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Ski day 2 @tarponhead in Da Haus! Departed the hacienda around 7:00am in 12’ temps, which would be about the low for the day, thank goodness and flurries falling. Heard the plow go past a couple of times overnight which for these parts is almost as good as hearing avy bombs going off! Uneventful drive up to the mountain and we had prime parking spots due to the lack of parking attendant. Booted and lined up with the WF retirees who were first in line for the gondy. Hmm, who do they remind us of?? We did far too many runs today to list separately, but for the most part, snow fell for the majority of the day, but unfortunately the wind was howling ip top too. Each run was a search on one side or the other for the stash of wind-blown powder. Most of the time we were lucky to find it and made for a fun-filled day! We made a few trips up to the summit to find much the same powder hunt. The last of which wasn’t much fun as the summit was in the clouds and freezing fog glazed the goggles. Unfortunately most of the runs were groomed to the hilt, so only some powder bumps were found. Towards the end of the day as the legs have out, we did manage to score some glades down near the bottom and retired to the bar for a couple of well deserved beers. At that point we parted ways as @tarponhead made his way over to VT. Back at the casa we decided on Wyatt’s Tex-Mex in the mall. They allow you to select from a menu of stuff to shove into your burrito; I pretty much chose everything I could! Delicious and highly recommended! Grate cap to a grate day! @tarponheadand son waiting for gondi to open… Some pics when the flurries let up… Obligatory Olympic scoreboard pic and timing shack… While we were having fun on the mountain the wife was galavanting around town and walking on the lake… Head to town to pick up food… Burrito grande, tacos and of course, beer!

Nice sunrise at work this morning 🌅

Lift lines to the gates on both lifts 40 mins into opening is rough. It’s a shame myself, @toast21602 , and @mute1080 don’t get our own special privileges to skip to the front of the line. It used to be us and like 5 retirees at opening on Thursday mornings. Once everyone in the tri state area noticed this, they started coming in the morning. It could be argued the only reason blue gets crowds on Thursday mornings is because we put everyone on to them. When will blue cut us our check?

Rolled up at 830 to an empty house; apparently everyone was late as I was in the lineup without another person until 855. Only the quad was running and only sometimes. Razors was open so I took the first two down and it was a perfect carpet. One of the mogul dudes said Challenge was good and while it was a little loose it was the best so far this year. Main and switch were rotd just effortless carpets. By 915 everyone had arrived and by 940 both lines were back to the gates I took 4 more but the loose chunky was coming through on razors and challenge and I had enough of the lines. Good day and some very good snow around but the quad thing is getting ridiculous. The tail is wagging the dog, one trail is determining the entire operation of the hill when it's been the worst trail on the hill more often than not. All of which is because they thought it better to merge the steepest part of the hill with their primary green run rather than extend it 500 yards and create an easier merge on homestretch. It's almost like skiing off a tram where you get pulse delivery lines where everyone is being delivered on both ends at similar times.

Honestly wouldn't mind one bit if six was running and had to skate up to Coming Soon. Quad just ain't cuttin it.

Ski day 1 Loaded up the car about 7:00am into 12’ and flurries which would be the high temp for the day!! The son had put the directions into his phone and Away we went. Driving out of Lake Placid and up towards the mountain, passing the golf course and Cobble Mountain Lodge, I thought of @RidgeRacer and @saltyant . We continued to drive a bit longer than I expected from looking at the map, but the son assured me we were going the correct way. We came to a T and he instructed me to turn left, Ok. As we climbed an ever steepening road, we came to Santa’s Workshop in North Pole, NY. Next I see a sign for Toll Ahead. Tolls on a ski road? WTF? About this time I was pretty sure something was amiss, as the son was tapping something into his phone. “Uh oh”, he uttered. “Uh oh, what?”, I responded. “Uh, looks like there’s a Whiteface Mountain and Whiteface Mountain Resort and I think I chose the wrong one”. Bah! We had just taken a 15 minute excursion, but got to see where Santa builds his toys! When we finally managed to get to the mountain, parked and actually booted up in the lodge which I never do, but the frigid temps and length of hike proved it worthwhile. Unfortunately with the flurries falling, views of the summits were obscured. Started out on the gondola and down Excelsior just to see how the conditions are. The report said the mountain got 9” from yesterday’s storm, but you wouldn’t know it as the wind had blown most of it away. Rode Little Whiteface and lapped the runs in that area for a while. Took a run all the way down and rode the quad back up. By then the brutal cold had pushed us into the lodge to warm up. After warming up, we took the summit quad up to the peak. Lots of the upper runs have not had much blown on them and the wind was howling, so we headed back down to lap the lower runs. They’re calling for snow tomorrow, so we quit kinda early and headed back with visions of BBQ in our heads. Placed an order for brisket and brisket sandwich from Smoke Signals, both of which were delicious. Not a good photo day… Today’s beer… Brisket and chopped brisket sandwich with Habanero BBQ sauce and the wife’s salad…

