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No lift issues or lines. Just open trails and some previous tracks. Nice morning at Lehigh's Goodman Campus getting out on the XC skis for the first time in a few years. Gotta get it in before tomorrow's monsoon.

Awesome conditions in the Laurel highlands today after a bummer of a year last year for xc in PA. 3" base with 5" yesterday and steadily snowing all day a couple additional inches. It is amazing how much more snow they get there. They had about 20km groomed plus some nice shin deep snow on the ungroomed trails that descend down the ridge. Great seeing the crowd that was there having fun - they were only open I think for one storm last year and the snow was rapidly gone there by the afternoon which was not ideal to say the least I was happy to see as well that the Crystal Lake center over by Williamsport may be back in action if they can accumulate a little more snow. Had some sort of staffing issue last year.

The best part about this: There have been multiple comments all over social media, about how Blue should have known how bad it was going to be, how crazy because they sold out of tickets so they knew how many people would be there. And that's all correct, they should have known based on the number sold, etc, and they should have done more to have the lifts working. They knew we got freezing rain, they should have started on the lifts earlier. They should have started on the OG6 WAY before they did, they should have been trying to get the 6 and the quad up at the same time, whichever one comes up first it's still a win. But the best part is, they didn't really sell out of tickets. They just stopped selling tickets and marked them sold out. The sold out post went out not long after this screenshot timestamp. They didn't sell 629 tickets at $165 each in 30 minutes and sell out. So at 9:15, with one lift working, hordes of people standing in line, they still had every intention of trying to pack more people onto the hill. Thankfully someone made one of the few intelligent decisions Blue made yesterday and decided to shut that down. But it shows how purely reactive every move they make these days seems to be. It's almost like they got rid of anyone who knew what they were doing.

Blue put up ropes on near the ski patrol shack for the new 6 around 10:30/11. —— The morning started like this in Cherryville. Lots of traffic. I took the new 6 (going far right) and each solo lap took about 25-30 min. I was solo most of the day and trying to fill in the chairs lots of people I chatted with were ikon or day pass people. But @Benmwas fav line buddy of the day quad opened around 10/10:30. I snapped this photo around 10:45 on lazy mile. Slopes were a good time @enjoralas killed it in the lot. The steak sandwich was amazing ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Although…blue mountain management, 0 stars

Was at Bear Creek for about an hour an a half this evening...They have surprisingly good coverage on what they have open....Snow was kinda of like light granular.... Some small piles...and lots of little boosters....Overall a fun time....Only one lift spinnin and lots of middle school kids ...Long lift lines but the banter and antics of the kids passed the time...One kid next to me was just doin dumb stuff on his skis...falls and his skis go right across mine...He was very apologetic but I just laughed.....They eventually had someone direct traffic...He took no quarter and that made the line move a little quicker....It was crowded but still a fun night at BC...

Can't believe I forgot but they skied EVERYTHING yesterday, every rock infested stump field,every lift line with cinder blocks and spine breaker concrete pads, come around park looks near groomed. It's impressive everywhere really but whatever the one next to midway was literally ridden down to the grass and rocks which I think is my favorite.

Lots of people are bitching on socials about the lack of VIP lines on the lifts. Why doesn't Blue have a reservation system for Ikon pass holders too? Blue obviously has to have some idea of what an overloaded mountain is (they said they sold out of tickets), so why don't they sell less tickets too? Greed...

Filling the chairs would have helped and I was also wondering why they can't do that anymore. Also, isn't one of the selling points of the season pass the VIP line? What happened to that?

Both 6's are currently running. looks like they are setting up ropes to run the old 6 today. I guess they are working on redemption.

