Leaderboard

Left at 6 for bell with #2. Have a bogo voucher. New they had no power as of 5:30 AM but hey, gotta try. Thruway was a packed conga line of every skier on the ice coast heading north at 80 mph. Got to bell before opening and was told nope. Maybe noon. So I pooped in the dark and proceeded to platty which have not been in at least 7 years. Let me tell you if you have never been. Platty is the mother fuckin tits McGee!!!!!!! Idk what they got 20, 25?or 30. Already tracked out when we got there ( lots full, had to walk maybe 1/3 mile from road parking spot). But endless endless pow bumps of medium density snow. All day long. Top half of the triple Lift line was bumps. I’m not talking under the lift. I’m talking waiting on line to load the lift. I’m in heaven and of course I gotta keep up with a 20 yo. Some folks going in woods. I made some side excursions running the outside bmp lines but nothing serious. All day long soundless powder bumps! Not the conditions our intrepid PASRs got yesterday but a best of the year date for me. Legs are cooked . Drinking a bomber sized bottle of polish beer waiting for #2 to get kicked off the mountain. Platty I love u A good sign on drive up

Hey All, I'm back from a fun morning at Blue mountain the true mountain. I arrived at the lower lot at 725am with a slight detour due to hearing that 145 was closed in Laurys station so I took cherryville road instead. In the house were JFDan, Johnny Law, Atomic Jeff, tele matt, Nastar Glenn, Antwan, SaltyAnt, West Chester guys and many others. First civilian chair to a rowdy challenge which was a little bit of everything and homestretch was pretty grabby snow unless you had the blue wax on like Nastar Glenn. Next run on sidewinder was ice, soft, rocks, twigs, everything. Switchback and Nigjtmare to Dreamweaver were the best runs of the day. I didn't ski lazy or paradise probably were too slow with the winds. The quad was not running which made for some liftline on the six pack six pack but nothing major. Temperatures were in the 30s and there was a contest in Central Park along with racing on Raisins ledge..all in all fun skiing. I'm now posted up at grumpys.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Eight to ten inches at Elk today, longest liftline was four to five minutes, usually less, Shin deep powder bumps on Tunkhannock . Sweet!

