Labrador Mountain Ski Area

Not many trails, very short also. Not to crowed so getting a chair quick made the short runs not bad! Not bad trick park.

Nice little mountain in the Syracuse area. Not too crowded, good lift line management. The rental equipment is a little rough, but the service is friendly and helpful. Most everyone there seems pretty experienced, so you don’t get a ton of hold ups on the way down. Good winter fun!
We had lunch at the Last Run on site. My grilled chicken sandwich was good, but my brother’s tenders were nasty greasy. Stick with non deep fried if you can. Our server was a peach. Lots of tasty beers on tap, including Cuse’s own Impaled Ale.

Ski more at Labrador!!!
Biased review disclosure: I was raised on this mountain. It has a special place in my heart. My ashes will be spread out from the triple chairlift. I dream of their chocolate chip cookies. I actually like their hamburgers, shells, chili. The people who work their are amazing. The ski school is outstanding (I taught there for ten years), the SNOWMAKING far outshines the rest. Those guys work their asses off and produce a snow covered hill in three days. You should just drive buy the place today and see it. Did you know that man made snow does not melt as fast as the real stuff? I could go on and on and on. Lab is the real thing. I drove all the way from my home in Boston to come back to lab. It was worth the five hr drive.

This past winter, I decided to take up snowboarding, having never done it before. Unfortunately, it was a pretty snow-​less winter in upstate New York, but Labrador Mountain has snow machines, and – most importantly – a fantastic learn-​to-​ski/​snowboard deal.
$ 25 per visit, for up to three visits, gets you: equipment rental, a 1– or 1.5-hour lesson, and a badger lift ticket once the instructor clears you for action. That is a seriously amazing deal! I didn’t want to make a huge cash investment in snowboarding, since I had no idea if I would like it, so this allowed me to try my hand at it without breaking the bank.
The ski/​snowboard school here is really elaborate. There are daily 1.5-hour lessons at 10 am, 12 noon, 2 pm, and then 1-​hour lessons at 5 pm, 6 pm, and 7 pm. (The practice areas and about half of the slopes are lighted for nighttime use). At each lesson time, there are probably more than half a dozen instructors, so that they can split the skiers and snowboarders into groups based on their ability level. On our first day, we were the only two beginning snowboarders, so we got a one-​on-​one lesson with a ski instructor and assistant for an hour and a half. You can’t get that for less than $ 25 anywhere!
The instructor was really good. He encouraged us and made me feel like I was actually doing well (as opposed to looking like a moron and falling over all the time – which I really was). I got a lot better over the course of two days, although I think that in order to really improve my skills, I’d need to do a lot of repetitive exercises, practicing turning and going in different directions, whereas in our 1.5-hour periods, we did a combo of various things, jumping from one to the next after practicing each for a few times, which I understand, since we need to understand the basics of everything in order to get better.
On our second day, at the end of our lesson, we went up the ski lift and down the intermediate slope (there were only three open because it was all man-​made snow, so we had to go down the intermediate cause there were no beginning trails open). The instructor took us down and coached us the entire way. It was so frightening but really fantastic. I definitely didn’t think I was ready, but if the instructor hadn’t encouraged us to do it, I probably never would have felt like I was ready (even after 10 more times practicing). In the end, it wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be, and by the time I reached the bottom, I was doing visibly better than when I got off the lift at the top! The instructor spent 45 minutes taking the two of us from the top to bottom and working with both of us to help us get down and guide us down the slope. I was so exhausted when I reached the bottom but felt amazing!
I couldn’t believe the attention and quality of snowboarding coaching that we received here, at a fantastic rate. If I lived in the area, I would be there every day keeping up with it. Since I don’t live anywhere near snow, that’s not really possible, but this is a great resource for anyone living locally who wants to learn and keep up with their skills.
The only recommendations I have are to arrive there at least an hour before your lesson, if you need to rent equipment. It’s a long, slow process to fill out the rental paperwork, get your boots, fit them, put them on, then stand in line to get your board/​skiis. With only one person in the board/​ski area when we were there, there were 10 people in line ahead of us waiting to get their equipment.
The other recommendation I have is that helmets need to be included in equipment rental and mandated for anyone who is having a lesson. Both of our instructors were wearing helmets, and we each rented one (for $ 10 each, which is crazy compared to $ 25 for our learning program). However, there were many young children taking lessons who were not wearing helmets. If those kids’ parents are not going to encourage their children to be safe, then the ski school needs to instill safe habits into young kids as they learn to ski and snowboard by mandating that anyone who takes part in a lesson wear a helmet (which should be provided free of charge). Head injuries are a serious possibility in ski/​snowboard accidents, and children often don’t realize how important it is to wear protective headwear.

Another ski area in the Syracuse area. I have not skied Labrador Mountain in several years. I usually go to Song Mountain since it is closer to my parents house. However, my sister used to be on the ski patrol at Labrador and she keeps telling me that I should drive the extra 10 minutes to Labrador.
Labrador has the newest lifts in the Syracuse area. I think they might even be detachables (I got used to the detachables at Heavenly in Lake Tahoe).
The great thing about skiing in Central New York is that most of the skiers are local and ski enough during the year to be good. This means that most people will ski to their ability. The crowds are not nearly what would be found in the Catskills or Poconos.
Labrador has specially feelings for me since this is the first place I ever skied at. I think I was 5 or 6 years old.