I'll be there for the night shift in a bit. I know it's gonna be a shit show but it's kinda like drinking or eating Mexican. You know you're gonna pay for it later, but you just don't care. Praying both lifts are running.

Deadhead Bob told me, with great certainty, that the fantasy lift is actually a funicular.

We appreciate it! Reports are exponentially better with good pictures.

No the bottom of the valley learning hill. @RajeevGuptaSucheeta Blue mountain would be able to compete with the hill stations in Gulmarg.

Coming soon was good for a week, then they ruined it lol

This is great. I'll put it on the agenda for the next staff meeting.

Just saw him and he told me the same thing. He's skiing tonight if anyone wants to find out more of his fantasies on the lift.

It increases lift capacity out of the valley.

16" compresses down to very little depending on the density. The way to think about the knob is like magic or old powder. Very good terrain mtn with interesting terrain for its area, cool vibe and good different but everything else is almost always real half ass and maybe not at all. It's good and you should go but ideally during the week and only when mother nature has been most helpful otherwise it's probably bad because these types of places the hill more is than what a mgmt group makes it. That's Edges hood and I mean no disrespect at all but he is Einstein compared to that area. I wouldn't doubt they can't find people. The deal really with the place is it has the sketchiest road with snow to a skiing area maybe anywhere. Off camber no guardrail 300ft drop 80 degree right turn slightly downhill if I recall. When my cousin went to toon town we rode their a bunch and he swears he was there when a car went off and all the people died.

That's exactly what I think too. Any expert has to be able to skate the 2 mins to the top there and even if you Sunday walk in the park'd it at most it's 5 mins. Plus it uncompromises the hill and the trail itself. It's got the best guns and lights but every person I've talked to said the last 3 days it's been essentially unskiable. Why because they had to 3d it to slow peeps down but if you have to walk to it you'll get 1/10000th the traffic and maybe netting is enough to groom it again. My even bigger point would be all this effort all the capital for the new trail and lights/snow making and it's all a compromise now because of some dumb ass idea to save some $$$$ and merge with pdis. That's when being cheap costs you more money. Sadly I didn't see her, she's probably at her house anyways but I think we only saw her that one time in the lodge early season.

We were trend setters.

I bet it would run more 🤣🤣 Iirc early detachables had two entirely different drive systems stacked on top of eachother. One of my favorite chairs like mechanically is Northside at dv and it's that style with two chain driven toothed lines where it essentially never detaches but the faster lines teeth slide by. It's got 7483783822 parts but if the quad is that style you could totally improve the quality with some montage style tech. My board on a stick idea a la craps though is much cheaper.

Coming Soon / Free Fall isn't worth only running a crappy lift. #BringBackSixPack

oh yea that mountain can be cold! Some years back Niko and I went up for some "spring" skiing in late March, started out at -14* with high of 0* lol. We're headed to Gore Friday , calling for a high of 10....

Nice report. Check out Paradox brewing on the way home. It's right off the Northway (87) Exit 29.

I love the multi pass, but the way Vail is managing their resorts is, just like you said, bad for everybody except Vail. I really dont think i want to participate in the Epic pass next year for the simple reason i dont want to fund the company putting the fucks to skiers. Unfortunately, lots of people dont have that option, like if any of Vails resorts in PA are your home mountain. no brainer, you need to buy their pass, like it or not. I dont think Vail sees a huge drop in pass sales next year. I dont think they will get their shit together either. just send out more apology letters and videos, and tell people next year snow will fall from the sky in huge quantities at all their mountains, and unicorns will be in charge of making snow.

It was so cold today, it took all the will I could muster to pull the phone out to take a few pics!

Down for either (would prefer SL, tho) when I return from JH.

I could probably do a weeknight at Bear Creek

Nastar is running, GS on Tuesday night, SL on Wednesday.

