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Saturday, January 13, 2018 My Couch I planned for today’s trip by checking the weather forecast carefully throughout Friday evening and then not setting my alarm for Saturday morning. Just no. Awakening at a positively adolescent 7am, I loaded my gear onto the coffee table and began the day’s mission. Stoke levels were high, since the weather was warm and dry; really perfect essay-grading conditions. I chose my 13-inch MacBook Air, which I think was the right tool for the conditions. Definitely the right length, though I could have gone with a 15” for more visibility. There were no crowds at the couch save for an old, snoring tabby. I estimated being able to get in about 7-10 essays per hour and I wasn’t wrong. Low stoke level. In a total gaper move, I checked PASR before getting started. A real distraction. I think I need some lessons on how to stay focused. I don’t want anyone lower than a level III instructor, though. I have unique focus issues. Once I got down to business, the day turned out to be more challenging than I’d hoped. I expected strong, clear, and thorough thesis statements, and instead found myself slogging through piles of hyper-generalized bullshit about “people” doing things “back in the day.” I had to deploy a lot of warnings about using the first-person voice and ended up taking more breaks than I’d planned because it was just rough-going at times. Disappointing conditions here. I’ll probably keep at it until the evening, but I’m definitely going to hit the kitchen for a couple of beers later. A good day overall. Better than unemployment anyway.

I know everyone here is anxiously wondering what was up with my posts from Camelback earlier today regarding why I was waiting for the Stevenson Lift to open instead of skiing. Some PASR posters, like MattEdge, were certainly thinking “what the heck is going on, has Salty lost it”? Well, fear not, because I have a completely logical explanation for today’s events. However, because it’s complicated, I think it’s best to detail this trip report in chronological order. 5:50 am – Woke up to the alarm on Jitterbug to get ready for FirstTrax. However, looked out the window and saw car encased in ice. Checked CB Facebook post and saw notice of FirstTrax cancellation. Reset alarm to 6:50 am. 6:50 am – Woke up again and saw the interstates were treacherous. Decided to cancel skiing and went back to sleep. 8:12 am – Got up, had 2 cups of coffee, watched Gilligan’s Island rerun. 8:56 am – Watched ski lesson video on how to get out of the backseat; decided to possibly go skiing. 9:00 am – Visited skicamelback.com to check out the snow report for full list of trail and lift openings; saw that Stevenson Lift and nearby trails would definitely open at 12:00 PM sharp, meaning fresh cord and open parking spots! Decided to go skiing and started to get super stoked. 9:35 am – Asked Camelback on Facebook what time Stevenson Lift opens 10:00 am – Freed car from ice and started to prepare for some rad skiing. 12:01 pm – Arrived at Camelback. Parked near Stevenson Lift. Was baffled why lift was not running, despite website clearly stating it would be open at 12 o’clock sharp. Before even booting up, yelled to lift attendant asking what time lift would open; now it was scheduled for 1 o’clock sharp. 12:15 pm – Skied 3 runs on Rhododendron Glen, which was narrow, crowded, icy, ungroomed, and had death cookies. 12:59 pm – Headed over to Stevenson Lift just in time to it to open, and to get all the fresh cord. Saw them start to set up the queue ropes, so any second now! 1:00 pm – Was informed that lift would open in 10 more minutes. 1:10 pm – Was informed that lift would open in 10 more minutes. 1:20 pm – Was informed that lift would open in 10 more minutes; at this time, decide to sit by the fire and watch for the lift to open any minute now. 1:45 pm – Realized the lift wasn’t opening in 10 more minutes, so contemplated moving over to the Sullivan side, but realized that would require riding Pocono Raceway Lift, then bombing the run to get to Sunbowl Lift, then standing in line with gapers for 30 minutes to ride a slow fixed-grip lift, then walking uphill and going around a ridiculously unnecessarily long queue at Sullivan lift to ski some more garbage ungroomed conditions. Ditched that idea to wait for the imminent opening of Stevenson Lift, and instead walked back over to Pocono Raceway Lift to ski some more garbage on Rhododendron Glen to watch for Stevenson lift to begin moving. 2:01 pm – Saw Stevenson Lift moving (!) finally and rushed down to wait for the imminent opening. 2:15 pm – Was informed that lift would open in 10 more minutes. 2:25 pm – Was informed that lift would open in 10 more minutes. 2:35 pm – Was informed that lift would open in 10 more minutes. 2:37 pm – Posted rant on PASR to complain. 2:38 pm – Started complaining to fellow patrons in line with me. 2:45 pm – Saw ski patrol go down Nile Mile; was informed that ski patrol needed to go down the hill at least a bazillion more times before they could open it. 2:55 pm – FINALLY! Lift attendant announced that Stevenson Lift is FINALLY OPEN! Only 2 hours and 55 minutes late, not bad!!! After this, I made 6 runs on a freshly groomed Cliffhanger, 1 run on Nile Mile, and 1 run on Pharaoh, which was awful and had a large ice pool right in the middle of the trail. BUT overall, the wait was sort of worth it because Cliffhanger was really, really nice and exceeded my expectations. I also made one run down Honeymoon to see how the Sullivan side was, and it was awful. Overall, it was another rad day, but I was annoyed that how everyone kept telling us the Stevenson Lift would open “soon”, and then made us wait almost 3 hours. Very rad shot of 170 cm RTMs on fresh cord: Waiting for Stevenson Lift to open any second now: Icy pool of death right in the middle of Pharaoh:

