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Pops and I were up at dark ass o'clock to catch the "flight" out of Allentown to Philthy. 6:05 departure so we left for ABE about 4:30. Didn't want to mess with missing the bag cutoff or anything. After checking in and checking bags we had about a 45 minute wait until boarding. The bus ride to PHL was uneventful and comfortable. Luxury bus, seats as good as the back of most planes. Charging ports at each seat and air vents and reading lights like a plane. Since all ticketed passengers showed up early we departed a bit early and made it to PHL nice and early with no traffic. Drops off at F terminal so security was a real breeze. I have Pre so even more so. Through security in about 3 min for me and 10 for Pops and we jumped on the shuttle to B. Grabbed some gummy Starburst and Mentos for the plane amd a SEC on pretzel roll from Auntie Anne's to eat at the gate. Flight left on time and no issues on the flight. Love those newer big overheads where rollers can sit on edge instead of flat. No storage space drama at all on this flight. NEXT ‐ Airport to the resort, or "Where the f$*# are your skis?"

What a great morning! CB reported 2” overnight but it skied like more. The only ungroomed run I did was the last bit back to the base. Legs got a workout today!

Conditions were pretty good all over this morning. Even at rope drop things were a little soft and carveable. The sun was out for a while, and then heavy clouds rolled in so it never got too warm and the snow never got slushy by the time I left at one. Conditions were a firm packed powder with very few icy or snow pile spots. Pretty crowded for a Monday, with a lot of people on the black slopes because of how forgiving they were. A pretty fierce wind blowing up the mountain, especially on razors and main street.

I rode from 130 to 330 and was shocked how good it was. Very smooth with a cream cheese like topping it was very much hero snow with the exception of a few spots on DW. Everyone must have went early as I saw ZZslope way in front of me in line but it was pretty much ride on. No action on Challenge or Switch, I would guess they are waiting to push out until after the rain.

Day 1 cont. - Landed at DEN and pulled out my phone and checked on the rental car while taxiing to the gate. Was offered a couple of Kia Sportage 2WD options, a couple of minivans, a 2022 Mitsubishi Outlander and a 2023 GMC Acadia. Looked at the differences between the Outlander and the Acadia and decided to get the GMC, but when I went to reserve it it wasn't available anymore. Refreshed a bunch of times while heading to baggage claim and saw a bunch of options. Always the Kias amd minivans, and several different Outlanders. The most interesting one was a 2022 Ford Expedition that popped up on about half of the refreshes. About 2/3 of the times it showed up it said "Upgrade $33 per day" and the rest of the time it was a free upgrade. Was ready to take the 2022 Outlander with about 16k miles, did one last refresh and there was a 2023 Dodge Durango with 1195 miles so snagged that. Took awhile to get luggage because the ski carousel was jammed and they were bringing ski bags out on a cart 6-8 at a time. Finally got the ski bag amd headed to the Avis shuttle. Got to the lot, straight to the car and after a longer line than there should have been (Preferred exit closed) we were on the road to Winter Park. No traffic to speak of and got to Winter Park at about 2pm. Can't get I to the condo until 4 so decided to cruise past the resort and get the lay of the town and nearby Fraser. We were also hungry so decided to keep an eye out for the Mexican good joint that PSUFly recommended to me 6 or 7 times. Okay, it was only 3x, but I figured when someone mentions you should eat somewhere that many times, it probably doesn't suck.I couldn't remember the name but I knew that it was short and simple and I would know it when I saw it, something like The Shack or The Dump. We drove through Winter Park and through Fraser and down the road awhile more and weren't spotting it. Spun around and headed back and figured we'd look some more and eat somewhere in WP. On the way back I asked my sisters BF Stephen whonis with us where he rented skis from so we could pick them up while we were in town. He didn't remember the name. Uhm, okay. Can you look for an email? Can't find an email. Has a text message from them confirming pickup for 2/5 and a price. No name? No name. No address? No address. Google the number. No good hits. Called it and it was a computer. Driving back through Fraser and WP amd Stephen is in the backseat calling like 4 different ski rental jawns off "Winter Park Ski Rentals" and asking if they have a rental in his name for pickup today. Can't make this shit up. 🤣 Almost back through Winter Park and still haven't spotted The Hut or whatever so pull the car into a garage to figure out where to eat and where homie's rentals need to be picked up. Walking toward the shops there trying to decide between the brewpub and a couple other places. "Hey, we should go to The Ditch. Right across the damn street, lol. Walk up and get seated amd now have the difficult decision of deciding between all the delicious items on the menu. The burgers all sounded awesome, including the sliders on the app menu. But going to a place like that and getting a burger would be like going to a cheesesteak place in Philly and ordering a hot dog. (A brother in law did that.) So I got the Murphy which was their basic burrito (which is anything but basic) but also stuffed with a Chile relleno amd topped with French fries and cheese before being smothered in their red or green chili sauce, or Xmas style, both. Went Xmas style, natch. It was phenomenal, with the relleno being the star. Smashed the whole thing and probably would have eaten another relleno if one happened to be present. Great food and a great rec by Fly. At some point during the meal I started helping Stephen track down his skis. I figured if I made started making a dummy reservation amd it was the same price it could help. First place I went to asked for renters name amd DOB, put his info in and got "Welcome returning customer!" Mystery solved, lol. Picked up his rentals and headed back to the resort just in time to get into the room. Very happy with the room and location vs price paid. Good view from the balcony. We were all looking forward to hitting some good snow in the morning. First trip out west for Stephen. NEXT - ski day 1 or everybody get low low low low