After a busy day of work Friday and sneaking in some peeks of the radar, juicy forecasts and trip reports we found our unit at Greek was available and decided to head up. My cousin was flying back from Seattle and needed her car dropped off at ABE and we had to pick up mrs snobunski’s boots at (closed) blue mountain and headed out around 6. Eight and a half hours later we arrived at Hope Lake Lodge...spent 2-1/2 hours STOPPED on 81... first time Ive ever watched two amazon episodes (boardwalk) and had beers in traffic. A little slow moving this morning but had breakfast and were on the hill just before 9. Greek just can’t catch a break this year and only got around 6 in, with lots blown around. Junior and his girl were gonna meet us but 81 was still,impassible and ended up at j frost. Without the snowmaking power or push Greeks in a bad way But everything ski’d pretty well, spent most of the day lapping mars hill (chair 5) alternating between the groomed and dense chop. Did an obligatory R/A Woods off of #2, was full of snow snakes and mrs s got bitten good...odyssey was tits maggee but realized it too late in the day for laps The thing is love most about Greek is the slow lifts and lack of crowds get me in my mellow GP groove. All in all another Classic day with good snow, intermittent snow showers, good food and beer and even ran into a few old friends from trips past. I hate trip reports without pics but an also lazy with taking them Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I know I haven’t been particularly active lately. It’s mostly because I have been too busy at work to spend any serious time riding. There also haven’t been many worthwhile days to ride. I don’t mean to be a total doucher, because I’m super stoked some of you got up there, but I seem to be the only one who got really lucky on all accounts. I was headed to Vermont on Friday, and after looking at the forecast, and realizing I was going to be driving through the storm the whole time, I decided that I should head up Thursday night, get a room, and hit Plattekill in the morning. Truth be told, I’m not a huge fan of Hunter or Windham, and when there are goods to be had, I’m not hitting Bell, even if it is closer than Platty by a solid 45 minutes. So, after work on Thursday, about 4:15, I got in the car and headed north. It started raining almost immediately. I booked a room at the Hanah Mountain Resort, which is about 15 minutes from Platty, and pulled in about 10:30. The room cost $82, was a little dated, but it was clean. It had just started some mixed precipitation when I went to bed, but I had high hopes for the morning. I woke up early to about 8” of snow on the ground. I packed up and headed to Cassie’s Cafe in Roxbury for breakfast. I sat down at a high top table with two old timers from the area and passed the time with conversation while waiting for my food. Following an excellent breakfast burrito, I headed to the mountain. I was probably the 15th car in the lot at about 9 AM. It was snowing hard. I went inside to get my lift ticket, and surprise, they were running a special where the first 50 people received a $25 lift ticket. I booted up and was on the lift at 9:15. There was never a lift line all day. Both the double and triple were running all day. We found on later in the morning, via a mountain employee, that ALL other mountains in the Catskills were closed, EXCEPT for Plattekill. There was a huge cheer from everyone in the lodge. That’s when I knew I should never doubt my instincts. The early snow was wet, but later on in the day the temp dropped from 28 to 24, and it became less dense. The base was rough due to the fact that it was 50 degrees the day before, but it was quickly changing. Despite everything being open, there wasn’t much of a base on the natural trails or woods, so we mostly kept to the snowmaking trails. If you had a pair of beater skis, everything would have been in play. About 11:15, after 7 leg burning runs, I decided to head in to dry off and get a drink. When I went back outside an hour later, everything had changed. The wind had kicked up, the temps had dropped, and the snow was lighter. I went down the lift line of the triple, and I experienced the deepest east coast snow I have ever had. The snow was knee to thigh deep. The wind was wind loading everything skiers left. The snow was dumping, and it was free refills all afternoon. I had to hit that trail three times straight before heading back to the double. After a random run down some winding trails, I decided to hit the trail skiers right of the lift line. It was exactly like the triple lift line. Deep, wind loaded, and fresh every run. I decided to spend my last 3 runs of the day there. It was too good not to. After 14 runs, and knowing I had a 6 hour drive (with snow) to the Bush, I headed out. My back leg was completely shot. The parking lot was a complete disaster with 5 foot drifts in places. People parked too tight for the plow to get through, so I had to borrow a shovel from Laszlo, who was out shoveling the entrance doors to his lodge, to dig myself out. I have a ton of respect for that guy. He is out there doing all the hard work everyone else does. After 30 minutes of digging, spinning my tires, and being immensely thankful for backing my car in, I was finally on the road. The GPS decided to take me on Rt. 30 to I-88 to I-90 to I-87. Rt. 30 was one of the toughest drives I have ever done in the snow. The falling snow, combined with the winds, left for a surface that didn’t look like it had been plowed for hours. I was one of the very few idiots on the road, and there weren’t even tire tracks from other people to follow. Half the time I had to look at the line of telephone poles and estimate the road being 20 feet to the left of them. However, as I approached I-88 the snow began to lighten. After a couple miles on I-88 the road was clear and I was able to get to normal speeds for the rest of the trip. All in all, it’s probably a top 3 east coast ski day after Valentines Day 2014 and Le Massif 2017. If I had left before lunch, it would have been nothing to write home about. However, the wind loaded sides of the trail after lunch were some of the best powder I have ever had. All in all, it was a great day. I’m glad I did it. I was able to take some pictures, but it was all before lunch. It was too cold with the wind and snowing too hard for me to take my hand out to get my phone afterward.

Gotta carry on ski boots. Indiggios carries on his helmet.

Walking down the access road pick up stops and ask if we need a ride. Heck ya. More like 3/4 mile walk. I must have been staring at the snow on the walk up and not notice the walk [emoji41] Slopes never crowded, lift lines moved. Lazlo made serious bank today

Only impact the snow seemed to have was that it was better than if it had rained more. Mystery why Nightmare is a double black when it lacks bumps. After convincing kids to try it (as double black is scary for them) they were like "this should be blue" and they were right.

Sick bird !!!

So THAT's where my ruler went!!!

You make good decisions.

Worst drive to Blue. So many closed roads. I saw tractor trailers turnt up, people hundreds of yards into cornfields, downed power lines, and more. I even drove over some power lines at one point as I get sick of the closed roads. skiing was meh.

Today is day 50 for me this season.

Arrived in Bozeman around 10pm. Flight leaving Minneapolis was delayed some 15 minutes due to snow/deicing. Plan to get up early (done), get some grub and head up to Bridger this morning. Bozeman airport

I’ve been to platty 2x and both awesome days! Wish it was closer as it a looooooong day trip but well worth it! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You know tomorrow is Sausage Sunday at Blue? Enjoy funning yourself tho.

