Justo8484

the bumps on challenge are horrible, so it'd be fine if they were gone tomorrow.

John's slacking, so here's my generous gift to PASR. snow was pretty on point most everywhere today. there were the usual scrapey spots around the big turns (lazy, nightmare/dreamweaver intersection, switchback) but for the most part, the snow was soft enough everywhere that i could hold an edge on my park skis. mostly just lapped groomers all morning, and then once the sun got on em, hit up the bumps on barneys. we skied the bumps on challenge once and they sucked. spaced too far apart, so you got the standard 6 or 7 feet of solid ice between bumps. barneys are spaced perfectly right now, and the snow in them was awesome. i think we did about 10 straight bump runs. lower park is the same, pretty fun, has good flow, but kinda slow. come around is a general mess these days, with lots of cross-trail traffic, and it's getting kinda boring. central was stepped out, but still needs rails and a final grooming. the jumpline on sidewinder is all built and was groomed for testing, but there were no rails out, and the top and bottom of the trail was not done being groomed when i left around 2. took a bunch of random video today, so look for more of that from john, and maybe me if i'm bored tonight. for now, peep this one from barney's:

get out of here with your space needle. actually i'm just mad cause you're coming back the week i'll be away. boo you.

clearly you've forgotten the caliber of skier we have to deal with on any given weekend afternoon. after about 10am, blue mountain becomes survival of the fittest in all high-traffic areas, whether that's the lift line, unloading area, the lodge, or the trail.

it's an suv, therefore it will have a roof rack of some sort. take compression straps and just strap all your bags to the roof. not as quick and easy as a ski rack, but with 4 of you, you could probably get all the gear into two bags, then just wrap the straps around the bags and the bars a few times, and they won't go anywhere. that's our plan for utah, and we've done it for whistler and for getting all our gear to the philly airport several times.

that or baked potato with chili and cheese, or food from the bar. pretty much everything i've had from the bar is pretty good, and not really any more expensive than caf food.

central and lower are right next to each other? i think you mean come around... might be up tomorrow night, might not. depends what time i get out of philly.

the camera doesn't really make groomers look all too thrilling. i've noticed the same thing with mine. when it's on your head, regardless of how quick a turn you're making, when the terrain is consistent (groomed, not bumped up, with cliffs, trees, jumps, etc.) it all looks the same and looks like you're just skiing straight.

if you've got photoshop and a little time/dedication, that'll probably give you the best result. i know my brother's canon P&S came with some photostitch software that did it for you, but the results were kinda random. if you're not in a huge rush to get this done, i might be able to lend a hand.

consumer demo day on a holiday weekend seems like a recipe for disaster...

ok, so i guess technically they have the most terrain, but there's a lot of spots there that you'd be walking out of that are considered inbounds. that and everything in powder country or whatever they call it, you have to wait for the shuttle to come pick you up since it doesn't drain back into a lift. having skied there, and a few other places in utah, and i think you'd agree, canyons 'feels' like a much bigger ski area, as does snowbird or alta.

yeah, winter decided to grace us with it's presence this year. it's pretty hard to crappy snow when its in the low teens at night. dry snow = fewer cookies.

pretty much summed up PowMo perfectly. it's not the steepest, its not the tallest, it doesnt have the most terrain, but if you like wide open trees and small cliffs with fresh tracks for days after a storm, its the place to go. cat skiing for the extra 10-15 on top of the regular lift ticket is absolutely worth it. you can get to the same terrain by hiking, but it'll take you way longer, and the cat is a cool experience in and of itself.

good to hear about the urban setups. not sure if there's a reason for it, but why build the pseudo urban stuff right now? those of us who like hitting urban style stuff find it weird, and for everyone else, it seems like people just ollie straight on anyway? i saw a ton of people just straight ollieing onto the downflat down. it seems like a lot of the stuff would be more fun either full on urban, or not urban at all, instead of the weird halfway thing. what seemed strangest to me is that the top of a rail would be maybe 6" higher than its really long mellow lip, tops, but as soon as you're on the rail, its 2'-3' off the ground. maybe its just me, but its a very uncomfortable feeling to almost have to keep yourself from popping at all to get onto the rail, only to be that high off the ground for what seemed like almost a ride-on lip, if that makes any sense. complaining/suggesting aside, the candy cane was pretty fun, as was the super old 'red' rail (palmer rail maybe? the double wide flatstock thing thats been around forever since before andy was park crew mgr.) and the flatbox in the baby park was set up perfectly for learning pretty much anything. should be back up tomorrow night after work to play around a bit.

ya i was thinking of picking up hellbents, cause i have a pair of seths from like 3 years ago, but i figured grip up the new seths, sell the old ones, and the new ones will still be perfectly fine and awesome in deep snow, cause i never had float issues with the old ones anyway. hellbents would have been something that i'd only be able to use maybe 5 days a year, but the obsethed will come out to play at blue weekly. my god they throw up so much snow off the tails hahaha

leaving for utah in a little over two weeks now... i'm hoping we get something like that while out there. rode my new obsetheds for the first time at blue over the weekend, and they're fun on groomers, but i can't wait to try em out in some real snow. what were you skiing on for most of that trip? ARGs or spatulas?

so i'm not the only one who finds all the lips onto any down rail to be weird then. its really strange trying to 2 onto something when you're just dropping down onto the rail. the prices in the bar are quite reasonable compared to most other ski areas i've been too. blue's bar is more expensive for smaller cups of worse beer.

they need a lot more snow to make the jump line. that area of the trail seemed to get hit bad by all the wind, and not as much snow had accumulated there. i left around 130 and there were people parked all the way out to the sign on the access road. probably the most crowded i've seen it in several years.

intuition liners are like ovens for your feet. no heaters needed. vag

out of curiosity, how much extra time does having to send all tech work to one central location add on to the finished date?

exactly why if/when i move out west, i want it to be either SLC or seattle. having lived in philly for over 6 years now, it'd be tough for me to be somewhere that doesn't have the conveniences i'm used to open at dumb hours of the night. hungry after a long night at the bar? no problem, chubby's is open til like 4am. you're spot on about the ski town thing. when kev and i were out in utah last year, we were out in PC for a night, and the only things open past like 7pm were the bars. seems like living in a city that's relatively close to good skiing and still being able to have a steady job is my preferred way to attack it, should the opportunity present itself.

for what it's worth, several people i know who have moved there and come back to PA left because of the scene/people, and not because they didn't like the terrain better. for some people, there's more to life than getting drunk/high after riding every single day, which it seems that nick and glenn have figured out by actually having jobs out there. its the kids that move out for school that just get burned out on it all it seems.

havent looked into it lately since i have a pass, but i thought sunday nights at blue were even cheaper?

that sounds like it might be a good plan. what's boulder have up right now?

if it's windy at home, it'll be windier at blue. as far as park riding is concerned though, wind won't really be an issue right now cause the only jump worth hitting is at the bottom of the mountain where wind isn't really a factor. i wish they put that extra paddle tow in between lower park and central park so you could just session that jump