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Fun day! Temps weren’t that bad and it was nice to get a full run. Always amusing to watch Blue make their own microclimate.

Hey All, I’m back from a fun session at Blue mountain the true mountain. I arrived at the lower lot at 720AM and it was 8 degrees and in freezing fog. In the house were JFDan, Atomic Jeff, Root, PARidge, BenM, MBike Mike, Mrs. Snowbunski, Enjoralas, Pops, Enjorales cousin, Eddie, Falco, Charles, Rodney, Drew, Antman, Slim, Ryan, Mute, NMSki, Salty, Bethleham Ford Guy and many others. As we hoofed it out to the six pack it wasn’t open yet so began on the quad..first civilian four pack second day in a row for the PA skiing historical society..has to be some sort of record. The ride up was icy and cold with guns a blazing. First run was Main Street and it was kind of funky and chunky on top..lower left was smooth..shuttle had some amazing freshies and home stretch was mad technical Yo!! Lazy mile had nice snow a little soft and then into the fog in Falls which I seriously picked my way down cause I CSS couldn’t see shit. The race kids were out for the first time this season but no gates set up for them. The Chute opened today..looked icy AF so didn’t ski it..one run on Tuts a snowsnake grabbed my pole and I had to go back up and grab it. I probably burned off half of a Doritos. I skied Burma and back as well and the full lazy mile. I skied till 930 and was covered and smothered with manmade Poe as the snowmaking cannons were cranking out sneaux in Paradise, Razors, Challenge, lower park and many other runs. The parking lot was fun..had some beer and chips and it was up into the 20s which was still chilly but warmer than earlier. Pops even bought a pizza from the one food stand and the slice I had was MSY mad Steezy yo..all in all it was JADIP just another day in paradise and I’m thinking the bakery on Paradise will open tomorrow for fresh cookies..bring your own milk.

Fun day. Conditions were choppy and the falls were spicy. Oh and if either myself or my kids initials were BMR I'd get our name legally changed. Fun day regardless. Good to be back in the valley and great to see the place covered in snow everywhere...even if we couldn't ski it all.

PASR group XC at Jacobsburg State Park this afternoon was a ton of fun. Shout out to @mbike-ski for the elite loaner gear and for @Mixilplix for picking up my pieces every time I fell. @AtomicSkier joined in as well to test out his new skinz. We ended up doing about 3 miles from the environmental center up the ridge to the meadows and then back down through Henry's Woods. I was surprised at the amount of xc track that was already laid. Saw a few other people out there as well. Good shit. Looking forward to doing it again. I'm currently browsing gear online because this was an absolute blast.

Quote of the day @AtomicSkier "Salty, you have expensive hobbies." 2 minutes later "We've got our helicopter reserved."

That was a super good time....

Oh and the barcodes they sent us for our tickets via email were useless and we had to read out the confirmation codes to the people behind the ticket windows. Through the glass and a full layer of mask/scarf. You can bet that was an efficient method of transferring info. I had a better day at Tanglewood yesterday, and they've been closed for eight years.

Change your clock. It takes 2 seconds

Look at it this way. After the snow settles a bit, you’ve now got 3’ of base to work with for the next storm. Everything is covered, so a 6-8” day is gonna ski awesome and not be miserable on the up. Get after it! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Tonight was great! Quite busy on the slopes, but zero wait in line if you're using expresses. Interestingly at times there was a considerable line to get to Burma chairs, IDK what and why people would wait there instead of just skipping down to the Valley. Cookie field migrated up to the middle of Main Street, right on top of the moguls that formed where the two trails merge. So if you go down Main Street top-to-bottom, the conditions would look something like awesome-awesome-meh-shit!-crap!!-meh-OK. Lazy mile has nice rollers along the left side, and again conditions change from great to a mix of scraped spots and piles. Paradise should open soon. Given the conditions and crowds, we've ended up looping a rather unusual route: Quad-Connector-Vista-Burma-Home Stretch, which nicely incorporated elements of skiing, dodging and pushing. In short, great night!

