can't.

However, I will recommend diversifying your shred group for days like this. Caela and I hopped into the lift line around 10:30 a.m. and finished our last run around 3:45 p.m. In between was around 15 runs with no water, snack or bathroom breaks. The terrain was so good and so craved, as that shredmama Dory once sang, "just keep shredding, just keep shredding."

Though now the cravings have shifted to an ice bath, so as always, Mother Nature wins and it's never a bad idea to have someone there to suggest a lodge visit now and then.

Anyway, on to the column.

Since we're bi-weekly here at the Powder Report headquarters, we missed out on relaying opening day stories at Ski Butternut down in Great Barrington last weekend.

This column can be read in its entirety on The Berkshire Eagle website, or reach out to me directly for a complete copy.

Getting stoked for race season with Bousquet's Nico, Berkshire Outfitters' Schyler

White powder brings excitement, plain and simple.

We're not talking Henry Hill here, though, we're talking that nice 8-10 inch blanketing Old Man Winter delivered towards the end of a rainy, dreary week.

Can you feel it?

Everyone I've spoken to this week is psyched, aside from the wife who bit it on the front stoop of our new house before throwing down enough rocksalt to dry up the freshly-dug reservoir atop Jiminy Peak.

The Nordic coaches who spoke with our new sports department member Jake Mendel this week were ecstatic to get their skiers on snow this early in the preseason.

The Taconic alpine team members fundraising outside Guido's, a Patrick Mahomes' stone's throw from where they'll compete this winter at Bousquet were amped.

All the folks I shared chairlift rides with at Jiminy on Friday sported giant smiles under their multiclavas and goggles.

I spent much of the week tracking down sources and writing a backcountry skiing story for UpCountry magazine, which you'll get an excerpt of shortly. I pulled up to Berkshire Outfitters to chat with Josh Chittenden during the early part of the week's snowfall. I spun around in it after closing my car door and was greeted by a wise-looking white husky named Schyler, who was just about as happy as any dog I've seen in the snow this side of Bousquet's samoyed Nico.

This column can be read in its entirety on The Berkshire Eagle website, or reach out to me directly for a complete copy.

Gearing up for opening day at Jiminy Peak with some locally-sourced gear

ou know the feeling. You're at a mall with a million errands to run, wondering how long it will take to pay off that new sofa. Maybe your significant other is taking forever to try on clothes in a store you're super uncomfortable standing in.

You walk into a Best Buy, wander over to the audio section and try on those absurdly overpriced name-brand headphones with noise-canceling. Suddenly your brain goes blank. It's almost scary at first, you can't immediately recall where you are, how you got there or what your name is. What is a name?

That's the first lift ride of the season at Jiminy Peak Saturday morning.

Keep you 'pitchers and catchers,' 'truck day,' and April 1. Give me Nov. 17 a day after five inches of fresh pow graced the northeast and rung in ski season in the Berkshires.

While I missed first chair by about five minutes, I caught you lucky three who were the first to tame the courds in southern New England this season, but I managed to hop on the Berkshire Express around 9:10 a.m., and oh was it glorious. Overcast day, temperatures hovering in the high 30s, just crisp enough to calm the senses, but not brick enough to fear exposing skin.

This column can be read in its entirety on The Berkshire Eagle website, or reach out to me directly for a complete copy.

Vermont Olympian Sophie Caldwell talks growth of cross-country skiing, appearance in Warren Miller film

All work and no powder makes Mike a dull boy. All work and no powder makes Mike a dull boy.

Here's snow season!

Welcome back, everyone, to Season 2 of the Powder Report.

It's been a long, grueling and occasionally spoice-less offseason, but with Killington sporadically opening recently and ski sales happening across the Berkshires, it's about time to melt off that storage wax and hit the slopes.

Make some room next to the golf clubs and take inventory of your equipment needs — those Gorilla Glue-fashioned boots may need replacing — because opening day is around the corner.

Since we New England-bound folks are still in the preparation stages of the winter season, I had the opportunity to chat with a former local who spent part of her summer training in New Zealand with the U.S. cross-country ski team ahead of their World Cup season.

Sophie Caldwell is a native of Peru, Vt., who can be seen in our area's true powder-season kickoff event: Warren Miller's Face of Winter showing at the Colonial Theatre on Thursday.

This column can be read in its entirety on The Berkshire Eagle website, or reach out to me for a complete copy.

