â€Hunter is the people’s mountain’: Diverse range of skiers flock to Hunter:
https://www.timesunion.com/hudsonval...s-16755384.php
From the article, which gets into the "less snotty"/welcoming feel of the resort: "When snowboarding enthusiast Marquis Williams, 51, was working as a financial exec for American Express in the late 90s and early aughts, his job would often take him around the globe — he even lived in Prague working with Amex for several years.
“I’ve skied all over the world,” says the former restaurateur and now multi-property owner. “Out West, Europe, you name it.” But his favorite mountain, where he now owns a second home with his family and has a season pass to? Hunter Mountain in the Catskill Mountains of New York.
Not for its crazy vertical (it offers a 1,600-foot vertical drop, often coated in man-made snow), nor for its thousands of acres of off-piste terrain (there are 13 lifts and 67 trails, all inbound). It’s simply fun — and partially because not everyone looks the same.
“In a lot of parts of Europe, everyone on the slopes was blonde and blue-eyed,” says Williams, who is Black. “At Hunter, because it’s so close to the city, there is so much diversity. Not just the color of people’s skin or the language they speak, but their religious affiliations, their socioeconomic backgrounds. At so many resorts I’ve been to, people look like they just walked out of the ski shop where they asked for the most expensive snowsuits or gear they had. At Hunter, you can ski in jeans and an Islanders jersey and no one bats an eye. It’s like being in the city — you can see a skier in a hijab, or a yarmulke. It’s just part of the natural landscape.”
This, he says, is exactly what makes the Hunter crowd so interesting. “I’ve never felt any type of pretentiousness here,” he says, adding that the après-ski scene is his favorite in all the world. “It’s just a fun hang, an anyone-is-welcome type of vibe. Sometimes a group of us will go and not even snowboard, but just sit at the base, have a drink, watch the skiers in the terrain park and meet people from all walks of life. Everyone is down to talk, and everyone there is cool. It’s just a down home, great spot.”
Shira Derasmo, 44, who is Israeli, agrees. Also a snowboarder, she grew up in California, where she regularly skied at Lake Tahoe, occasionally Mammoth or Big Bear. Now she and her husband and their three-year-old daughter live mostly full-time in their second home in nearby Tannersville.
“For nine years I’ve been skiing almost exclusively at Hunter,” says the founder of Cuttlefish Communications, a PR firm. She says despite knowing there are bigger mountains out there, she has no real desire to go anywhere else.
“The people I meet in the lodge and lift lines at Hunter are so overwhelmingly nice. Like, â€I’m having a house party, you should come,’ type of nice.” (She adds that she even has gone to a house party with people she met in the lodge after a day on the slopes.)
“It’s similar to being in the city, in that people will talk to strangers. They’re not cliquey the way they can be at other resorts. And you can be on a lift with people from all walks of life. I’ve ridden with a plumber, a graffiti artist, a CEO. You just get that vibe that people want to chat and talk about where they’re from, how often they come, their favorite runs of the day. It feels like a community.”
She also notes that, despite Hunter’s occasional reputation for being home to party bros who might mow you down on the slopes, she’s faced much ruder skiers out West, where there’s more of a sense of entitlement on the slopes. “It feels less competitive at Hunter,” she says. “Less intense. Less snotty. It’s welcoming.”
That could be partly due to the fact skiers can easily make a day trip out to Hunter, which draws a younger crowd — buses like OvRride bring skiers from various locations in the city to base lodge three days a week, sparing anyone from having to spring for overnight accommodations."
I'll stop there and the article mentions/has a picture of people from this ski group based in Albany:
https://www.nubianempireski.org/
So, this is as much a matter of economic diversity as well, which was also mentioned in the article.
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