Hey All, I'm back from another fun session at Blue mountain the true mountain. I arrived at the lower lot around 725am and in the house were Atomic Jeff, NMSki, Nastar Glenn, Ryan, Toast, TheRealKevinThomas, Johnny Law and many others. The temperature was in the low to mid 20s and it was pretty windy with a northwest wind. No real fun getting the first civilian chair except for crossing multiple lagoons..yeah there was standing water today at Blue mountain but that adds to the spicyness. First tun on Razors was mad technical but in slow motion due to the headwind..next run on Main Street was ok groomed on top and a little choppy lower but slow motion. Lazy was a little bit worse than ok..switchback was fun..no liftlines when I was skiing..nightmare to dreamweaver was ok, racers on Razors were badass in the words of matt edge. Had some good beers in the parking lot..still today felt warm to me. But the nice three week run of packed powder is way over but maybe some fresh manmade for tomorrow and at the very least another grooming and some mad sweet and ow sugar snow..loose granular. See everybody tomorrow AM

I'm gonna bring my wide skis, and my wider skis. i really like both pairs. i like to demo stuff, but not sure i would go out west without taking my on skis.

That's Jack. Sally was his older sister who alas is no longer with us. You would like Jack: his main interests are eating meat and pooping.

You are not the first or ten-thousandth person to suggest that. I do what I want.

Still not 100% with all that snow? Wtf? What a shithole. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Maybe try closing a tab or ten.

This was 6 years ago to the day...a few nice inches off of Grand on the way down to the sublette chair.

Different type of skiing and conditions today. Major thanks to Ryan, JLaw, NMSki for keeping the beverage game top notch. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'll be there and I got something nice for lot

Not saying anything bad. It's a lot more advanced than anything I would have written in high school.

Nice report. Surprised you waited so long for fresh cord on Stevenson.

That paper doesn't look like anything I wrote in high school

The Middle Ages and Renaissance are fascinating to me. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Should have it on here by 9-10 pm. Had to go out and cant type a TR on my jitterbug. Its half done and saved on my laptop.

The Spanish Inquisition, certainly, but that was brought into Spain to persecute and drive out Jews and Muslims, not really to root out and correct heresy for purely theological reasons. The Roman inquisition was more dedicated to "inquiry" and you usually had to work pretty hard to end up dead by their hands. Incidentally, the Roman Inquisition has been a boon to social history, since we learn a TON about illiterate rural villagers that we would never know except for trial records. The Richard Gere film Somersby for example, is based on Natalie Davis' The Return of Martin Guerre: a true story based on the trial of a man accused of being an impostor. Carlo Ginzburg (The Cheese and the Worms and The Night Battles) has basically made his career as a historian by raiding inquisition trial records and writing about what they tell us. And what they tell us is really cool: early modern peasants believed some weird, fascinating shit.

Extreme Protestants (ie puritans) loved a good witch burning. Catholic’s did not have to roll that way because the inquisition dudes could get their way without saying “witch”. I’m guessing 15 century and early 16th century Catholicism was way more prevalent so naturally more early scientists would be catholic. All interesting points you’re making though

They do. They reward my loyalty with free bags, F upgrades, E+, etc. The only time I've ever taken 1 pair on a trip was a 2 day turn and burn to Tahoe for the weekend when I knew there was no snow in the forecast.

Relatively, but it was still a state religion, and I think Germany and England saw more witchcraft persecution in the seventeenth century than any other Euro countries. Actually, I shouldn't have said that Protestantism had a dampening effect, just that there's some data to show that there were more Catholic scientists in the early-modern period than protestant, and that the causal connection between protestantism and science has probably been overblown. Luther didn't exactly embrace science, but by the 17th century, Protestantism was much more favorable to it. Funny, though, that it's evangelical protestantism today that attacks science more than other religions in America.

Woo hoo I'll be sure to VU before I read what will surely be an epic report.

The complications had better be real, not just you falling through the pile of powder into a rabbit's hole and ending up heliskiing in Japan.

