Leaderboard

Hehe, another 5 inches overnight. The driveway and the winding narrow road to the lift are all white, and you can’t see the mountains because of low clouds and snow still falling. The good news is that the forecast calls for clear skies in two hours. The bad news is that the Zermatt link is still red, and there’s even a notice now that they’re gonna close it for maintenance starting next week and until April. Just WTF?? Plenty of cars on the way to the lift trying to fight gravity, snow and ice. Some are spinning wheels polishing the black mirror, some chose to stop on the side (and block part of the already narrow road) to put the chains on. We march uphill with the skis on the shoulders, and I swear, I’m gonna get a heart attack on one of these marches one day. The cashiers again have no idea about what’s gonna be open and what not. Zermatt link is yellow, next update is in two hours. We choose to buy international tickets and hope for the best. And surely after the first gondola up we stare at the status board where the entire freaking mountain is in red, and the only way from here is the way down. Some people camp in the snow waiting for status update, we decide to go down once, since the line at the base wasn’t that long. And it would all work out great if we didn’t take the wrong turn and didn’t end up on the other side of town where there’s just one six pack chair up, and that chair is in start-n-stop mode, and the line is insaaaaane. Anyway, we made it. First up that chair lift, then down to the gondola, then higher and higher, and maybe 3/4 of the way up realized that our gamble will likely not work out today, as the wind is actually quite strong. It comes out of nowhere when you’re in the middle of the third lift, and hits you in the back draining all the heat and sending snow up the slopes. Initially even the Italian side of the resort was cut in half because the crossover was not reachable, but they opened it around noon. It was fun skiing. Lots of new snow in the lower part of the mountain, lots of off piste opportunities, softly packed groomers quickly turning rough as most people chose to stay there due to the cold and wind up top. And the temps really varied a lot. It was around freezing at the base and -12C on top plus the wind chill factor. So, if you go all the way from top to bottom, you start all chilled and with the mask on, and by the time you reach the line at the base you’re sweating bullets and opening all zippers. Even better skiing on upper part today than yesterday, despite it either not getting or not retaining much of the new snow. Bye-bye international add-on, but even on the Italian side we lost track of time and barely made it back to the Cervinia area before lift closure. Gonna snow all day tomorrow, I wonder how the viz and wind game will play out.

Thanks for the trash can lifestyle shots

Zee Lights. Elk Report..It never got above 32 today. Guns on Delaware, Terrain Park, Lenape and Snow Bowl all day. Very surprised they haven't started on Slalom yet. WVIA day as well as college Wednesday today so much more crowded than a usual Wednesday. Quad opened .. no lift lines to speak of. Snow was loose packed powder, no ice, no brown squirts anywhere. A typical Elk overcast flat light day... Beer was cold...

Hey All, I’m back from another morning session at Blue mountain the true mountain. I arrived at the lower lot at 830am and it was 36 degrees under cloudy sky’s. In the house were Atomic Jeff, TP4 and the Bethlehem ford crew. First took the super summit safari six pack to easy out vista midway to lower main and the snow was pretty nice and smooth with a some mini cookies on lower Main Street. Repeated that two more times then took the quad to coming soon which was similar smooth and mini cookies but pretty pleasant. Lower Paradise is still pretty thin and upper paradise is now open. Repeating coming soon two more times and then ended a quick 7 run session on midway to lower Main Street. They might get upper Main Street open for the weekend and definitely lazy will be back as tonight will be very good snowmaking conditions. Plus the 3-6” of snow we get overnight Saturday will make for some nice packed powder once the groomers do their thing. JADIP

Not bad. There were bags of trash that were still out there but it looked to be collected and less of a trash pit.

I railed them good about the garbage on the questionnaire, so hopefully that helped as well.

That February was probably my most memorable BC skiing. My niece and I skinned up from Weisport to Jim Thorpe and skied the rockslide. I had looked at that line for 15 years. My father in law lived across the river. Thanks for the flashback.

On and off flurries all morning at Blue so far. Everything should be open with this next monster storm this weekend.

Root post this on Facebook. Remember we have power…and don’t have to be a Karen to get things done. You’re my boy Blue!!!

Early-ish feb 2014 i believe. I wanna say the 14th but i dont think it was valentines day. 2nd time i skied at Blue. Its in a TR.

Right now planning on Saturday and Sunday barring anything crazy

Tomorrow before the snow and the powder starved Icon hordes .

today was one of the few days that was better than expected ... the "cookies" were soft. Could actually let the skis run on Coming Soon. Not terrible.