yup I rarely leave home without him.

Main is perfect for an overhead laser light show. You could go right off the deck of the ski patrol shack, hook some speakers up on the chair poles and make it super galactic

Really nice day on the hill today, good snow, hard to choose an ROTD. Stayed a little later than usual. Be back on wednesday.

@enjoralas I took the bus from ABE-EWR recently as a test (same bus they use from ABE-PHL). It was really nice. More comfortable than the CRJ200 they fly ABE-ORD. It's a seriously good option departing out of ABE. Painless.

The Bear is Back! Last minute night session, Nice Vanilla Sorbet a little slow at first but sped up as the night went on. A stellar effort to come back from the nasty warm stretch. A few Whales were left alone to play on. Grizzly was probably 8’ high and upper section bumped up nicely. I waited too long to get over to Samsquanch so for my last run had to tuck and skate up. The Patrollers were just starting to close up but they let me past so my efforts didn’t go to waste. I haven’t skied Bear Creek that often but I don’t think I have ever seen bumlps build up on the steep section like I have tonight. Air after every turn it was awesome. Big hand on the effort to rebuild!

Super fun time up there tonight..Firm with a top layer of Slurpee type stuff...Bumps on Sassy L side and bumps on Grizzly..Not the best but serviceable......It looks like they have decent coverage but it could just be a trick of the light...Decent amount of cars in the lot ..but the F chair side was pretty quiet...Only lift line was when they held the line for patrol sled...

As of last season the sign for the bus is still on a pole on sidewinder

NMDW, along with park features and you finish off the run by going thru a giant inflatable clown mouth. 😇😇

3” new snow earlier for Walt and Walt..I’m sure with some slash turns they’ll be some face shots in the pics they post later…woo..pumped for you guys!!!

Glad Pops was able to make the trip!

Nice...I'll be up Wednesday late afternoon

I’ll be up Wednesday..looks like it’s gonna be a beauty!!

I told @Dirtwolf we need to check out a laser light show this summer..Matt edge attendance is mandatory I bet he even knows about Lumens..I’m more of a Watt kind of guy.

The main reason I visit friends and family is to play with their dogs.

Damn! I only hit 1K because of the lower requirements last year, so hoping that i do enough polaris intl travel this year to get to the PQP threshold w/o having to sit on 54 flights. Ya, the new changes are nice, now I don't feel bad about using awards for personal travel at the expense of not earning PQP/PQFs. The PQFs are more valuable to me than PQPs. 1K has been working nice ... didn't travel much in Jan, but confirmed at the 24 hour mark 3/4 flights in the past two weeks.

Which ski runs do you think they should add galactic lights to?

I'm glad @popsis able to join! Have a great trip

Early runs down TCS and NM/DW were super fun...Lazy and Main were meh...Paradise had some OK stuff along the trees...Racers made the quad line stretch early...Riding single made it easy to work the line though...Nice morning to make some good turns..... @Johnny Law interesting take on the Element https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqp86DJK0FY&t=629s

Quick little solo tour on Snodgrass to test out my new boots. They have a cool feature called the Hoji lock system. You buckle boots in ski mode like you will go downhill, then switch the back lever to walk mode and all the buckles AND the power strap loosen. So you don’t have to fumble with 4 buckles and power strap for transitions, just flip up the lever, pretty cool! Just went up a mile and came back down. Toes numb when I got back to my car, not sure if the boots need an adjustment or it was just cold out. Skin track icy as hell!

