C1erArt

And usually, the guns are shut down for the season at the beginning of February except to freshen the top near the lodge.

They can’t open more lifts because they still don’t have two of their main wide top to bottom slopes open, Exhibition (blue) and Thunderbolt (black). They only have one slope open for the blue and black lifts. Until the past couple of years, I’ve had a season pass there for 20 years, and they were always open by New Years. East Mountain might open mid to late January. I don’t think Vail wants to spend the money for electricity to blow snow, or staff up to fully open. Sad.

They did put in a large orange fence with small exits from the slope.

The valley cam seems to be specially positioned to cut out the line for the quad. Although, like right now, you can get an idea how long it is by how people are skiing as they go out of the picture.

Weren’t able to keep the quad running for more than 5 minutes and the line exploded about 10:30.

Really glad Salty had a good time.

Some scenery from the main street chair http://

Do they have any interest in opening Thunderbolt or Exhibition, let alone east mountain? Talked to a guy on the blue Mountain lift yesterday that was at Jack Frost over the weekend because Blue was sold out. He got three runs in three hours.

Sun came out about 10:30, and the wind coming up Razors moderated a little, but would still slow you down quite a bit. Left a little after 11, and still wasn’t crowded. Parking area near the ski patrol was roped off, apparently to allow buses to unload.

I think the guns were turned off because of a pipe break at the very top of Main Street. They had some heavy equipment repairing it this morning, and turned the guns back on around 11 or so. Good conditions all around. The quad was down for about 10 minutes when I left a little after 1 PM. Got there a little before 10, and lapped freefall and Main Street for most of the day. Moderately strong wind coming up the hill at the bottom of Main Street

Thunderbolt and exhibition aren’t even open. They had a guy up in the engine compartment of the quad all morning, and it kept stopping briefly for no apparent reason.

I think the long trek from the quad over to Main Street kept a lot of people off of it. The top of Main St., above Midway, was in Primo condition. I was kind of amazed at how many guns they had going at once all over the mountain. Getting the impression Jack Frost is going to need a big natural snow dump to get things opened. One comment about how the ticket gates are set up on the quad. Once things started getting a little backed up, rather than coming in perpendicular to the gates people came in from the side, and blocked the season pass gate.

I would definitely go with the Belgian waffle cabin. But I’m afraid they’re going to let it bump up.

Got there a little bit late, did one run on Paradise which was nice, then spent the next two hours on freefall. Was expecting marbles and death cookies, but the condition was unbelievable. And it held up pretty well when I left at 12:30, still blowing on the top half of the mountain. Agree with Johnny Law about his description of the signature move on Free Fall, hard not to use the slow sign as a gate. But they definitely are going to have a problem with the merge onto Paradise, and the run out to under the lifts. Hard to keep it slow when you’re pumped with adrenaline. Having a separate trail at the bottom would be great. Didn’t see any redcoats slowing us down later in the morning.

Skiing with my brother in law (who was a better skier than I was until his motorcycle accident 15 years ago or so-doesn’t have much flexibility to absorb the ruts).

I like the Slopes app. It’s subscription based but seems to be fairly accurate regarding speed. They also added a track friend on the mountain feature this year.

Just got back from a half dozen runs with the BIL. Lazy mile was in really good shape, definitely the best of the season. Midway and lower Main Street wasn’t too bad but had some pretty big marbles transitioning into death cookies. A lot of fresh snow put down. I think the bad weather down in Philadelphia this morning kept a lot of people away, so there was never any lift line.

Good time had by all. Paradise and Free Fall to open Thursday.

Didn’t even go down it once. A lot of boarders out.

The white lights on the new trail look a little weird at night. Hope they eventually switch them all over, big boulder is nice with white lights

Got there about 930 and skied until 1130. 22° cloudy and a little bit of gusty wind blowing up the hill. Lapped challenge the whole time, one park was pretty busy and they were blowing on a closed DeMattes. Seem to be touching up the slopes before working on new terrain. Challenge was pretty flat and very firm, a little bumpy if you got moving too fast. It was nice being on the challenge lift again, and skipping the flat runout of DeMattes and one park. No lift line, but most chairs had occupants by the time I left. Some sugar snow build up on the slope. Challenge was getting a little crowded since it was the only slope served by the chair. Slope side parking was open again at the Challenge lift. Sushi and air in the tires on the way home. Couldn’t get my Slopes app to start recording, but an update when I got home fixed it. New wrist Bluetooth audio controller worked very well.

Beat you to the sushi. Also topped off the tires there due to the cold snap.

Love that guy.

Many times we vote against our own interests because we are not complete selfish children and believe less fortunate people’s welfare matters too. Not sure why many people vote against their own best interests in favor of billionaires, corporations, and c-suiter’s welfare though. Although I’m not as selfless as Texas’ Dan Patrick who is willing to die of Covid rather than risk slowing down the economy.

No doubt being in a packed corral for 15 minutes with most not wearing masks puts you at risk no matter what precautions you take, although I think a well fitting N95 mask helps a lot, along with goggles. And I do have the high octane Moderna. Going to be close with 2 one year olds and a 2 year old over the holidays. Worried I might have it and not realize it, since the initial symptoms are ‘feeling old’, which I do all the time except when crusing down a slope hyped up on Advil. But we do have a half dozen boxes of rapid tests. Most epidemiologists are saying the thought that Omicron is less severe is just media trying to down play it.