C1erArt

Got talking to the guy next to me in the parking lot with a sweet pop up truck camper and missed the rope drop, and the racers crowded the quad so went up on the six pack. Conditions much than yesterday, and got better as yesterday morning went on. Fierce wind on Main Street, people struggling coming off Burma trying to get up that hill near the ski patrol building. The two guys on Razors yesterday must have been preparing to set up the gates for the U18 race today. Overall a great day and should be a good weekend.

Switchback won’t get the traffic that Sidewinder would to relieve pressure on the existing trails from blue trail skiers, imho.

Hit the slopes about 10, hoping things would have softened up a little. Saw the gates on Razors but not closed (just a experts only sign which didn’t clue me in), so I gave it a try. Top headwall was ok, but where it levels out a little were large piles of massive softballs. Below the elbow and the bottom headwall were nice. I don’t see how a groomer can mess up a slope like that from yesterday. Then they closed the slope so two guys could run the gates. Lazy was the ROTD with Freefall and NM/DW close behind, although Main Street’s bottom section was good and the marbles on the upper part were at least a little softish. New snow on Freefall too, some slick spots on NM/DW. Curzi’s and the Chute OK with some new snow. A lot of snow being blown on the parks and tubing. Fries and Gatoraid on the lower patio, got to keep the money in-house.

Think we are going to try for a few days at Heavenly when we visit my son in Sacramento this spring. Never been there. Reading your JH posts have me itching to go somewhere to really try my Head Kores.

The one with the nice view of the slides off piste area. Seen people on it, but (of course) never was out there myself.

Conditions are so so, but at least they’re blowing new snow. Razors is closed and they’re blowing the whole slope. Also, blowing on the upper park and the very top of freefall. Other than that, they’re blowing in a few high traffic spots. Curzi’s is closed for Team Lehigh. Freefall was in pretty good shape, they didn’t really do anything to nightmare, but Main Street was the run of the day. The upper section was pretty nice, some slick spots and marbles developed in the middle, but the bottom was in really good shape.

Chair 6 was the lift to the top of big whiteface before it was upgraded.

Chair 6 at Whiteface was always scary. Center post, no foot rest, steep terrain and a skinny little safety bar.

At least they are blowing lower main too.

Rode up the first chair with JLaw and lapped the big three on the east side until about 1030, then headed over to Main Street. All of the slopes were in pretty good shape, and the light dusting of snow made things pretty smooth. Sugar piles never really developed even on lower paradise, lower Main and Home Stretch. Skied Main Street till about noon when it was getting a little skied off up top but still carveable. Hopefully they will put a bunch of snow down this week to last through March. Very light crowds, The black runs were very quiet.

2019. A bad year, three people died at BlueMountain.

In the newspaper article, part of the investigation outcome was to better enforce lowering the bar. If there was a freak accident when I worked in industry, you could either engineer a solution or try to change behavior, but you had to do something to reduce the chances of it happening again. This leads to a lot of seemingly stupid stuff, particularly regarding safety shields on moving and rotating equipment. You can’t engineer dumb out of people.

Don’t think they ever determined if the skier that fell off the lift in 2019 had the bar down or not.

Hope they pile the snow on existing runs in order to extend the season, rather than try to open new slopes.

Got the screen up at the quad

Got there at the usual start time, everything on the east side was completely groomed out and frozen cord. Started to soften up around 10, and by 1230 when I left the top was just starting to get sticky and the bottom a little slushy, but all the slopes were still pretty firm with a little bit of soft stuff on top. Alternated between freefall, razors, and Dreamweaver. Really couldn’t say which one was the run of the day because they were also nice. Never made it over to Main Street, sunny and warm, although it started to cloud over a little bit later in the morning. Very light crowds, never had to wait for a chair. 22 runs this morning.

🌭🌭🌭🌭🌭🌭🌭🌭🌭

Always good snow first thing in the morning at Frost.

Human slalom gates that are moving.

Got in to the lot about 830, strange not seeing anyone in the ski and ride parking area. Did some runs on razors, nightmare, freefall. All in good shape although freefall was a little mixed with scraped off areas and snow piles. And then over to Main Street and Curzi’s cabin. Conditions were pretty good, not great, with brown spots and soft snow building up in the usual spots by the time I left at 11. The upper slopes in general didn’t get to cut up, and razors was a tossup with Nightmare for the run of the day. Upper main street was pretty empty the times I ran it, about the only place you could do once wide turns. The lift lines were pretty short, but you had to fight your way through the crowd at the bottom of the new lift to get to the gates. They closed the crossover coming from Main St. to homestretch, so the run out down to the new lift got pretty busy. I think they were running some park stuff there.

Holding down the fort while people fly off to have fun somewhere else. Fairly light crowd today, no lift lines and slopes weren’t too crowded. Upper parts of the slopes were in pretty good shape, but pretty much all the lower parts had heavy sugar snow develop, especially lower Main, lower paradise (both have some very sketchy cover areas), and homestretch. Razors was a lot smoother than yesterday. Lazy was pretty nice, with sugar snow piles starting to develop after the turn. Even Falls was starting to get fluffed up. First flakes started about 1130, snowing pretty heavy now.

Curzi’s, Midway, Lower Main was nice, as was Lazy. Another fast mover video. 78CC46C9-2204-46B5-AE7B-823F9E70A03A.MOV

And out to Harrisburg. Was always interesting to take an early morning Detroit flight and follow it over coal county past Sunbury.

Near Butte MT, they put spas in old uranium mines for the health giving properties of radon😅. And here I am blowing it out of my basement.

Finally some snow just north east of Blue.