Oh, and you know how those “Made in Italy” poles are actually made? They throw skis on the ground, wait for them to sprout and gather the harvest.

This place is insane! It’s truly three dimensional, meaning all shops, apartments, parking, etc are built on different levels. If you see on google maps that grocery store is right next to you, don’t believe it - it’s actually 50 feet down, and to get there you need to take a longish detour along narrow road with cars but no sidewalks. When we arrived yesterday night, we foolishly thought that we would quickly drive up to the ski rental place to pick up a missing pair of skis and be on our way to the apartment. Bahaha! The street is pedestrian only, and there’s no parking nearby. Actually there is, but it’s 50 feet up, and yeah, a detour would be needed and no walking shortcut. Anyway, the weather was spectacular. We woke up to 3-5” of new snow and blue skies. I don’t know why they delayed opening the upper mountain, and why they never opened pass to Zermatt (yup, we didn’t get there today). The cashier even made us sign a waiver that we understand that we’re buying Italian top to bottom day pass while the upper lifts are still on wind hold, and won’t ask for a refund if they never open. Well, by the time we finally reached the top, the entire Italian side opened up, and there was no serious wind in sight. This Zermatt uncertainty is actually very irritating. Contrary to Switzerland (where you can buy a lift ticket 24/7 using a vending machine near the lift or train station), there’s nothing like this here. You either buy the pass online and wait in pick up line, or you buy it on the mountain and wait in even longer line. And you may not even know if Zermatt is going to be reachable when you’re in line because it’s still TBD. Of course the international pass is a little extra, and the cashier cannot give you any advice. Snow is fantastic top to bottom. Nothing like last year where only the highest trails were nice, the lowest were non-existent and in the middle there was frozen teeth rattling cord. Not this time. Crowds are spread out, and lines are typically a minute or two except for a couple hub places where one could wait 10-15 mins to get on a lift.

Holy cow, it’s Jan 1st, I hardly got any time to sleep the night before, and now it’s going to be another sleepless night on a red-eye to Malpensa! After an unbelievably warm, wet and snowless trip to Jungfrau last year, this time we decided to play it safe and get up high in the sky to Breuil-Cervinia-Zermatt area, approaching it from the Italian side. And of course, as the luck of the draw goes, this year there’s plenty of snow everywhere, and on top of Matterhorn there are actually 60mph winds, so we might not even be able to cross into Switzerland over the 4 days of skiing, since the only way to do it is to get over the ridge at 3500m. Something tells me though that before I get a chance to try that, I’ll be trying chains on my way to Cervinia, which is like, maaaan, this would be a perfect year to take trains on the Switzerland side rather than drive in snow in Italy. Anyway, the plan is to ski as much as we can and wherever we can, and use the first opportunity to sneak out to Zermatt, like these people did, but the other way around (https://yawninggetsyoueverywhere.com/2022/03/18/skiing-from-zermatt-to-cervinia). Only 5-6 hours roundtrip with a nice opportunity to miscalculate something and end up spending the night in the wrong country. Will we get a car good enough to take us up to Cervinia? Will the winds cooperate? Will we be too dumb not to cross over back to the Italian slopes in time? LOL, better get drunk soon to stop worrying about this nonsense!

Hey All, It’s almost another weekend…is anybody planning on skiing Blue mountain the true mountain? Saturday looks seasonably cold and cloudy and there could be some new snow Saturday night which could make things nice Sunday AM and based on the timing the roads could already be plowed and clear for the drive. JAWIP

BumbleBee is out of play anymore. Glad we got it when we did. This was one of those storm cycles that we said we'd never get again but then 2021 we got it even better with the old double double chair line in play. Good times.

Almost hard to imagine it's the same place....I remember the drainage after the bowl that tried real hard to buck us....we rode the bowl for like a week or two I couldn't even imagine that now

I'll be up tomorrow morning and all weekend, I am hoping to observe some real actual snowfall

And Shoutout to Jimmy…I chatted with him for a few minutes in the lot this AM and he gave me two cookies. And they were the first two out of the package…I still liked the gingerbread man cookie I had in the lot the other day better even though it was missing a leg.

Why are you changing? Don’t you just wear your ski stuff to the mountain?

I would agree with that once it’s skied in a bit . But 6” of mashed potatoes I’ll be channeling Donny Pelitier .