If you’re not spending your day at Camelback tomorrow, are you even trying to have a Sunday Funday? Ski you on the slopes.

Props to Blue for the free hats, schwagbags and cookies

and the band at tracksx is playing “oooh baby I love your way” sort grunge version not reggae! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah, I found this now...

Nightmare is to skiers right of Razors. What time did you ski until??

Nightmare shouldn't be any kind of black.

Looks like a possible snowstorm around Wednesday!!

I have power again.

Saw the shitshow at Windham. I imaging platty was the better choice. WTGAI

Fuck yes. Hella jella Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nice. Pretty funny when the whole area goes off. Going up for me wasnt realistic. Glad i didnt anyway. mothers milk fo sho

Wow I always liked I-80

Salty was talking about abrupt transitions last night. It's weird wild stuff. I hope you said hi to Lafonda at the Newark airport for me. She's lenient with the amount of carryon items you can bring. American Airlines terminal

Doesn't Camelback groom everything out though?

Staying in Woodstock tonight. 35 and raining in town, no snow on the ground. Drive a half hour west to Belleayre and there's 2-3 feet and its still coming down.

Big Sky - Final Day Well the storm that's raging over the West decided to stay West of us. Day started out with flurries but the storm never materialized and flurries were the max we received. We're gonna try the South Face, but Dakota was in hold so we hung out for a while on Andesite. Took some runs down Blackfoot which was pretty good with snow, trees and bumps. Went back up Swift and saw Dakota was open, even though the big board still said it was on hold. Ran the trees over in Bavarian which were fun, but snow was wind blown and crusty, so we headed back to the Nirth side for lunch at the Burrito Shack at the top of Swift. I had a loaded tamale with black beans and guac which was quite good. Spent the rest of the day in search of good snow as most was wind-blown. Ran the bumps under the Ramcharger lift a few times as they hadn't been skied much. Getting late and need to pack, so made one final run down Spotted Elk which had some huge bumps, but surprisingly good snow. I REALLY like both Bridger and Big Sky except for the cost of flights. Had a real good time at both and would definitely return to either or both. Both have some serious steepness to them and would have liked to get to some of the more challenging terrain if the weather had cooperated, unfortunately it didn't on this trip. Perhaps the next.

Closin down. Fuckin amazing out right now though

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Big Sky - Day 5 The morning started out cloudy with some heavy flurry action going on. The peak was socked in again, so we probably wouldn't be heading up the Tram. Since we hadn't got any snow overnight, it was gonna be a search for good snow. With the winds out of the South, we thought our best bet would be on the North side of the mountain, so that's where we started. From the Village we took Swift up and went down to the Powder Seeker, since that's what we were gonna be doing today. From the top of the lift however, we found it wasn't going to be a fun day. The light was flat and made the run blind. It was difficult just trying to see the traverse. After fighting our way down that and having enough of the flat light, we headed for the trees. We made our way down to the Challenger lift and down Midnight. Ran the Iron Horse liftline and made our way down Elkhorn to the Six-Shooter. Thinking that nobody goes out to the woods above Six-Shooter because it's a pain due to taking 2 lifts to get there, the snow would still be good. Luckily this paid off. We found some good snow and fun tree runs in and around the Jacks. We lapped them a few times since they were so good. After lunch we made our way over to Andesite to hit some woods that we didn't run the past few days. War Dance and Mine Shaft were my favorites, being freaking steep with lots of soft snow and big bumps. We also ran some perfectly sized bumps on lower Mad Wolf. For shits and giggles we made a run down Freemont's Forest which turned out to be a fun roller coaster ride. Seems as though they have their crazies out here too. On a ride up with a SP who had his radio up, a call went out for a lost person somewhere in some woods. The caller said he should be easy to spot as he's dressed in an Iron Man costume. We all got a good chuckle out of that. We made a final run down Spotted Elk which still had some fresh piles on the sides and headed into the bar for some apres beers. Had an interesting waitress from Cleveland so we had to mess with her a bit for some fun. Slopes were crowded today! Chicken Tikki Masala

