This past weekend, East Coast ski shops and resorts gathered in the famed Empire Plaza for the longest running ski tradeshow in the biz, The Ski and Snowboard Expo. The turnout was great and all that were attendance helped themselves to a plethora of shwag, tasty homemade snacks, and of course, beer. Many shops were on hand selling their items at ridiculously low prices. How ridiculous you ask? (I’m not really sure but add any cheesy car salesman slogan here and you’ve got it!).

Some highlights/insider dirt:

-Seeing our good and globally responsible friends from Jiminy Peak. Jiminy recently installed their own wind turbine, which is going to help them generate the power for them to make snow, which they’ll start making this week, which is why they’re opening November 19th, which is why I made this a run-on sentence!

-Seeing our other good friends from Hunter Mountain. The folks at Hunter are planning to revitalize their featured competition, The 42 Degrees North Latitude Air Assault (say that ten times fast or twice for that matter) by adding a midseason, week long film festival in their local theatre. Booyah!

-Willard Mountain showcasing the most bad ass VW bug. Best promotional anything I’ve seen in a long while.

-The nice woman from VT that made homemade truffles. Anyone that had these knows what I’m talking about.

-Warren Miller and Rage for showing their films periodically during the show and set up an extremely comfortable lounge.

-Two members of the USA Racing Team that were signing autographs for kids who had absolutely know idea who they were.

One grom asked, “Do you know Tanner Hall?” to which the Ski Team member blankly said, “No.” Hilarious.

Good show and after seeing some old friends from winter’s past, I’d say the East Coast is certainly ready for some snow!