Jack Maguire

Tag: nature

  • The Best OvRride Snowboard Resorts Near NYC: A 2026 Ranking for Intermediate Riders

    If you live in New York City and rely on the OvRride bus to get to the mountains, you know the struggle. You want fresh snow, wide trails to practice your carving, and a stress-free day. But the 2025-2026 season has been wild. We have seen everything from freezing cold snaps to unseasonably warm spells. Plus, with big companies buying up local resorts, the crowds have changed.

    For an intermediate rider (someone who can link turns but isn’t ready for steep ice) picking the wrong mountain can ruin your day. We analyzed the top bus destinations to rank them based on what actually matters to you. We looked at snow quality, crowd levels, and whether the travel time is worth it.

    Here is the definitive, ranked guide for the NYC intermediate snowboarder.

    How We Ranked These Mountains

    We ignored the marketing hype and focused on the reality of a day trip from Union Square. Here is our criteria:

    • Uncrowded Trails: You need space to turn without fear of collisions.
    • Snow Quality: We prioritize soft snow over ice because it is safer for learning.
    • Intermediate Terrain: We looked for “carving blues” which are wide, consistent trails that aren’t too steep.
    • The Commute: We weighed the total time of the trip against the quality of the experience.

    Note: This guide is optimized for weekday trips. Weekends in the Northeast are almost always crowded regardless of where you go.

    1. The Winner: Belleayre Mountain (Highmount, NY)

    The “Hidden” Gem of the Catskills

    For the 2026 season, Belleayre Mountain is the clear winner. Unlike the corporate resorts nearby, Belleayre is state-run and feels more like a park than a business. It is relaxed, friendly, and focused entirely on the riding experience.

    Why It Wins on Snow

    Belleayre sits in a unique spot that often gets the “Catskill Cloud” effect. This means it frequently gets more natural snow than neighboring mountains. It also has a high ridge that protects the trails from the wind. This keeps the snow soft rather than stripping it down to the icy base.

    The Best Trails for Carving

    The layout is perfect for learning. The upper mountain features wide, rolling blue trails that don’t get too steep suddenly. The standout run is Dot Nebel. It is incredibly wide and allows you to lock in big, sweeping turns. Another favorite, Deer Run, offers a long, peaceful cruise. You rarely find dangerous intersections here.

    The Trade-Off

    The only downside is the distance. It is about 135 miles from NYC. The bus ride usually takes around 3 hours each way. However, the superior snow and lack of crowds make the travel time a smart investment.

    Verdict: The best experience available. The extra travel time pays off with better snow and empty trails. Aim for a Wednesday trip for a private mountain feel.

    2. The Runner-Up: Hunter Mountain (Hunter, NY)

    The Industrial Snow Giant

    Hunter Mountain is the heavyweight of the region. It is famous for its snowmaking power. If nature doesn’t provide snow, Hunter’s massive automated system will cover the mountain in hours. It has fast lifts and a big lodge, but it comes with a chaotic atmosphere.

    The “Hunter North” Strategy

    If you go to Hunter, you must be strategic. Stick to the Hunter North expansion. This area is newer and served by a high-speed 6-person lift. The trails are wide, straight, and usually much less crowded than the main face of the mountain.

    The Warning

    Avoid the main summit trails like the Belt Parkway if you can. It is a famous intermediate run, but it gets so much traffic that it often gets scraped down to ice by midday. It can feel like a highway during rush hour.

    Verdict: A strong backup option with great lifts. Stick to the Northern side to avoid the ice and crowds.

    3. The Vertical Challenger: Blue Mountain (Palmerton, PA)

    Big Vertical, Long Day

    Blue Mountain offers the highest vertical drop in Pennsylvania. This means you get long, sustained runs that let you get into a good rhythm. Trails like Razor’s Edge are excellent for practicing technique on a consistent slope.

    The Logistics Problem

    The issue here is the commute. While it looks close on a map, the bus route through New Jersey and Pennsylvania traffic is brutal. A typical day trip can last 13 to 14 hours from departure to return. That is a lot of time on a bus for Pennsylvania conditions.

    Verdict: Great terrain with long runs, but the 14-hour travel day makes it a tough sell compared to the Catskills.

    4. The Sleep-In Option: Camelback Mountain (Tannersville, PA)

    The Midday Advantage

    Camelback has one unique feature which is the schedule. You can catch a “Midday” bus that leaves Union Square at 10:30 AM. If you hate waking up at 5:00 AM, this is your only real option.

    The Reality Check

    Because you arrive late, you ride late. Camelback has night lighting, but riding at night often means riding on hard surfaces as the temperature drops. The resort is also very commercial and attached to a massive waterpark. Expect loud crowds and a busy base area. The snow on the main trail, Nile Mile, is deep but often gets pushed into piles of sugar and ice.

    Verdict: Choose this only if you need to sleep in. It is a lifestyle choice rather than a performance choice.

    5. The “Gym” Option: Mountain Creek (Vernon, NJ)

    So Close, Yet So Icy

    Mountain Creek is the closest option at just 47 miles away. It serves as a local gym for riders who just need a quick fix. However, its low elevation means it struggles with the weather.

    Why It Ranks Last

    The snow here often melts during the day and freezes at night. This creates “boilerplate” ice that is unforgiving for snowboarders. The main intermediate trail, Horizon, acts as a funnel for the whole mountain. It is often packed with people which makes it a stressful obstacle course rather than a fun run.

    Verdict: Only go here if you absolutely cannot spare the time for a longer trip. It is convenient, but the ice and crowds are difficult for learners.