Big Sky - Day 3 The morning started out pretty much the same as the others, get up, eat, write TR, etc., go ski. Today was the day after the storm bluebird day, unfortunately it was a bit windy, more on that later. Since it was bluebird, we could get up to Lone Peak with good visibility, unlike all the previous days, so that was the goal. Took the Otter up and then down to the base to see a pretty large crowd had already formed at the Swift. Looks like everyone has the same idea as to where to go. Headed up the Swift and down to the Powder-Seeker. Up the PS and down to the Tram to a small corral of people, not too bad. Took a bunch of pics and watched a skier come down the Big Couloir, followed shortly after by a boarder. Midway down the couloir the boarder fell and tumbled a couple of times. To the crowd's amazement, he miraculously popped back upright and continued the run down to the line. He was wearing brown pants for good reason, we thought! Up the Tram to the top where the winds were howling. From the top, the decision was made to head down the South Face, as they had been here before and found a nice powder field there after a storm. Well, that decision quickly came back to haunt us, as the storm's winds were out of the West and had blown Liberty bowl almost completely bare of powder. Oh to be a local! We picked our way down Liberty and down to Dakota and lapped the trees a couple of times. Riding up Dakota I was drawn to Kircher's Cliffs, looker's left. There were some avy explosion marks in the snow and a few tracks. I wanted to check it out but the others wanted to do another tree run. My curiosity got the better of me and I told them I was headed to the cliffs, but none followed. Headed down past the blue Badlands and the an avy gate and made my way out a traverse to the base of the cliffs and a wide-open Hanging Valley perder field all to myself. Skies down that and found the way back to Dakota and the others. Of course, they now wanted to check it out! Having done it once already, this time I pushed even further South, going around a cliff and further South some more to the avy pockmark to score some more Fresh tracks. We grew tired of South Face and made our way back around to have some lunch. Since the snow was better on the North side, we headed over to Andesite and lapped the bumps on Mad Wolf a few times. Departed Andesite by way of Spotted Elk which still had some freshies and made our way back over to Challenger as its close to the house. We lapped Challenger liftline bumps and the trees around there until we had had enough and made our way back to the house for some homemade guac and beers. One of the local bars supposedly had poker and a ping-ping table, so we made our way there after dinner only to be skunked on both fronts. Poker night was Thursday and the ping-pong table was no more. Yellowstone Club

Big Sky - Day 2 Snow began falling around 7am and was coming down at a pretty good clip and avy guns again going off on the mountain. The plan for the day was to head over to the South Face right off to take advantage of the falling snow. We headed down to Mountain Village and checked the big board to make sure both Shenandoah and Dakota lifts were good and both were green, sweet! Rode up the Sweet quad to make our way to the backside. At the top of the lift we catch a sign that both the other lifts are closed. WTF? Is the big board right or these? We decided to take a chance that the lifters forgot to change them last night and went over to Paradise, not Blue's green version by any stretch! At the bottom of Paradise we found to our dismay that the big board was wrong and the lifties had it right. Let that be a lesson to all! Took Middle Road all the way back to the base and decided to hang out on Andesite for the morning. Took Ramcharger lift and proceeded down Crazy Raven which had some nice, partially filled bumps down to Everett's Anger. At that point, the group took a right, heading down to Big Horn, but me and another went left, deeper into the woods...mistake. The farther we went in, the steeper it got to get down to Big Horn. We did eventually find a route down which had pretty thin cover to which the nicks in the bases would attest. Up the Thunder-Wolf and down Mad Wolf which had some gnarly bumps all the way down the liftline. Next lap, some went back to the bumps, me and another decided to go tree searching, as we can ski bumps back st Blue but not many trees. We headed down to check out Shady Chute which was ok, but nothing spectacular. It was shot and we popped out too soon and went straight back down to Thunder-Wolf. Others wanted another bump repeat, so we tried Broken Arrow. It was a little like Shady, but more open with some huge bumps at the bottom. They had enough bumps so we all went down to the Bolivia woods area. Lots of fun and good snow were down there. Last run through we pushed right into Marlboro Country where they have a bunch of avalanche fencing and a tight, bumped corridor next to them, pretty cool! We broke for lunch and asked SP about South Face who confirmed it was open. It was still pumping snow and we had probably received a good 4-5" by now. We made our way down Spotted Elk under Ramcharger which was a lot of fun. We made it around to the South Face the same way as in the morning and took the long run past the Yellowstone Club which we heard some wild stories about from people in the lift. Must be nice to have gobs of money... Up the Shenandoah and down Sunlight and Mike Skinner to the Dakota. We marveled at Kircher's Cliffs off in the distance and wondered how one would extract themselves if the had got too close to find themselves cliffed-out. It's some pretty wicked terrain out here and you better know what you're doing! Evidence of a fresh slide was still up there. We ended up lapping the trees under the Dakota which were all freshly filled, so finding powder was as easy as going around the next tree. The weather was a bit fickle on this side, as at the bottom of the lift it was barely flirting, midway up it was dumping snow and at the top, it was sunny! It was after 2pm now, so we decided to depart and make our way back to the house. As we came around to the other side it was still snowing hard and there were still untracked runs to be found. At this point, my legs were noodles and I just wanted to get back. Some decided to make a few more runs, which for one member, wasn't the smartest of ideas. He went off a little roller, spun around and torqued his Achilles bad. No need to push it when you're tired! Beer, dinner (Shrimp Scampi), Johnny Walker and a movie, to which I didn't pay any attention because it was so boring. I didn't even get the title.