Couple miles wit da new boots

Sitting in my car after a great afternoon sesh at Blue The True after yesterdays fiasco. I was hesitant upon arrival as it was clearly the busiest Monday of the season. Scored a spot near Main Street as a morning shifter was pulling out otherwise you might have had to park accross the street. Snow was as expected soft packed day older wet natural. Blue had all 3 chairs running and werre even organizing the loading at the quad. Choosing to play single and allow the lifty to slide you in with a group was key to saving the 5-10 min waits. Managed 13 laps with a few safety meetings in about 4 hours. Well done Blue for learning from your mistakes yesterday today!! Razors was also open completely ungroomed with soft VW sized bumps you had to create your own rythm to. Extreme leg burner but worth a lap or two. It should groom out to remain open with another night of man made. PS. My last lift ride was on the quad to finish out on the Nile Mile and it was closed for the fucking race team again! So I took the lazier mile.

I had a great day mostly lapping Main to the park. Paradise and Lazy certainly were busy as heck but the steeper terrain was pretty open. Lots of ticket buyers today.

Screenshot from Sunday 912a

Rode with C1er and Atomic, snow was obviously pretty good, upper main left side in the sun was set it and forget it at maximum speed. Lower started to come apart quick with all the water in the snow but was fine while we were there. Lazy was very good again as was coming soon though a bit harder snow and more ripples right before the exit to pdis. Razors was opened left side ungroomed if refrozen icy mogul/luge tracks are your thing. Some of the best snow this year to rip but not as good as you might think. Old sixer was moving but only quad and new sixer were loading while we were there. Unsurprisingly it was busy early and only picked up, nothing like yesterday but by 1015 it was out the cattle chutes and we peaced out. Super nice day to get some hot laps in with Atomic, new skis where the trail runs out he's stupid fast. Not home stretch hero, like full radius turns. Shame it's been tough with the crowds and now the weather is coming but I have decent hopes post monsoon.

i've had the condition report open since 6 am, and they definitely did show Raisins being open. They are probably changing things on the fly as it suits them. lol. Oh, and its pretty busy there right now, 12 noon. OG 6 is running. And yeah, like @indiggio mentioned, tons of people complaining about no SP line for any lift. Hopefully they will use this experience as a learning tool. they have gotten enough shit about it, and i do think its warranted. Lifts should start loading at opening. All of them should be operational, and pretty much ready to go any day, any hour, and its pretty apparent, that hasnt been the case. We have all been there for a day in the past, whether its a powder day, or just a day where there is like no chance they can fuck up the grooming.....and they have lift issues. its like showing up to Dunkin donuts, and they say they dont have any heart shaped donuts on valentines day. You had 1 job to do. If i was management, i would be utterly embarrassed over what happened yesterday. Its all on management.

@Benm Were chairs really loaded with 1 or 2 people yesterday, as I see on Facebook? That's absolute insanity with 10,000 people in line. But I can see how it happens - when I ski single, I just keep moving up in the line until I'm on a chair whether I'm alone or with 5 others. Often I'll line up with people and then when it's our turn to board, they just stand there and I end up riding alone because they don't want to ride with 1 stranger. Not my fault, it's theirs... Yet I end up looking like the bad guy 💁

Today was definitely better than yesterday. When they finally got Challenge running, it really improved lift lines. But it was the busiest week day I’ve ever skied there. Snow was nice and TCS was ROTD. I didn’t try Razors, bumps the size of a buffalo did not seem like fun.. Lots of folks poaching everywhere. I miss the days when you could pretty much just ski on to the lift. 😕

The gates should be closer to the loading area, and an attendant should be pairing up the six outside the gate and sending them through as a group of 6.

I wonder if it has to do with leadership at acquired mountains trying to put on a show for the bean counters. It's like they want to show they can run the hill on the cheap to maximize their margins to prove their worth and get some more leverage later when they need to make the case for investments into their mountain.

I think VIP season passholders should get special jackets like the BMR Race Team and get to cut in front of thousands of non-VIP peasants standing in line for hours whenever they feel like it.

Nice work if you can get it.

Because everyone craps on Camelback already. When they pull this everyone expects it and shrugs their shoulders. People hold Blue to higher standards. Part of the paradox of low expectations, you start getting away with screwing up.

He is a male gigolo.

What really gets me is that for how many years have they done "gating" at the OG 6 & quad, yet they seem to have totally forgot how to do it at the new 6??? They've tried on multiple occasions to have someone stand right before the chair and proceed to count to 6, only to have people totally ignore them and do what they want anyway. They really don't need a ton of room anyway to gate the people as having too much room there only causes more problems with people not being able to count to 6 and stay together as the assigned group. Yeah, there's not as much room in front of the new 6, but they should have known about that at design time. Since they didn't and clustered that all up, blow/push more snow in front of the readers to provide more area to wait. instead of putting up a fence to stop people from going around.

'do you want to set up challenge as a backup today' 'yes'

The gram is pushing 350 comments

lol

Barb must be laughing her ass off.

A bad pow day with Dino nugs and chimichurri veal is a good day in my book!

That wasn't referring to conditions, it was onomatopoeia to describe the kick in the teeth everyone was in for with lift operations.

Looks like snow. See you soon!

Well, this was the last day of skiing, actually the last morning. Had a train to catch and were somewhat worried about how fast we’d be able to get down from the mountains, given all the recent snow and road conditions. So, bought morning tickets and ran to the lift opening. We were never able to go higher than the top of the first lift. Even chairs at the Plato Maison were not spinning because of wind and clouds up top, so we had to loop the few trails that were available to us. The previous days experience mattered a lot, we’ve never made the wrong turn, never got to the wrong lift, didn’t get stuck in lines, we ripped the reds at max speed overdosing on adrenaline. While people were waiting in line for gondolas to open, we ran upstairs to catch the tram. When gondolas did open up, we were cutting lines taking up free spaces in half full cabins, since the early weekend crowd felt too relaxed and wanted to ride alone, while we were in a mission! People were waiting for half an hour on snow in vain hoping for the next lift to the next Plato to open up, we didn’t have those 30 mins. And those lifts never opened up anyway. The reds were insanely good and fast. We literally bombed them down, especially at first, when others either didn’t arrive yet or were thinking if it’s worth to wait to go further up or take the trail down. Chair lift from the other side of the town didn’t start in time, so those crowds were also cut off the slopes for some time. I could still feel some pain in the back of the knee when fully stretching the leg or walking in ski boots, but when skiing, in the ski stance, half bent, it felt fine reacting perhaps only to strong vibration, which there wasn’t too much of, given the state of the freshly made soft groomers. Didn’t have much time for pics on the slopes but had hell of a time finding the place where to drop off the car in Milano, then getting to the right train station. Made it!

Today was somewhat extreme… Snow - 10/10, Viz - 0/10. When we woke up, it was already snowing for a while, and the forecast was promising a full day of snowfall. All lifts were opening on schedule (except for the stupid Zermatt link, as usual), so we followed the chain of three lifts to get as high on the Italian side as possible, in hope of perhaps getting over clouds, but nope. It was snowing all over the place, and the place itself was completely unrecognizable. Completely blinded by the surrounding whiteness, with not even a hint of shadows, we cautiously made our way down, and the already familiar way skied soooo much differently this time. We were probably among the first on the slopes with no other people in sight, and 3” of virgin fresh light snow under our skis. Where we used to cruise, we now had to push. Where we used to fly, we were now floating. We really could only make our way out by watching the trail markers, as everything around was just solid white. Even later during the day, after the snow turned rough, we really couldn’t see the waves, only feel them, and often at the very last moment. Quite a few falls ‘cause we could barely estimate the incoming trail pitch, forget about skiing around bad spots. Anyway, after a couple of top to bottom runs we retreated to some moderate terrain at Plan Maison where it was ok to ski even in the blind. Hardly any people, some funny conversations. A woman was skiing with a local guide and was clearly upset with the weather. She had no days left, was going to taxi to Geneva the next day (3.5 hours) to fly to London, then another 3 hour drive home, then fly to NYC in a day, followed by Miami and LA. What a life! Some kid was hoping for a break later in the day because “it would be so cool to ski this powder”. The break never came. It was a spectacular winter day. Not much chance to zoom around the mountain, had to be super cautious due to the viz, but still tons of fun! If you don’t see much in some pictures, that’s because we didn’t either, lol. Was going to ski tomorrow as well, but managed to stretch something in the back of my knee in the stupid parking lot, so if ice doesn’t help, will just drive to Milan and then ride to Venice to limp around.

Yesterday was a bad day for Blue. They pissed everyone off and made many mistakes. Today they clearly made a hard effort to make up for that. Even park crew did an incredible job today filling in the bomb holes and they would close 4 or 5 features at once to refresh it all at once with a crew member or two at each. Very impressed, stoke market is back on the rise!!

I did mention in my survey the amount of out of control skiers and boarders this year.

Singles line that goes right to the cattle shoots to fill chairs. Just saved them a $7.50/hour employee for the rest of the season. Has management never skied at a resort that fills chairs without paying someone to do it? KSL owns 17 resorts and can’t figure this out

@saltyant would be one ugly chick but I’ve always been down with the LGBT+FurryFucker community. Im tolerant of all the freaks. Also Disney+

Nice work Karen!!!

We noticed boarder tracks down the hill from Connector down to the East beginner slope on Sunday from Saturday night. Knowing the size of rocks, sticks, stumps, etc. off trail with only a few inches of snow to cover them, yeah, nope! I'll let the boarders ruin their stuff and take their bodies into their own hands to compact the snow.

Rode from opening til 1:15 today. The busiest non holiday weekday morning I’ve ever seen. They opened the OG 6er and lines at all 3 lifts were out the gates. Rode razors for the first time this year. I was hesitant about coverage but it was surprisingly nice.

Oops, misunderstood the issue. Separate SPH line all the way to the end of the general line would be grate.

Chute? that had the least amount of snow on it of anything for some reason. lol. I dont know if its just me, but im pretty leary about going off trail at Blue until it snows, rains just a little, then freezes. Theres a lot of junk strewn around everywhere at Blue.

Was waiting in line with a woman today who said that since she had an Ikon Pass she figured why not come up today. Heard a staff person say that today was the most crowded non-holiday Monday ever. Despite that, lazy mile and upper Main Street were in pretty good shape, although marbles were developing in lower main street. Never did make it over to the other side because the line for the quad started backing up pretty early. Atomic Jeff and Johnny Law were laying down some railroad tracks on upper Main Street. Quit about 1030 when the lift lines just exploded.

I would be interested to know how many Ikon passholders where there yesterday. maybe they need to limit ikon? They definitely had to many people there yesterday.

Let's talk about the season passholder VIP lines. It seems like there were tons of people complaining about them, right? Well, I'm sorry to rain on the parade here, but if everyone is a VIP then no one is a VIP, and that line would be just as backed up single file as the rest of them. If I was Blue right now, I would be going over the data from Sunday. Figuring out how many people going through those gates were Blue Passholders vs Ikoners vs day tickets. I'm sure it's a wildly complex model, but the smartest thing to do is to be able to understand uphill capacity vs demand across those 3 groups and then both price and limit your day ticket sales accordingly. They are trying to walk a fine line between leaving money on the table and leaving customers in gigantic lines and we all know how that went for them this past weekend.

At least you guys have one...

Check your generators...

No friends on an ice groomer day.

The place was pretty happening today, parking lot about full. Was a lot of fun. They have a nice warming hut with snack lunch a wood stove and resident dogs. I am appreciating the xc experience more every year although I wish there were closer places like this with maintained and groomed trails Got about 25km in twice around red once around blue orange yellow and black and they were grooming all day to keep the snow fast as it came down

Today was truly disappointing. The lot was definitely high point of the day.