    Summary Comparison

    Resort Uncrowded Score Snow Quality Travel Ease Best For
    1. Belleayre 10/10 9/10 6/10 Best Overall
    2. Hunter 8/10 7/10 6/10 Fast Lifts
    3. Blue Mtn 7/10 6/10 6/10 Long Runs
    4. Camelback 5/10 5/10 8/10 Sleeping In
    5. Mtn Creek 4/10 3/10 10/10 Short Trip

    Final Tips for Your Trip

    • Watch Out for Plattekill: You might hear about a cool indie mountain called Plattekill. It is awesome, but it is usually closed Monday through Thursday. Don’t book a weekday trip there without checking the schedule.
    • Bring Low-Light Goggles: The light in the Northeast is often flat and gray. Yellow or pink lenses will help you see the ice patches before you hit them.
    • Hydrate: The bus ride is long and dry. Drink plenty of water to avoid leg cramps on the ride home.

  • The Only Place Skunk Cabbage Ever Lived

    I want to talk about skunk cabbage.

    This sounds like the kind of sentence that usually precedes a digression, an apology, or a footnote explaining that skunk cabbage is a metaphor for something else. It is not. I literally want to talk about skunk cabbage. Specifically, the skunk cabbage that grew in the woods behind my childhood house in Finksburg, Maryland, and nowhere else in the world that I have ever been.

    This is strange, because I have been to a lot of places. My brother and I hiked the entire Appalachian Trail together. Two thousand miles of ridgelines, valleys, shelters, rhododendron tunnels, bog bridges, alpine meadows, and wet forests. If skunk cabbage were a normal plant, we would have seen it again. If it were even a slightly common plant, it would have shown up at least once. It never did.

    Which means that for my brain, skunk cabbage is not a plant. It is a location.

    The plant that taught me what resistance smells like

    If you have never seen skunk cabbage in the wild, here is the important part. It does not look like a plant that belongs here.

    It looks like something that crash landed.

    In early spring it comes up as a purple hood sticking out of black mud, like a prop from a low budget science fiction movie. Later it turns into enormous, glossy green leaves that feel less like vegetation and more like a failed attempt at biological armor. If you step on it, it releases a smell that your brain immediately classifies as a warning. Not rotten. Not floral. Just wrong.

    As kids, we did not know any of this intellectually. We knew it tactically.

    The wetland behind our house was small. Not a swamp you would mark on a map. Just a low, muddy area fed by groundwater that stayed wet even in summer. You could not walk through it unless you cleared a path, and clearing a path meant knocking down skunk cabbage. There was no stepping delicately around it. It grew in dense, hostile clusters. Progress required violence.

    So we learned that skunk cabbage was tough, territorial, and smelled like punishment.

    This gave it personality.

    Why this thing existed only behind our house

    Finksburg is not wilderness. It is rural in the sense that there are trees and lawns and people who own riding mowers. Most kids I knew did not have wetlands behind their houses. They had woods that were dry enough to run through without thinking.

    Our woods were different. They squelched. They sucked at your boots. They required trail maintenance.

    This matters, because skunk cabbage does not grow in all wetlands. It grows in very specific ones. Groundwater fed, wooded, permanently mucky, stable over decades. The kind of place that never quite dries out and never quite freezes solid. These places are rare, and they are often small. According to ecological surveys, skunk cabbage colonies persist for decades or longer because their underground structures are massive and slow growing, essentially anchoring them to a specific hydrological niche.

    As a child, you do not experience this as niche ecology. You experience it as ownership.

    This was our plant. Our smell. Our monster.

    An exhaustive field study of everywhere it was not

    One of the quiet shocks of hiking the Appalachian Trail was discovering how generic most forests are.

    This is not an insult. Forests are wonderful. But after a few hundred miles, you start to notice how often the same patterns repeat. Oak hickory slopes. Fern covered understories. Mud that looks like other mud.

    And there was never skunk cabbage.

    Not in Pennsylvania. Not in Vermont. Not in the Smokies. Not even in the cold seepage areas where, on paper, it could have existed. Every time we crossed a wet area, some part of my brain expected it. Like waiting to see an old friend in a crowd. It never happened.

    This is how a childhood detail turns into a symbol. Not because it is profound, but because it refuses to generalize.

    Why nostalgia works better when it refuses to generalize

    Nostalgia usually works by abstraction. You remember summer. You remember bikes. You remember the feeling of being bored in a way that felt infinite.

    Skunk cabbage does the opposite. It refuses abstraction.

    You cannot remember skunk cabbage without remembering that exact patch of woods. The angle of the trees. The way the mud swallowed sticks. The fort we half built and abandoned. The path we cleared and recleared because plants do not respect childhood infrastructure.

    It is not a memory you can export.

    There is no skunk cabbage in my adult life, and that is the point. It anchors a version of me that cannot be recreated by visiting similar places. The plant is too specific. The wetland is too small. The conditions too exact.

    What childhood wonder looks like in retrospect

    I think part of what we mean by childhood wonder is not that the world was bigger, but that it was more uneven.

    Certain things mattered enormously because they were rare and local and demanded interaction. You could not just observe skunk cabbage. You had to deal with it. It pushed back. It smelled. It forced decisions.

    As an adult, I see skunk cabbage described as a thermogenic wetland plant with ancient evolutionary origins, a keystone species in certain seepage ecosystems. This is all true. It is also irrelevant to why it matters to me.

    What matters is that it only existed there.

    That the world once had corners that were not interchangeable.

    That somewhere behind a house in Maryland, a weird plant grew in a weird patch of mud, and my brain decided, very early on, that this was what reality looked like up close.