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Late afternoon tour today....

Hey all, I’m back from a fun PASR day at Blue mountain the true mountain. I arrived at the lower lot before 720am and it was in the mid teens and dark with light winds. In the house were Atomic Jeff, Schifdawg, Nancy, JFDan, BenM, NMSki, Faldo, Enjorales, Enjorales cousin, Nastar Glenn, Mixilplix, MBike mike, Pops, Ryan, Mute, Salty, BooBear, Justo, Rose, Toast, Indiggio, Tarponhead, Dirtwolf, Slim, Vethkehem ford guy, Charles and many others. First civilian Quad to Freefall, the run formerly known as Coming soon. The snow was nice packed powder..cold quad ride with the snowmaking cannons blasting. Main Street was alright and I skied that twice. Lazy mile had really nice snow and not real crazy. First paradise of the year had good snow as well and no SP3000 speed patrol. Went back to the quad for another round of freefall and still nice. Then I skied midway to lower Main and another lazy. The parking lot was fun. With the sun shining it didn’t feel that cold and many beers and chips were consumed and I gave some pretzels and popcorn to Wally, the PASR mascot. Anyway you slice it or dice it, it was just another day in paradise.

My daughter on upper ridge and ski patrol shack

Commence day 2... Blue bird yet again 35 degrees, sunny!! Bit cooler than yesterday.

Today was amazing. It snowed last night, the forecast was iffy, so I checked webcams first thing in the morning and decided to go to, we’ll, First again. Second in line with only a girl with skis and a dog waiting ahead of us. It still snows a little, and the viz isn’t great, I can hardly see surrounding mountains, but it is what it is, and the gates open with two minute delay again… We’re riding up, getting past first station, and viz gets worse. Reaching second station, and it’s total milk. Fog is even inside the station. I pull the phone to check back on the cams, and yep it got worse on top as well, but at least I can see something on screen! At the final station it does look better, the problem is that the wind is howling, snow is blowing across, gaiter freezes solid, and we still can’t see anything for a safe run. Next chair lift to the very top is not running, so we’re taking the ridge walk again. Nothing to see out there, for there are clouds everywhere. By the time we’re back on snow I start feeling like those folks scaling up Eiger in North Face. But at least I have a way down. Chairs up aren’t spinning yet, and the attendant says that it’s gonna take at least another 30 mins, so we decide to ski down to the previous station. No viz, but the snow is awesome! It seems like there are 6” of fresh snow lying on groomed surface, so we’re just floating down while carefully watching the markers so that we don’t fall off the trail. The trail is also somehow shielded from the wind, so we don’t feel like frozen popsicles anymore. Got to the station, then up, then down again, it just felt sooo good… Some people started to form a line at the bottom of that delayed chair lift, we didn’t want to waste time waiting, so continued skiing and fantasizing about how great it must be up there… Finally the lift opened up, we hopped on it, reached the top, let the skis on the surface and immediately cursed. It was all frozen cord with snow just blowing across. In complete disbelief, half skiing, half scraping we proceeded down thinking “how can it be so shitty here when it’s so good only a little bit lower, snow has to change at some point”, but alas, before the thought even started to process, I suddenly hit an unseen pile of blown snow and flew head first. Soooooft!!! Later throughout the day we’ve found uniformly deep trails, icy spots and even some very decent groomers with at most an inch of new snow. The weather cleared up and went bad again. Viz fluctuated from “I can see everything around” to “I think there was a drop after this turn, where is it, a shit, here it goes!” It was a day of wildest skiing ever. From “I probably should just go back right away” to “Damn, is it time to get tested already??” And hardly any people, the locals are so spoiled!

Super fun time today..Great weather.... good peeps....nice snow on Coming Soon and Lazy.... Main Street was OK..After riding I tried some more tele turns on the learning hill...Ended up riding the chair a couple of times too....Great parking lot scene today...

So today was the first time I’ve ever been to Bear for opening and they do it a little weird. They don’t allow anybody onto the snow till rope drop so the courtyard between the lodge and snow is PACKED. PHENOMENAL conditions this morning. Perfect sparkling cord that crunched beautifully under your board ripple by ripple, carve by carve as you plunged down Cascade with not a jerry in sight. The type of snow that would make a puppy pull a freight train. (this was my poor attempt to describe conditions like @Johnny Law) The snow held up great for the 2.5 hours we were there. Sub 3 minute lift lines for the first hour then gradually grew to 5-7 minutes. by 1030 lines were getting longer so my cousin and I went over to F lift and checked that side out for a couple runs. 22 degree but the sun was blasting so it was nice and comfortable…perfect weather. Just messing around, can’t wait to film some actual stuff in the coming weeks.

