The season needed a serious reboot after early January’s rains and soaring temps, and last week/weekend, Mother Nature delivered. Nowhere more apparent than California — we’ve heard all about the dumping up in the Sierras — but as you can see in the photo above from Mountain High, Southern California getting the goods as well. They’ve got a few inches on the ground, expecting up to a foot before it’s all over. This on top of four or five inches Saturday, things are looking pretty good in Wrightwood…opposite coast, similar name…Mountain Creek in NJ ain’t getting the stuff from the sky, but with overnight temps in the zeroes they’ve got fan guns booming across three mountains and already back in good shape…moving up the range into New York state, something’s up with Gore Mountain. I don’t know if it’s poor planning or just ORDA inefficiency, but I’ve never seen a place with such strong potential misfire so repeatedly and so often. Trails that should be open, snowmaking that should be running but isn’t, just doesn’t make any sense…moving past Gore, had the good fortune this past weekend of skiing small but mighty Titus Mountain in Malone, NY for the first time. It helped that they had 22″ of fresh powder that was light as a feather. This resulted in groomed terrain on most of the mountain that, if anything, was so easy to ski on that it was too easy, if there is such a thing. There were also powder stashes to be had at 2:00 in the afternoon. Anyway, this is a great ski area, great atmosphere, unhurried throwback operation. Nothing too tough, and not much super sustained pitch, but wonderful for intermediates and wanderers. Fully recommend the ski area, if you’re ever in the northern end of New York, which is kind of the end of the world. And you can see Canada from there…tough news in the village of Schroon Lake where they lost their downtown community church to fire last week. Spoke with the fellow who rebuilt the rope tow there, seems that without snowmaking they haven’t been able to open the past few years. So for now, it looks like we have to add the Schroon Lake Ski Tow to the list of lost ski areas…pleased to report that FIS World Cup has confirmed positive snow control for Kitzbuehel (AUT). The legendary Hahnenkamm races will take place on 25th-27th January 2019.