Don't tell too many people but snowtubing's bathrooms are way, way better than those in the ski area. There are so many more stalls like at Bucees, it's dank. I can change out of my ski gear in peace without some Jerry knocking on my stall door. It's pretty sick, bro.

Blue was on the news. That’s my boy Blue!!! https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/poconos-coal/forecast-for-snow-welcome-news-for-local-ski-resorts-businesses-that-cater-to-them/article_990dfa7e-ab49-11ee-b820-0bc4d76294c6.html?fbclid=IwAR007RA0SxykKtBHioRj_peAUqs4zRXcGGdeIygW3Q37MwJw_6fl-e-9QMQ

Yes was my first pow day ever and then we got another good dump a bit later. That was a good week (i think it was within a week) Does this chest mount footage still exist?

Was your first big pow day @Blue where we poached coming soon then it opened 10 minutes later? Amazing to think that run was open for weeks on all natural snow cause it kept snowing in 2021. That was top 3 pow day @Blue…best one was where it dumped all day and Toast did the chest mount video and everything was in play..and that’s back before they fucked up the marquee route with mountain bike paths. Under the OG six pack on a pow day was incredible..not officially poaching cause no ropes ducked…..and various entrances woo let’s hope for a humdinger of a storm..

"Primarily heavy, wet snow" Ngl that scares me. I remember a terrible day with @RidgeRacer where we had like 5" of straight concrete. All good if they grind it into the man made tho.

Fingers crossed…I’ve seen so so so many storms with this exact same setup and start as snow on the front end but then in literal minutes, the snow changes over to sleet from quakertown to Allentown to Blue…funny often camelback and JF/BB stays above the mixed precip. I might not sleep much Saturday night. I like watching storms happen. @Airhead might not be a bad idea to be a rider of the storm Saturday night. Years ago I skied the morning at blue on a Saturday went home and then went back for night skiing in a storm then came back again Sunday AM for the fresh cord.

Bo from WFMZ was at Blue today..nice sweater. The last time I saw him at Blue was opening day 2020-21 season outside the top lodge and as I walk by him I loudly said,”Bo is ok but John Craven is the best”. Craven is my homey from karaoke and reporter and he moved on to Connecticut.

It’s snow so we got that going for us. Blue should be all snow. 👍

How was upper Paradise? I didn’t even know paradise was open until near the top of the first quad ride…seemed like the most popular run earlier.

Warnings don’t happen until sooner and 5-8” barely meets the warning criteria for the poconos so might end up being a winter weather advisory.

Two runs on an empty Paradise first thing, then the rest of the morning on Coming Soon until the Paradise run out got too crowded. Good times.

We won't need snowmaking cannons after the Epic Massive Large Substantial Blizzard of 2024 (trademarked) (copyrighted) (R, whatever that means) !!!

@saltyant the snowmaking cannons are blasting!!!

I'm actually pretty impressed theres anything left on razors

Speaking of trash, how did the lift lines look? All cleaned up?

Deep

Pow Pow

I can barely take any of the credit or maybe I’m just humble in the new year but I give props to Indiggio and RidgeRacer..and Root and others who took the time to help make a difference and go Blue for listening to their customers. Whoever is answering the questions on their social media is sharp. When @RajeevGuptaSucheeta visits he’ll get all the answers he needs there.

Looks like temp goes up a few degrees. This season Mother Nature is like Lucy with the football and we’re all Charlie Brown.

Just got back from a short morning session at Blue The True. Arrived in the lower lot at 9:15 and headed over to the Comet. First run I opted for the longest run available tut, connector, vista to burma. Rock solid groomers fast and still edgable but a little sketchy. Things started softening up around 10:30 when the guns were getting shut down. Looks like they're focusing most their efforts on reconditioning whats open and getting Lazy Mile back open as well as add Upper Main to the mix. I would be shocked if Upper Man didn't join the lineup this weekend. Upper paradise needs more work and Razors has not made much progress. Tonights the worth snowmaking night of the week followed by the two best tomorrow and Friday. Id expect in the least the return of Lazy Mile, Paradise and an additional Upper Main come Saturday. All in all JADIP now time for sleeps.

That's step 1. Now they need to 1) implement policies to prevent it and 2) implement a schedule to maintain the cleanliness. No one wants to see that shit in 2 weeks again especially after the night groups start.

Welcome back, PASR needs your stoke. Airhead and Dime try their best to stoke up the peanut gallery but your stoke is like the yoccos secret sauce, often imitated but never duplicated!!!

I didn’t even pay attention.

This might be windhams last year on ikon, so I would check that place out.