Hell yea!!!!....

They used to have what was called a disco box that lit up..I used to hit that almost every run back in my Pseudo Jibhonk days of straight airs, spread eagles, 50-50 boxes and Tindys. I actually got mandatory air yesterday exiting Stalins Ditch..and any higher I’d need to see a chiropractor. Nastar Glenn would have been a foot higher cause he’s a couple pounds lighter than me..

My grandparents had a house at split rock and they drove 145 and over Blue mountain to get there..there was no PA turnpike at least PASR Allentown. I’ll have to look up when they put in the tunnel but I think 1960s. They used to stop at Nestor’s on the way to pick up ice skates. My uncles business partners Dad owned 100s of acres on both sides of MacArthur road that eventually became the Loews, Walmart, Staples Dicks all that. edit: Lehigh tunnel opened in 1957…I’ll tell you train stories the next time I see you at Blue prob wednesday AM or this weekend Because my business was founded in 1929 and was at a different location adjacent to route 22/the Lehigh valley thruway which wasn’t completed until 1954 so there was a railroad behind it. Some of the old timers still think of tilghman street as route 22 because it used to be 22 and at one time was Hamilton street where the liberty bell belongs

I think the old sign was MacArthur road as that's all I can ever remember it saying....... back in the day the traffic part ended like at the dinner.

Glad to hear pops made it and your getting that fresh !

JLaw, your last Element was orange, what color was your first one? You had a Hyundai before that right? This black element is definitely faster than your last one. I know cause I was behind you in the McDonald’s drive thru yesterday and never caught up to you on the drive to Blue. You must have put the hammer down or lucked out and hit more green lights.

Whoops yes, that’s what I meant. Lol

That is incredible ! Spot on for the most part and I love his deep psychological inferences. I don't know if gym bros is accurate though as while I see some young people driving one it seems most popular with the older crowd.

Id rather just drive to Philly airport. There is no closer Lehigh valley location to the Philly airport than the hotel house.

This is good to know.

I stayed on Paradise lift (new quad on East Mountain), and got 10 runs in 2-415. As a single I never waited more than 5 min and half the time 1-2 min. In PM it was hard pack and slick on Floyd's (lots of yard sales) and Challenge. Much nicer carveable surface on TBolt and upper runs of East Mtn.

Probably making the trek up to Shawnee for some opening uphill laps Friday morning. Leaving around 11:20 to hit Shawnee Craft Brewing when they open at 12:00, and then back to Bethlum area because I have a 2:00 meeting back on campus. If anybody is interested or hitching a ride let me know.

Seem to have ample snow in Challenge, much bigger whales on upper headwall. Discussions surrounded whether they’ll push out the mounds before the r@$n Thursday. Hopefully when they do push them they don’t go real wide with it and keep it as deep as possible, as it’s going to spread out on its own. Looked like there was a gun not blowing mid-Switch that left a gap in the mounds, but they should have enough made to cover it pretty well.

Wow. I hope it looks that good while I’m there

Freefall was fantastic this morning. I got separated early and lapped that until I left at 9 to go run. Nice to feel winter for a day.

So uphill at shawnee was really fun. right before we got in trouble for skinning up a closed slope. lots of snowmaking, so staying close to the guns here was the smart move. Wicked windy at the top. Skiing down with almost every gun blasting snow wasnt that awesome.

Had fun. Got complimented on my snot-circles. Good turns. Woods were thin.

I was chatting with a friend about Jackson hole and she was asking me about the temperatures. The temperatures were mostly in the single digits through the teens early in the trip and then when it snowed they rose into low to mid 20s in the valley, colder on the hill and then after it snowed it was Joe Biden in the basement temperatures Oh Come on Man and then last morning was single digits and felt like the northern part of Miami. On the first cold morning when it was -29 booting up and my balaclava was free of boogers and dead skin, I would guess there were 80-90% less skiers and riders than normal. Where were those other people?? Eating breakfast slower than Nazareth Jay, laying in bed watching the hourly temperature rise from -26 to -24, we all know @saltyantwas watching the webcams with his pecker out. As long as you’re moving it’s tolerable. No peeing in the woods those days.

My son loved his Element until someone grabbed his catalytic converter which pretty much totaled it.