Firm bumps. Guns were turned on by 3pM blowing snow-snot so retreated to parking lot. Should be better tomorrow and damn near stellar Monday

Wow, counter intuitive. Especially when you think how early Protestantism was relatively decentralized compared to Catholicism. Neat to know. But by the 17th century that was not the case, no? I mean the Royal Society was a kick ass institution ( when they were not doing vivisections on poor strays) and I’m guessing the orange Dutch wanted science to show them the $$$$

Two bagel sammies on Wednesday, please. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's a little joke. They know they're supposed to capitalize it but they constanly forget. I don't use the comment feature because I want to be as intrusive as possible. If I leave a student's text alone by commenting marginally, they tend to think their text is fine and doesn't need revision, no matter what I say in the margins. I've found that I need to force them to go back and at a mimimum remove (better yet, address) my edits. This is not an essay that requires citation, so the student is in the clear on that score.

They were all Camelwhacked

huh?

good job.....gotta have the priorities straight!

Some of us are already here....

This is gonna be great. Please keep us updated!!

The cameras are very helpful this morning.

Translation please? Man The Fuck Up, but that's what noobs say. It should be HTFU - Harden the Fuck Up.

OK... Just the motivation I needed lol

It's warm out

Sounds like fuckin fun! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Soft spring snow is a BLAST. You just have to pay a little attention to waxing carefully. Last year my last ski day was July 3 at Mammoth. Everyone says "the snow is heavy, it's warm, you really need to slow down in the spring." Fuck that. I came here from Louisiana: it's NOT hot here in April, heavy snow makes everyone a hero, and what's not to like about soft bumps and beer on the patio!? I like to finish the season sunburned, broke, and exhausted. And YAAAAAAAAAAAAS to loving winter thanks to skiing!

Hey, don't scare me like this. IDK where you took these numbers from.

I've done most of the slides book in the Daks and a bunch of shit in NH. Generally the whites are better but there are more lines in the Daks that can be easily strung together for something interesting. The Daks are almost always an earlier play then whites were the weather is worse into April, even May. If you've never gone before and are more of a safer player I'd say go tuxs for your first trip, you get the taste but there are always lots of people around to help and if you get there and want to spice it up drop over into GOS or go up and run into one of the other ravines. King is my absolute favorite and RMC has a a hut up top which is awesome but King is also a real nasty biatch if you don't mind your P's and Q's. The hike/skin in is rowdy NE touring, straight up straight down dragging pines, icy, rocky and the skiing is the best I've ever done EC BC but it's a steep lader boot that almost always has water running under the snow in the lower choke. What kind of gear do you have ? Have you winter camped before ? Are you familiar with EC touring in terms of being ready for pretty much anything ? I'd answer those questions and then based of that decide how much I'm prepared for and then pick a goal. Daks your out of the LOJ or the Garden Lot, lean-to's or Peggy O, it can be incredibly insanely icy like full on crampons, the weather particularly up high on Marcy/gothics/ Algonquin changes quick but not whites quick. Daks has some good day trip options but unless you live up there my guess is you don't want to drive 10hrs to spend 3 in the woods. If you want to go to the daks I'd say Marcy/Pelky Basin/Angel is a good first trip as it's almost impossible to get lost but it gets as rowdy as you can handle, Trap Dike is a 50degree plus mixed route that is chock full of debris, NF Gothics is legendary and then you get the slides. There are 100's of slides throughout the high peaks, where the vegetation has been stripped from the Canadian Shield mtn rock, after Irene they now run considerably longer. If your into skiing the slides you'll need the green ADK trail book, the drew haus slide guide and somebody to tell you how to get to most of these or a bunch of time spent in the woods. They are longish, generally narrow ramps of snow, the snow is generally a mix of various different dog shits lol but sometimes is incredible. The Daks are rough, the weather is gnarly EC shit like 40mph wind with 33 degree driving rain, approaches are generally flat with lots of water crossings and then straight up some stupid sketch balls drainage that eventually becomes the slide but they are considerably tamer then the whites. Make no mistake, it's the EC, the road may not be that far but the Whites get super nasty and are surprisingly technical. There are endless super steep lines, were talking 40's into the mid 50's way steeper then the daks and a hell of alot steeper then EC resorts. The terrain is generally gnarly balls with long exposed boot ladders with long sections of scrub pines and massive boulders on the approach. It ain't K2 by any means but respect the whites. I always had amazing adventures with truly gnar skiing, we did alot of dumb shit and alot of amazing shit. If you need beta on where to go or how to find out about the weather/snow pack just ask.

Yeah, I don't want to share the life of Bruno from that parallel thread. So let's just say I'll be at BM on Monday.

I was on the more modest mantras today. I don't want to share a room with anybody because then I'll have to jerk off in the bathroom.

The best conditions of the day are long gone. The busses will be arriving soon.

Why???

Already too late for today