Trail called flat iron which has to be the steepest trail in bounds. Really fun

This was really fun. It's not marked on the map but a lot of people were skiing it

Skier. He skied a few times when he was younger so he was excited to try again. He took a private lesson Thursday and since then we’ve been cruising blues and greens. He wants to go skiing again before we come back to Whiteface in March so maybe we will take a trip to blue one of these weekends.

Was only about a 45 minute wait. Photo from earlier of some random dude. Can't want for the sunrise tomorrow

Blue’s lot would look like that if Salty brought his sister

Today was good. The most PASRs for a weekend morning so far this year, I think. Skiing was great and a nice return to form for Blue. Cant wait for more terrain.

Great ski day! Snowbowl was more than I ever expected. Great snow, terrain and weather. I'd be overjoyed to call it my home mountain if I were lucky enough at some point in the future. The lifts are great too. Grand canyon express and the Arizona gondola (just installed this year) boot you up quick. Only negatives are the parking sucks. Also snowbowl road is a 7 mile trek to the base kinda sucks too. The amount of traffic going in and coming out this evening was crazy. It has to be a nightmare when it snows. Also the lodges need help bad. They're pretty dated. The food at the grill was great though. Few more pics...lower bowl just below the hike to terrain up top and a steep little gully that I found.

Lmao.

Rolled into the lot at 8:30 this morning; steady line and the parking lot was filled at level it is normally at close to 10. Everyone out for the new snow. Antman's description was dead on. I skied F chair until 10:30, Grizzly was sweet again, Broadway really held up well and Polar Bear was very nice. Then went to B and skied Kodiak and Black Bear. Black Bear snow was some of the nicest of the day. Yes, no one allowed on snow until rope drop, but this morning was unusually crowded at that time so plaza was crowded. Best bet in that case is go to E, then to F from there. JADIP

I’d be willing to bet the recent snow(s) had more to due with the crowds today than epic passes.

Currently packed to head out to the beautiful Grand Canyon state. Plan is to ski Arizona Snowbowl tomorrow and Saturday, leave Flagstaff, drive to then Grand Canyon Saturday night. Hang out there Sunday (trying to get in on a little GC sunrise) the down to the valley on Sunday to drop my kid off at school. Arizona Snowbowl is a place that I've been intrigued by since driving past it on the way to the GC in 1999. Just something really neat to me about skiing on a defunct volcano in the middle of the high desert. Not your typical western ski area for sure but it's on a big ass mountain...lift served elevation is at 11,500 feet with hike to open bowl skiing up top at 12k. Total vert is 2800 feet. 777 acres of skiing with 260 inches on average. In other words...its legit. They have 78 inches logged thus far this season and the next few days look like blue bird skiing under the Arizona sunshine with highs around 30. Stoked to say the least. LFG.

I selfishly support this.

How awesome would it be if blue did the same thing for opening? Imagine PASR’s going full Usian Bolt from the pavement to the 6 pack

Then you would just complain like you always do.

9am. Just stopped at the grille for lunch. Party atmosphere out here. DJ and all.

Root was also in the House.

There used to be a view…

We've been in Wilmington/Lake Placid since Sunday 1/2/2022. First time skiing in 2 years and it felt good to be back out. Worked remotely most of the week. Took off Thursday and today to get some laps in. Typical Northeast ski conditions. Windy, dry and chilly. Snow has been decent though. It was fairly empty yesterday and today which is always nice. Feels like you have the mountain to yourself. We will ski again tomorrow which looks like it will be 32 and sunny. Sorry I don't have the details like most of the trip reports. We skied a fair amount of vert. Rode the gondola most trips so we skied top to bottom a bunch. Ate at the bottom lodge and usually ordered from the BBQ menu (they have a smoker outside the lodge with some good eats). So yeah Ill post some pictures tomorrow. Visibility hasn't been great so not much to share.

Yooooo this place is fuckin awesome!!!!!! More to come

It was a looooong day today. Made a decision yesterday to go and check out Mähnnlichen, so walked to the train station in the morning with the idea to ride Interlaken train one stop to the Terminal where gondolas start, but then realized that another train to Kleine Scheidegg was leaving a few minutes earlier, and spontaneously decided to give it another try. It turned out great. Sunrise ride up the mountain in a completely empty train, then likewise hardly any people on the trails, in other words Kleine Scheidegg has totally redeemed itself during those few morning runs, and one hour later we skied down to the Terminal and proceeded to Mähnnlichen. It is a very different area, with wide groomers, and though there were already plenty of people who ascended both from Grindelwald and Wengen (Mähnnlichen is easily reachable from both), they’ve somehow spread out, so it was manageable. But I still think that First is the best crowd-wise. We looped those high elevation groomers for a while, then got a little bored, so had lunch (Swiss or EU COVID Cert is required to eat inside), somehow got ourselves back to Kleine and ventured on a long loop along rail tracks to Wengen. It’s a similar kind of a trail that is going in the other direction to Grindelwald, but it is far less travelled, so we just zoomed along, got really embarrassed when ordering drinks in some place along the trail only to find that it’s cash only, and we had only a few franks in our pockets, but otherwise had a very pleasant leisurely ride to Wengen. It’s a place worth exploring. The trail gets right in the middle of it, so from trees and slopes you literally end up crossing the streets and getting to a point where there’s a skating rink on the left and a gondola back to Mähnnlichen on the right. Rode up, paused for a drink watching how everybody was scrambling before incoming snow, skied slopes half way down to Grindelwald, realized that we can’t see shit and took gondola to the bottom. Phew.