With ski season over, now is the time to take care of your gear

I played nine holes at Egremont Country Club the other day. It was a last-minute thing when a buddy told me they had opening day. So I grabbed my clubs out of storage and opened my trunk to toss them in. There you were. My trusty sidekick for the last 15 or so winters, a sticker-covered Original Sin snowboard, with Liquid boots and TechNine bindings. With the exception of TechNine, I'm not certain either of those other two companies exist anymore.

A few days later, I can tell how truly ancient my gear is by the face Jeff Grella makes when I tell him what I'm riding at Plaine's Bike, Ski and Snowboard in Pittsfield.

Grella is a master boot fitter at Plaine's, but is also responsible for a lot of the waxing, tuning and repairs that go on after a season of shredding northeast terrain.

My board at this point in its life has been criminally neglected, and I credit Plaine's every year for getting it back into riding shape each fall. This time around, as my baby gets a little long in the tooth, I'm looking to take preventative measures.

This column can be read in its entirety on The Berkshire Eagle website, or reach out to me directly for a complete copy.

Lenox's Masters skier Haldor Reinholt brings two Alpine titles back from World Criterium

Haldor Reinholt isn't from around here. Within seconds of meeting the 81-year-old Lenox resident, one can tell that much.

However, spend a bit longer chatting with the life-long skier who just submitted an incredible two first-place finishes and one runner-up at the FIS World Criterium Masters Alpine competition, and you'll get a glimpse into quite a story.

Reinholt reached out to The Eagle last month at the behest of some friends who thought his accolades on the slopes deserved some ink. Regrettably, I wasn't around that first visit to meet the man and struggled to make heads or tails of the results from the U.S. Nationals up at Killington in February. Upon closer examination, Reinholt brought four national titles home from Vermont, and man is he fast.

In the 80-84 age range, he won the Super G, Alpine Combined, Giant Slalom and Slalom races, most by hefty margins. That performance qualified him to take on the world, literally, a couple weeks ago out at Big Sky in Montana.

"If you came and looked at this, you'd be impressed. There are many who come from national teams that have just decided to keep on racing," said Reinholt. "And I'm one of them. I like to do it. It helps me stay fit. I'm 81 years old, but it doesn't show up there on the hill."

This column can be read in its entirety on The Berkshire Eagle website, or reach out to me for a complete copy.

Warren Miller quotes and a Mount Greylock duo make US Snowshoe Racing National Team

Hakuna matata.

What a wonderful phrase.

Apologies for the rest of your Sunday spent humming that Disney tune, but to get across the idea of this shreddy lifestyle, there may be no better quote than that from the inimitable Timon and Pumbaa.

I know, because I've been looking. The original idea for this column stems from that care-free lifestyle approach one must take to free oneself on the mountain. I had the pleasure of speaking with a pair of high school seniors from Mount Greylock this week who kind of just picked up a sport and ran with it, literally, all the way to the U.S. National team and a trip to worlds in Italy next winter.

A couple months back the Powder Report paid tribute to the life and Berkshire County connections of the legendary Warren Miller. Since then, he's popped up more and more with one of the best snow seasons in recent memory. So, when looking for quotes that would relay the nature it takes to hop up and try something like, say, cross-country racing in snowshoes, I came to realize that Warren was somewhat of a more coherent Yogi Berra.

Sayings like: "On the other hand, you have different fingers" and "One-seventh of your life is spent on Monday," are simply fantastic.

This column can be read in its entirety on The Berkshire Eagle website, or reach out to me directly for a complete copy.

Fresh powder provides peaceful reprieve on local mountains

When Toto's TomTom got mixed up and they were suddenly blessing the snows up in Berkshire County, the shredfather calls for one thing, and one thing only.

Back-to-backs and a ton of local powder news.

We were the grateful beneficiaries of 20-plus inches of sweet, soft, succulent powder at the numerous local shred-palaces this past week. Yours truly lucked out and managed to score some untouched mounds at Ski Butternut Thursday morning and gobble up whatever first tracks were left at Bousquet midday Friday. Special shout-out to the Mount Greylock Regional School District for the snow day, which allowed the not-quite-shreddy fiance to join me down in Great Barrington.

Both days were gush-worthy on the mountains, with some ungroomed portions sinking you more than a foot deep at a standstill. There's something about the quiet serenity fresh pow gives you after a season full of the grinding cacophony of icy northeastern terrain. I highly recommend you put this Eagle down (or bring it with you for some light lodge or apres reading) and get on a hill somewhere. There is still plenty of last week's dumping left for you. I'm not that greedy.

This column can be read in its entirety on The Berkshire Eagle website, or reach out to me directly for a complete copy.