Just got back from Jack Frost. I wish I could talk about the snow conditions but it barely registered. I have never, ever seen the kind of mismanagement, incompetence and downright negligent treatment of a ski area towards its patrons. I understand this year coronavirus has made things difficult and complicated but well run areas can take this in stride and ensure their customers know they care and want their business. Right now JFBB is being run incompetently and covid is always the excuse for bad behavior. Covid *does not let you treat your customers like garbage*. I still expect professionalism and a desire to you know, allow people to have a good time skiing. And look, I barely got on the snow at all today. I had the morning and needed to be back in Philly this afternoon. Unfortunately, I spent about 90% of that time in line. This year I did not purchase a season pass. I figured, with covid restrictions maybe it'd be better to cut down on my days out, maybe check out a few other mountains as well. I wasn't sold on buying an Epic Pass so maybe see how JFBB felt this year under Vail and then buy in next season. Plus points if they managed covid in stride. So much for that. The lodge at JF had a total of four ticket windows available. Because "CDC regulations only allows us that many" said a rep trying to assuage people standing in line for up to two hours. No, you can open more customer service space if you're creative and still follow CDC guidelines. You're just lazy and went "well we can only have half the ticket windows open, guess we can't do anything else about it!". Set up tables in the lodge that are socially distanced, but for crying out loud do *something*. This isn't your first day! Apparently these lines have been common, and still no ideas on how to deal with the lines? It wouldn't even be such a problem if Epic Pass holders weren't in line with us! Yes, that's right, you had to go to the ticket windows with the rest of us schlubs to pick up your season pass. Give them all your info, etc. and hold up everyone for the 5-10 minutes per person it took to process and hand out each season pass. Apparently these were supposed to go out by mail, but many didn't receive them. So here we are. No separate season pass/day pass lines. Just all crushed together in the same giant crowd, spreading the rona. And the wait was intolerable. It took 2+ hours today. Online people were saying they waited up to 3 hours. That is not acceptable under any circumstances. And when somebody questioned why there wasn't an "express" line as promised online for people who came with their ticket info prepared, a rep laughed, said "Well they must have pulled your leg!" like it was funny, and walked away. F*@king unacceptable. Only a handful of trails were open. I didn't even pay attention but they're clearly slow walking trail opening. The conditions were... fine but I mean we just got a foot of snow. Big Boulder is a joke. I thought they might just want to focus on one mountain to make operations easier during coronavirus. But they're not doing anything to keep business at JF as is and running a bunny hill at BB is a joke. I don't think I've ever had a worse experience at a ski area before. I've had a season pass with Peak at JFBB for three years. I liked it there. Yeah, JF is small, but when the conditions are on and its snowing, and you get it on one of those quiet days where its just locals its a lot of fun, and the bonus days in April are a plus as well. But I just can't in good conscience buy into it again under Vail after seeing how they treated people today. They would have a very long road to improving this situation and it just doesn't look like they're interested. Once they have your money they don't seem to care. It's a shame.

Was an awesome afternoon , look for NNN BC stuff, metal edge skis - burlier than the NNN setup you ski’d but lighter and quicker than the 3 pins Mixilpix and I were on Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Both mountains are anachronisms in today's industry. BB should have closed down 20 years ago but found a niche with the park scene. They invested well and got lucky in that they managed to capture the park crowd. Like somebody else mentioned above, park peaked 15 years ago, so they're fighting to hold onto a small share of riders and skiers there. JF is a nice place but its still too small to be competitive as a standalone mountain. The lifts are slow, the terrain offerings are limited. Unless you get a dump of snow nobody cares that you have glades. They do draw a crowd from the surrounding vacation communities though, and they have managed to keep the mountains afloat that way without going the resort option and building hotels and water parks, which I appreciate.

I saw now crested butte

Yeah I get it you’d rather have a couple pumps of cream.

We’re in a good spot right now with a 10, 12 and 15 year old that have all been on the snow since 3. I wish I would have switched last year. JF was horrible and I only used my pass at Hunter last fall. In a few years I’ll be retired and probably a Blue regular.

CB

Complaining again?

