NJ Backcountry Skiing Spots????

phillychris498 said:
I vastly underestimated the difficulty of hiking through 2.5 feet of untouched snow. My attack plan was to park on the side of schooley’s mountain and hike up and down cataract, but the lot was plowed over. So, instead, I parked at a development at the top and did 2 runs down the backside of cataract to the stream. I cannot understate how epic it felt to ski a line I’ve seen during my hikes and thought “wow, that’d be skiable... if it ever snows 30 inches.”View attachment 150708View attachment 150709View attachment 150710View attachment 150711View attachment 150712
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That's awesome! Damn it was crazy hard to walk up in this snow props to you!
 
phillychris498 said:
I vastly underestimated the difficulty of hiking through 2.5 feet of untouched snow. My attack plan was to park on the side of schooley’s mountain and hike up and down cataract, but the lot was plowed over. So, instead, I parked at a development at the top and did 2 runs down the backside of cataract to the stream. I cannot understate how epic it felt to ski a line I’ve seen during my hikes and thought “wow, that’d be skiable... if it ever snows 30 inches.”View attachment 150708View attachment 150709View attachment 150710View attachment 150711View attachment 150712
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where did you park, and could i drop my son and his friends at the top and pick them up at the bottom? how far from motown?
 
Climbing the mountain was crazy hard work and the first run was crazy slow with how deep it was here's a short video of run number 2. My son was up in his tree house watching me and was super cold as he was telling me so I'll get back out there for a few more runs later today hopefully longer and different routes down.
 
@kearneyb and I hit the Sourlands pipeline for a couple runs today. Snow was far from perfect but it was better than sitting in front of a screen all day. I used snowshoes to cut our way to the top the first run. It was a lot of work, but good fun. Looks like a snowboard got to the goods first but probably the day before. We stayed in the ski boots for the second ascent and other than losing some shin hair, it worked out well.

Once the sun gets on it, if it has a chance to freeze again, it’s going to be fast. It usually gets to that boilerplate condition with snow like this and a little sun.
F227B545-5BB7-49E5-95D5-D08148C14BD0.jpegA0F352C6-4779-487E-BBAD-3022A9F5500A.jpeg
 
clarkenstein said:
@kearneyb and I hit the Sourlands pipeline for a couple runs today. Snow was far from perfect but it was better than sitting in front of a screen all day. I used snowshoes to cut our way to the top the first run. It was a lot of work, but good fun. Looks like a snowboard got to the goods first but probably the day before. We stayed in the ski boots for the second ascent and other than losing some shin hair, it worked out well.

Once the sun gets on it, if it has a chance to freeze again, it’s going to be fast. It usually gets to that boilerplate condition with snow like this and a little sun.
View attachment 150740View attachment 150741
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maybe we could cut a path from starview/murray down to east mountain road for shuttle runs?
 
roc said:
where did you park, and could i drop my son and his friends at the top and pick them up at the bottom? how far from motown?
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I parked here:
Dropped pin
goo.gl

40°48'58.6"N 74°48'38.8"W

goo.gl goo.gl

however, this isn’t really shuttle-able in an easy way. You’d need to know your way around this park to be able to successfully shuttle it, and even then there’s a long approach (about 1 mile) of hiking flat-to-uphill to get to the descent that leads you down to schooley’s mountain road. There’s also the risk of falling into a large river if you aren’t careful...
 
Patrick said:
maybe we could cut a path from starview/murray down to east mountain road for shuttle runs?
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We were talking about the pitch on that side of the mountain. I’m gonna look at some topo maps and see if anything is worth looking into.
 
clarkenstein said:
We were talking about the pitch on that side of the mountain. I’m gonna look at some topo maps and see if anything is worth looking into.
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using the tax parcel viewer with topo on, looks like it might work - there is a spot on e. mountain that is owned by the county.

Tax Parcel Viewer

gis.co.somerset.nj.us gis.co.somerset.nj.us

tax parcel id 1810_174_80.01
 
With the amount of rock that place has, it would be hard to believe there would be a smooth enough spot to ski. I've been looking for places by me but there is always too many rocks to worry about. Maybe if we get some large amount of additional snow this weekend, this would be a good base.
 
Packed down a few different trails and damn the snow is running fast now! Made a steeper run that goes over my mountain bike drop lots of fun! Deffinitly interested in hiking some " nj backcountry" spots if someone is up for it I doubt we will have snow conditions like this anytime in the near future Check out the video I was really moving in this one 🤣.

 
clarkenstein said:
I’m going to hit the Sourlands again tomorrow morning before work starts if anyone is game. We have maybe six more inches on top of what we had with this new snow.
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damn, wish i had snowshoes here -
 
I’m game for a morning hike and ski. I Have a call at 11am I can’t miss. Meet at 7am?

@Patrick, I don’t have snowshoes. I’ll do the first hike in micro spikes and hiking boots. If time for a second or third run, might just keep ski boots on.
 
kearneyb said:
I’m game for a morning hike and ski. I Have a call at 11am I can’t miss. Meet at 7am?

@Patrick, I don’t have snowshoes. I’ll do the first hike in micro spikes and hiking boots. If time for a second or third run, might just keep ski boots on.
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I think 7 works.

I can lead on with the snow shoes to cut the first tracks. My guess is there already will be some there.
 
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