And it Snowed and Snowed

Finally, we have had a bonified snow storm that has deposited about 24" of snow over the last several days.  So the entire staff is busy flat out to get everything done for this busy holiday week.

The Christmas Holiday and Christmas Week have been wonderful here with more snow falling this week than we saw most of last winter!  The Ski Shop is humming along with excited & enthusiastic skiers.  We've been challenged to get trails rolled and groomed due to the continual snowfall...but today should get us caught up in grooming.  Guests are enjoying everything about the lodge, from the decor, the live piano music and the fireplace, to the food, the service and great wintery weather.  Mindy and I are so pleased that things have come together as much as they have.  It's been a busy year and we're grateful to our employees who have done so much to help us get to where we are. 

On Saturday Mindy led a group ski out to the Sugar House for hot chocolate and cookies which everyone enjoyed very much.  We will be doing more of them as the season goes on, and hopefully we'll even be able to serve pancakes and maple syrup out there a few mornings.

The snow is really piling up at the Log House, and it's beautiful.

4H Trail in the lull between snow storms last week.

The view from the lodge 

Some folks getting ready to go out on the trails

Arriving at the Sugar House on Saturday for hot chocolate and cookies

One of our Traditional rooms showing off a new decor

Our new fireplace seating area is working out nicely...Guests love the sofa and rocking chair

Open House Hightlights

On Sunday, December 9th, we held a One Year Anniversary Open House to share what we've done and accomplished over the last year.  We also put our entire cross country ski inventory on sale and sold a good amount of equipment.  Meanwhile at the Lodge people were able to take a tour, see the Christmas decorations, and peek in on the changes that we've been making to the hotel rooms and have a hot drink and some cookies to go along.

In room 10 we've made significant changes by incorporating a new bed head board and foot board that came from an old farm house.  The decorative birch bark on the head board looks like it could be a painting in its own right.

All of the Lodge rooms have gotten new bedspreads, curtains and shower curtains this fall as well as a number of new mattresses.

Mindy's Christmas decorations are phenomenal this year.  We'll do a separate blog entry about those as well.

The Skishop has also been upgraded in a number of ways, including a new retail sales system to make it easier and faster to get people out on the trails when it's busy.  We will also have full service waxing stations and frequent wax demos to show how much ski waxing can make it so much easier and more enjoyable.

Our ski programs and event offerings are going to be extensive this year.  Please check out our schedule of events here: www.garnet-hill.com/activities.htm

Getting Ready for Winter

As Christmas and the winter season approaches Mindy and I are continuing to gear up for skiing and decorate everything at the lodge.  Once again, I'll show what we've been up to in photos rather than a lot of description.

The weekend of Dec. 1st was very busy for us.  We started with a Christmas parade in North Creek where the North Country Singers joined us on the Garnet Hill Hay Wagon to sing carols through town.  That night we sang in the Christmas Concert and I played a piece on the piano as well (Debussy's Clair de Lune).

On Sunday we performed as well at Tanner Pond Center.  Both concerts were packed and we had a great time.

Most of our decorations are up and in place at this point.  We're looking forward to serving very special dinners on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve.  You can check out the details here!

The start of the parade from the school in North Creek headed into town.

 There were lot's of floats and participants in the parade and a good crowd on hand to watch as well.

 Mindy's Dad, Dennis, got dressed up in a Smokey the bear costume at the request of the forest ranger.

And here he is sitting on the air boat that was in the parade.

 These next two came out a bit unfocused, but in this one I gave an intro to the piece I played to describe what the full moon is like in the Adirondacks on a freezing cold night in the middle of winter, out on a lake, etc...  The audience enjoyed the imagery to go along with Debussy's Clair de Lune.

And here is where I'm playing the piece.  Tannery Pond Community Center has a great piano which offers a lot of sound possibilities, which is one of the reasons I wanted to play this particular piece.

Making the Changes

The following post had to be reposted as we have had to change the blog back again to the way it was a couple of months ago.  We just didn't have the success we had hoped for in performance and reliability from the WorkPress blogging software.  So we are back with Google's Blogger once again.

As I write this post, our Columbus Day weekend is almost over. It has been very busy here with a full house and a good flow of dinner guests and visitors. We’ve initiated the Hay Rides and they have been very popular and fun. Mindy has decorated everything for fall very nicely. And we had a nice little wedding on Saturday that went very well.