Big Sky Day 1 Awoke at usual 0-dark-thirty to overcast skies, wind and teen temps. After egg, bacon bagel sangwich, headed down to base to pick up tickets using Max Pass. Unfortunately they wouldn't issue us multiple day passes, so this is going to have to be a ritual. Left the house to the sound of avy guns going off, always a welcome sound! Skies down the White Otter liftline which is right out back of the house and took it up to go down to Mountain Village. Took Swift Quad up and once we crossed the ridge were met with crazy winds blowing us sideways. Took a quick run down Buffalo jump and went back up to seek shelter from the wind. Made our way over to the Challenger lift area to find sweet soft bumps under the lift line, so we lapped that a few times. Some took the regal line straight down to the hoots of the lift riders, others stayed in the trees skiers right. The challenge was at the top of Challenger lift due to the wind blown, crusted snow and also the filled bumps that were hard to see in the flat light. We then went to the Iron Horse quad to find another fun liftline full of perder bumps, so we lapped that a few times. Decided to stop for lunch. The guys had been out here before, so we headed to an on mountain grill with outside deck. When we arrived, a guy was starting a fire on the deck. As we approached to sit, he asked us if we were members of the club. Evidently some wallets bought out the place and made it private. Down to Madison base... After lunch we lapped the Six-Shooter to Lone Tree to ski the tree runs out here. This is a great area, but lift service sucks big time as you're forced to take two lifts to get the goods. Oh well, all part of the game. Departed the Madison area and headed back to the house for hot tub beers, chicken fajitas, Johnny Walker and Super Troopers movie. Calling for some overnight snow, so might be our only perder day of the week.

Yo get back on track, woke up at usual o-dark-30 and got shit ready. Googled around for breakfast places and found the Western Cafe opened at 6, so made our way there for some pre-ski grub, which was delicious! Made our way up Bridger Road to some spectacular scenery which wasn't evident arriving last night. Skies were clear in Bozeman, but the Bridger cloud was causing a little snow as we arrived, which didn't amount to much. Temps were 0 or a bit less and wind was blowing at 8am. I booted up in lot to the sounds of a helicopter coming in to land, with an ambulance waiting. Not sure what that was all about?? Got second chair on Sunnyside behind some season passholders because we had to wait for ticket booths to open. Ride up with an older couple who had moved to Bozeman from of all places, Bethlehem! Got some lowdown on food & beer places in Bozeman and split from them. With the direction of the wind and some suggestions from some locals, we headed over to Pierre's Knob right off and lapped that area for the morning. We passed the area to Schlasman's, which was closed. Snow was chalky smooth on groomers and wind-blown crud beyond them. Trees were meh, as they've been skied out and not much fresh to find. Regardless, the area is fun, steep at the start with long run outs to the lifts. Groomers are wide and empty so one can really crank them up. For lunch, we hit the Jim Bridger lodge bar for some IPAs and white chili. Wow am I farty now! After lunch it was back up Sunnyside and over to the Bridger lift. They had a competition level mogul run next to Bronco, so we had to check that out multiple times. Between those, we lapped the North Bowl which was mostly moguls. I like Bridger as it reminds me of Alta and Mad River, but with a slightly different vibe. People are so friendly out here! The problem is that if your a visitor without any avy experience, you're relegated to the lower mountain. I kept eyeing up all the fun stuff at the summit and that served by Schlasman's. Ended the day back at the bar where we talked to some guys wearing avy transceivers. The guys didn't say much other than, "It was a good day." The digs... Ballin' in our free upgrade from a Subaru... Road to Bridger... Heli inbound... Lunch! Legit soft snow mogul run. Bronco head.

You buying my pass?

Just relaying what Camelback told me to tell you. 37 trails... get excited!

Well,then I got 40” at my house if we are measuring drifts. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk