Justo8484

whoever got the XT, you wont be dissappointed. awesome ski for PA conditions, and still wide enough to bust through crud and softer snow late season. for the originator of this threat, 181 is real big unless your going with a park ski or something that doesnt have a ton of sidecut like a powder/big mountain ski, which the cobra is not. look for low to mid 170's if your looking for more of a carving/cruising ski. dynastar skicross 9 or a volkl 5 star sounds like they would work well for you

well since you know kmar, whats it gonna be? friday or saturday? i dont work up there anymore, and havent been up there in a week, so i dont know what the deal is, i just watch the webcam like its TV

its about time. my luck i will have to work til 9 friday. but i will drive straight from work up to the mtn to get one run in for opening day if i have to.

my brother talked to head of ski patrol last night and he told him they are shooting for the 14th at the earliest, but i am still thinking the 17th. i can hope though

SKIxADIKT, i dont know whether to believe you or not, because i was at their instructors preseason meeting, and they told us that they would not be calling us letting us know opening dates, we had to either check their site or call ourselves. and going with their history, they usually open on a friday, not a saturday, which again leads back to my prediction of the 17th

its 12:01 and i am staring at the webdcam. its definately snowing up there. not just the crews blowing snow, but actually snowing legitimate snowflakes. that made me very happy.

i'm not gonna rip on anyone in particular, but pvc definately works well. its generally slicker than a metal rail, and you can catch an edge easier, but its in your yard, not at a mtn. it forces you to be balanced correctly, which last time i checked isnt a bad thing. and painting the rail will not make you catch, rails are painted for cosmetics and to keep them from rusting as quickly, and it doesnt affect how the rail slides much if at all. last year we got about 2 inches of snow, i screwed a scrap peice of wood into the bottom of a 3" pvc pipe to stabilize it, and it worked fine, i learned all sorts of stuff onto that thing with more or less no lip at all, just ollying onto the rail. and the pipe fittings are a bad idea, you will definately catch on those unless you can hop off the rail in time, i've tried.

the thing you have to worry about with an iron with holes in it is that wax doesnt get into those holes to the inner parts of the iron. thats when your gonna have problems with the iron catching on fire.... not good stuff. and yeah basically i wax my base for speed, not to keep the base in good condition, thats near impossible when you slide rails, picnic tables, and other random things. but thankfully i have 2 pairs of skis this year so i will be a little kinder to the 4FRNTs.

yeah what i meant was to hotwax your stuff before the comp, then between runs throw some zardoz crap on i guess, but i have been using swix paste wax and a sponge that comes with it, seems to have worked decent last year.

^ the loft doesnt have a whitehall store. nestors is open again on 145 though, finally

seems like the blue mtn kids always do real well on their home course. razors is not really comparable to anything else in the poconos in terms of length at least. and warren miller is the last person i would trust when it comes to jibbing. i have slid well over 500 feet worth of rails and my edges are dull, but they are still there.

and that ranking list i am assuming is compiled from last years world cup wins? i'm not all too knowledgeable when it comes to racing, but i do know that bode did not si atomics last year. he skiied rossis. what makes atomics so much faster than any other ski? the only thing that makes one ski straight up faster than another is the coefficient of friction it has with the snow, which is directly related to the structure of the base, the type of snow you are skiing, and the temp that your wax melts at in relation to that of the snow. another thing you have to consider is that everyone on that list is getting skis built for them. the general public does not ski on the same ski that bode miller does. regardless of how good of a skiier anyone on this site is, myself included, i doubt anyone could ski bode's downhill or super g ski the way it is intended to be skiied, because they come straight out of the race room, much stiffer than anything available to the public. just because a company makes great world cup race skis does not mean they inherently make the best consumer ski. and atomic does not use any of that beta construction crap in their race stock skis. they are all straight up sidewall with metal and wood laminates just like everyone elses except for salomon, who, sadly, still uses a foam core in their race skis.

something like zardoz is nice to have for comps, like if you are doing a skiiercross/boardercross, or a slopestyle/big air/half pipe comp where you can put a little bit of the stuff on between each run and dont have time to hot wax.

thats kinda crappy that they have 7 now instead. hopefully they have some more rails for the finals, and maybe a legit jump for the prelims this year. the only good rails in the finals were the downkink and the 45 footer. they need that box out where the judges can see it this year....

there was friday night, i kinda doubt it anymore after the rain and warm weather the past few days though.

what AtomicSkier said is all correct, but whoever created this thready, you snowboard right? i am guessing you are gonna be riding a lot of park as well? putting that much work into the base of your board, like rewaxing a brand new board to get the base fibers out, is something you dont really need to do. if you are riding park, your edges are going to get trashed from rails and you base will lose wax somewhat quickly.

the garages are for strauss auto, not us. yeah the store is way smaller now, unfrotunately. its only ski, snowboard, and wilderness travel right now, and bike shop will be back in the spring. and to comment on the mtn, my friends and i drove up friday night like 1 in the morning, and there was snow on the ground, with what looked like cats or snowmobiles driving up and down paradise. ITC is the 11th and 12th, so it would make sense that they would be pushing to open the 10th.

yeah the videos of razors and paradise are ok, they just show people skiing, which is fine. but for the park and pipe videos, you wanna hype up your park. showing a kid on snowblades hucking a 9 on a 10 foot table does not hype up your park whatsever. look at bear creek's website. you can tell they actually put effort into it, they have the whole layout mapped out in an interactive flash app. if i have never been to blue before, seeing those videos would make me look elsewhere if i just wanted to ski park. the quality of the skiing is not great, the jumps are awful, and everything is shot from the wrong angle.

yeah they have their content more or less covered, the design is weak though. and those videos keep anyone who rides park away from their mountain in my opinion. they are pretty embarassing, i am anxious to see the new ones for this year to see if they actually listened to me for once.

i'm amazed that their webcam is actually working! their site is terrible.

i think this idea would help every ski area. it would keep people out of the park who shouldnt be there. people arent gonna pay an extra $5 just to ski one trail unless they really want to take full advantage of the park

with the humidity we usually have around here, most of blue's guns, with the exception of the fan guns, can't blow until it gets below about 28. the fan guns can blow a little above 32.

i realize that. and i said that there was snow on the ground, and it wasnt melting all too quickly, so obviously the ground is getting cold enough to blow now. the 30th is what i was told by the mtn manager as their projected date to start blowing providing it is cold enough. sorry that i left out those all important 5 words in my original post. i figured common sense would tell you that it needs to be below 32 to blow snow.

the 30th is their projected day to start blowing, not to open. this came from the mtn manager so dont go and tell me different haha. i was up there on saturday for their equip. sale and drove around on the mtn, there was a dusting of snow on the ground from the previous night, and it didnt melt, so the ground is probably almost cold enough to blow now.

bear's park was definately the best in eastern pa last year. the park bully has a plow on the front instead of regular groomer that just has the rake part on the back. and yeah bear put something like $290 thousand into their park this year? sounds like a big improvement to me. the yurt is basically like a hut where you can chill, get out of the wind and cold for a few minutes to warm up.