FB says paradise is a go for tomorrow. fun day with you morons that started out quite cold.

TL:DR for those who don’t want to read that, JFBB got vailed hard and customer service sucks

Oh boy. I plan on reading this later on with a yeungling hershey's when I have a minute. I have a feeling it's gonna be good.

Why were the PASRs mad?

Sucks but I wasn't planning on using mine on a weekend. Weekends are for the boyz (at Blue). First time on the card should have no restrictions correct?

Okemo was a shit-show today. I arrived a little late and had to park insanely far away. Texted my friends who said the main chair and one other quad were down, no new trails were open, and they were doing more standing than skiing. I turned around and headed home, figuring to get a few skinning laps on Mt. Ascutney. Turns out backcountry skiing is a bear right now because the snow is like chest-deep and even though it's fluffy, it's hard to make any progress even on the steeper pitches. A four-foot powder dump that makes skiing nearly impossible is pretty on-brand for 2020, I'd say! Headed out to earn some turns tomorrow now that today's skiers have chopped it up.

I wonder if pass holders who buy their passes specifically to ride Boulder Park knew this was happening before they dropped dough on their pass? If they didn't that's dirty imo.

Unfortunately that’s the game. Blow smoke up their ass and make them smile. Definitely is mentally draining at times, even more during 2020 but it’s the grind for that paper [emoji385]

@Benm this is what we were talking about on the lift today:

I rode tonight and they were blowing all over, mad shit should open soon...p diz looked chunky

Correct.

Barney’s Bumps opens tomorrow in addition to paradise and all of a sudden Blue is gonna have 20 runs open. I hope I have time to ski all 20

CB

I think every phone is...

I think he was being facetious...but I could be wrong.

What time were the lines that long and were there also liftlines? Blue doesn’t even have a jacket window..day ticket buys scan their barcode from a smartphone at a kiosk and out pops the day ticket. Also what did they charge for a morning ticket? I read the whole post...and not even gonna ask how Floyd’s was.

Here. Mark.Daubert@vailresorts.com Runs jfbb in some capacity.

Mad as in a lot...

Where were you? I had music que'd up for you for when I was pulling into the lot.

I don’t even need a clock in my car or anywhere for that matter my phone has a clock and it’s accurate. It’s actuwlky calibrated to Greenwich mean time yeah GMT..you down with GMT yeah you know me..

Never

12 degree inversion and relevant song for me when I wake up at 445am yeah clock is an hour and 9 minutes fast forces me to do maths.

I'd do Jacobsburg or Trexler or anywhere as long as the trails not all screwed up or steep...doesn't necessarily have to have a track....

Stoked for tomorrow! Imagine..lift lines in the valley not growing exponentially by 9:30 on a Saturday morning.

Alta loads lifts with military precision that would make a drill sergeant weep with joy. I don’t see solo rides happening there Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Years ago me and my office manager had to take a 7 hour long seminar on how to deal with difficult customers. We both left like two hours early cause it sucked so bad. When my customers apologize for being a pain I just say no problem it’s my job and if they’re super impatient I tell them thank you for being so patient lol.

I actually think this would be a legit addition to the biking thread Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That's also what I had heard. Interpreted it as, if that type of ticket was available for purchase online, it was available for buddy pass. I don't trust chat ppl anymore.

exactly. nobody cared about that place 15-20 years ago. then they started holding some smaller rail jams and slopestyle series and started to build some hype. that turned into drawing some unknowns from pretty far away who turned into kinda big deals in the ski industry. i remember skiing with and competing against tom wallisch, steve stepp, sean jordan, brogan, jackie, the dadalis, people who are x games athletes, olympians, people legitimately making a good professional living skiing. and they all still repped boulder whenever asked about growing up skiing in the mid atlantic. not sure what vail's plan is here, but it's definitely a bummer to see boulder lose so much of what put them on the map, even if i'm not so much of a park rat anymore.

Given the age of their lifts they could make "selling off chairs" a pretty steady 2nd income stream.

like bikes and other skis, don't go cheap unless you find a deal on a good setup

Did a little tour of Brookside CC this afternoon......