Lancaster this morning. It isn't very thick and I had some trouble getting the right wax combo, the skiing on this should be better once it resolidifies tonight.

I was at Hunter today. As nuts as the lines for the lifts from the base were after 915 or so, the F lift was never more than 8 minutes for a single and the North Face lift under a minute through 1pm. I got 13 runs and 14k vertical in from 845-115 with a 45 minute break, and the only real bad line I waited in was about 25 minutes for the 6 pack after my break at about 11 am. I have had much more frustrating line days weekends at Blue where there aren't really many alternate lifts to turn to. Definitely a day tons of people would have come out with how bad holiday conditions would have been, the fresh snow in NY/NJ the day before, and rain forecast for tomorrow.

Big Boulder anyone?!

99pct of the time, at the bottom, there's an option to skip.

https://www.summitdaily.com/news/limiting-lift-tickets-at-ski-areas-could-be-the-new-normal-as-overcrowding-becomes-pervasive-in-the-industry/?fbclid=IwAR07KabyqmB8pv5m9obaWZpRwdQ8XacovMkGuBVY3eXHZJ_VHksK6ANKZi8

Apparently they had issues last year and the year before with guests meandering about the snow well before the lifts open while they’re trying to return with the cats/ski patrol using the snowmobiles to move fencing etc etc up to the top of the mountain. I hear that from a friend who patrolled there up until this year, so take it for what it’s worth, but it would make sense.

North rim closed in winter unless you hike to it

The only time i have seen the access rd like that is for the cardboard classic

lololololololol

Gud skiing today. First time in a while midway was not great. i want to ski tomorrow, but im coming up with more bad then good for tomorrow. The biggest thing i am struggling with is they have such a hard time getting the lifts to cooperate after some snow, so, well, you know, they will run great tomorrow?

Sweet what time do they open at on weekends? Even though you aren’t getting powder it’s njce that there’s good visibility.

I’ll have to do a night session or 2 there this year. Went last year and had a good time. I learned how to ski there, it’s a great hill for that. I always recommend it to folks learning or if they are skiing with small children.

Ran back into town to get my daughter who didn't want to get up this morning. Chili dog for lunch and Back out to close up shop. It's much busier now. I think all of Phoenix descended on snowbowl

Yes. Trail called blackjack. This place is legit AF. I absolutely love it here. Love it. Packed pow. Blue bird. Sun trees steeps. It's all here

Arrived in Flagstaff last night at 12:30 local time...long ass day. Watched the first four episodes of Cobra Kai then dozed off and tried to sleep a little. I think I dozed off for a bit but sleeping on a plane is virtually impossible for me. When I left PHX airport it was 58 degrees. Smooth drive up 17 to Flagstaff. Stopped at the circle K in Anthem for provisions. Around 6k feet, just past Sedona, ground became snow covered. Flagstaff, of course, is snowy. The place where were at has a very ski lodge look and feel, ski themed essentially...nice fire place and all that jazz. All excellent for stoke. Flagstaff is a college town and a ski town all in one. Anyway today is looking sunny and blue bird with highs in the 30s up high and 40s down below. 46 of 48 trails are open but the hike to stuff in the bowl is not which is kind of a bummer. Anyway stay tuned for more. I heard we got a few inches at home so enjoy! Looking forward to reading reports at Blue.

Just rope of the bottom riders left of Coming Soon and funnel people to the right side to avoid mayham where the trail merges?

Top of the morning to everyone

Some people like to dress to impress. I’m not one of those although I wear khaki pants all the time but they’re usually stained or wrinkled.

Well, Kleine Scheidegg sucked big time. Beautiful vistas, a 30 minute ride by train zigzagging up the slope, and a total circus on top. Sooooo many people, so few and so narrow trails, totally scraped to some frozen base. There was one trail going all the way down along the rail track, absolutely unreal views, but it’s narrow, green and is the only way to go down except for a gondola or train ride. So folks of all abilities end up flying, pizzaing, standing or passing. Thinking of either repeating First tomorrow morning or trying Mähnnlichen.

Serious inversion going on right now: