NORTH CREEK -- All the snow Mother Nature has dumped on the region in the last two weeks has made life heavenly at Gore Mountain.
    In welcoming people to an event Gore hosted Friday, Marketing Manager Emily Stanton gushed that it's been one of the mountain's "best early seasons ever."
    But what makes this season so great isn't just the snow.
    "Today is such a special day," Stanton said Friday morning. "We're opening the Village Chair today and Gore will once again return skiing and snowboarding to the Ski Bowl."
    While there's been tubing in the North Creek Ski Bowl on Route 28 for several years, skiing has pretty much been absent since about 2002, when a small T-bar shut down.
    The new Village Chair, a triple chairlift, provides skiers and snowboarders with access to the family-friendly Village Slope trail and the adjacent terrain park and half-pipe.
    In August, during a previous interview with The Post-Star, General Manager Mike Pratt estimated that the lift and terrain park amount to $1 million worth of improvements to the Ski Bowl.
    Tickets good for all Gore Mountain trails, not just Village Slope, can be purchased at the Ski Bowl, Stanton said. A yurt has also been erected at the Ski Bowl to give people a place to warm up between runs.
    In addition to tickets, Stanton added that foods like pizza and soup will also be available for purchase at the Ski Bowl.
    During the event on Friday, Stanton and Pratt also gave a tour of Gore Mountain's new Northwoods Lodge.
    Gore began converting its old gondola loading barn, which stopped operating in 1999, into the lodge in June.

  By renovating an existing structure, Gore was able to not only do something good for business, but do something good for the environment as well.
    "Sixty-five percent of the existing walls, floors and roof of the loading barn were retained and used in the lodge," Stanton said. "It's a cool way to celebrate the history of the old gondola and be environmentally friendly."
    The Northwoods Lodge also features rubber flooring made from recycled material, Stanton added. And material salvaged from the old loading barn has been used to build a small roof for the box office attached to the Gore's original base lodge as well.
    Skiers and snowboarders, like the environment, also stand to benefit from the new 20,000-square-foot facility.
    Gore's equipment rental shop, day care and ski school programs have all been moved from the base lodge to the Northwoods Lodge.
    This has opened up an additional 7,500 square feet of space in the base lodge for seating and lockers, Stanton said.
    It also means Gore's Kids Klub program has a much better headquarters in the Northwoods Lodge.
    For one thing, the Kids Klub is located in a large room that opens right out onto the slopes. "This makes it real easy for instructors to get all the kids out there," Pratt said.
    Gore's self-improvement quest won't end with the Northwoods Lodge and Village Chair, however.
    About this time next year, Stanton said Gore expects to open Burnt Ridge Mountain to skiing.
    The Burnt Ridge area will feature five new trails, totaling 6 miles, and add about 60 acres of skiing to Gore, a press release said.
    To get skiers to these trails, a new chairlift will be added.
    "The lift lines are already in," Stanton said. "This summer we'll be ready to install a high-speed quad lift."