Nah. VIP line is pointless. Quiet on this side of the hill though. Not sure if I want to risk going back just yet. Main street is nice. There's a series of dark rollers toward the bottom which I caught thankfully. Patroller drills on main in the pic.

That would be rad!!! It’s interesting looking at old PASRs accounts who were so active and just stopped skiing and riding. Some of them are my facespace friends and like my posts. For me skiing is a lifelong thing. Shit if I ski 3 days in a week I feel like I’m slacking.

Not in the bullseye, all the compost steam from the mushroom houses creates a microclimate around kennett square where it melts the snow at about 1000’ and turns it to rain and we’re left with 33° temps and rain.

Complete shit show. 6 isn't running. Quad lines back past the johnny turnstiles. Slopes empty though like mute said. 20 minutes or so in line. One run on coming soon so far. Beautiful night out though. Snows good enough.

Just got 2 boxes in the mail today....jumped on it over the weekend when I saw they were available on walgreens.com. waiting on 4 more boxes that I ordered a while ago. Not really concerned about the government freebies. Believe it or not the 4 boxes I had previously came in handy. Thankfully no positive but peace of mind and all that. My father felt like he had a cold last week. Did a home test and got a positive. He immediately quarantined. He's very vocal about the booster and thenfact that COVID has been pretty much a non issue for him because of it. Runny nose, some coughing and that's it.

Wow. Look at all of this ice. Ice everywhere!!!

RAW session right now. I think the monstars took my ability to snowboard between sunday and tonight. Lol.

DC ski has a really good writeup/forum posts on blue knob if anyone wants to get into a rabbit hole. Apparently there used to be a lift from the condos and cabins to the summit with a trail under to ski back down, with expansion plans past stembogen or whowever the hell you spell it. I went last season after a few of those big storms and they had a ton of snow. the snow on the side of the road was taller than my car, yet all the trails werent open, and they had 2 snow guns running despite being 7 degrees. According to some over a DC ski, the place operates with only 30 percent snowmaking capacity actually functioning. couple that with a crappy start to this winter, this is what you get. the knob desperately needs to be sold to someone who can fix the snowmaking system, fix the lifts, and market the hell out of the place. Its relatively easy to get to, just a few minutes from the highway. the one way up is sketchy AF, but the state park keeps the other way up very well maintained. there is nothing else like it in the area, and with vail monopolizing the resorts in the area, now is the time for Blue Knob to seek some investments and upgrades.

According to BenM blue runs both the quad and six packs on Thursdays and Fridays.

The 8 person lift will have bubble coverings and heated seats

The gondola from the valley to the top of the Main Street chair.

It’s good today. Been snowing all morning. Maybe 2” on top of what was groomed. Snow is a bit sticky but quite a nice surprise this morning. Glad I’m up here.

Weekday mornings are way to busy for quad only.

Where do you think this is? Montage?!

Lmao! I’m here at Lake Placid Brewery and pub eating chow before heading to Indigios tiny house after an uneventful drive up and I figure instead of asking how his drive up was to check this site first. Indigo is a GSS-approved poster! Psyched to ski WF tomorrow and doing it with Indigio and son! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No crowds to speak of tonight and conditions were to be as expected. Grooming was in progress on sidewinder and looked like they were making some good progress.

They already got another hamster and wheel what more do you want them to do ?

yep, and i think it has been proven, that if you like your home mountain, it pays off in spades for Vail not to buy it. We would still be riding the main street chair at this time. And, all you guys eat waaaay too much fast food. lol.

Old Allentown natives call MacArthur road 7th street and Philly fucks call it 145.

Nice report. Gotta be cool waking up and seeing Tarponhead...at least you didn’t have to share a bunk bed with him like at Alta!!!!

I agree...maybe leave a bump line down the one side. I’m gonna start posting on Blues FB Page about how they should run the six pack instead of the quad midweek.

they should put an auxiliary John Deere tractor motor in there!

They can’t open more lifts because they still don’t have two of their main wide top to bottom slopes open, Exhibition (blue) and Thunderbolt (black). They only have one slope open for the blue and black lifts. Until the past couple of years, I’ve had a season pass there for 20 years, and they were always open by New Years. East Mountain might open mid to late January. I don’t think Vail wants to spend the money for electricity to blow snow, or staff up to fully open. Sad.

Thanks Toast!