C1erArt

Left this morning at 10:15 after 7 runs. Got really crowded - even the slow lift over near Main Street. The runs over there were in pretty good shape. I’ve been known to throw shade at the Blue groomers, but I have to admit it takes considerable skill to take a fairly OK Challenge, and over the course of a couple days turn it into completely unskiable marble pile top to bottom. Came over the lip and it looked like Hickory Run State Park’s boulder field. Sidewinder was good, but with Razors roped off, NMDW a pretty packed park (3 trips up on the quad and I didn’t see a single person hit a feature - quite a waste of a nice slope), it got crowded fast.

Victoria head wall below the crossover from little Whiteface. Niagara headwall just above it (on cloud spin). Take a gander at the slides to the right near the top of the Big Whiteface chair. I’ve seen people on it, but it is above my payscale.

Yu bois sure looked purty coming down Razors from the peanut gallery on the quad.

I noticed at Blue recently on NMDW and earlier on Sidewinder, they blew snow, leveled out the snow gun whales into a jumbled mess, let it sit through several freeze thaw cycles blowing more snow before grooming it out. At Frost they seem to leave the whales until they are done blowing snow, and then groom it out completely in one day (or night).

Loaded up my pass with another ticket, parked slope side, got the boots on, and started off on Thunderbolt. Slopes nicely groomed, with 2” freshies on top. Had to head over to the E Mtn lift since it looks like they stopped running Challenge lift weekdays. Rivershot and Floyd’s were nice, but a little slow with the new stuff on top. RedCoats roped off Elevator, I guess they don’t want anyone thinking it is covered and going down it. The bottom of Rivershot can get a little ragged, but it was perfect today. Trail intersection at the top of Floyd’s bottom of Solitude was a little bumpy. Demattes was a little rough, and they had Exhibition closed, blowing snow to fill in the left side. Hard to build up a nice rhythm with the head walls on East Mountain, so I spent most of the morning on challenge. Challenge was pretty quiet since most people stayed on East Mountain or skied the West area of the mountain. One Park looked ok. Had to skate from E Mtn to reach TBolt, so only did that a couple of times. Challenge glade too thin. Patch on my bases held up pretty well, have to see how it holds up on ice. 25°, a little wind, cloudy and flurries to start off with but then it cleared up being partly sunny. Drove up to Frost listening to the dumpster fire moving back down to Florida, and drove back home listening to the new president.

Filled out the over 65 questionnaire for St Luke’s, waiting to hear. Lehigh Valley still only has the essential worker questionnaire on their website.

We lost our well pump on Thursday, and I was all set to ski Blue that day. Plumber came right out. Ouch. 400 foot down, 1 HP. Last fall we found out the CPVC sewer pipe snapped where it goes through the foundation wall. Fortunately outside. Our foundation plantings were well fertilized.

Got there for the 9AM rope drop. Conditions were good not great. Challenge was the run of the day, nice from top to bottom. Sidewinder was also great. Razors was nice on top and better on the bottom than last week. Lazy Mile and Main Street were a little disappointing, a little sugary and a little scraped when I hit them about 10. Got a pretty good gouge somewhere. Have to do some base repair tonight. Left around 10:30.

Have you done the road up to Bear’s ears?

Need to work on my disguises.

One of my best days at blue, razors top and Challenge were ok, but sidewinder and then Main Street, Switchback and Lazy were great. Probably had one of my best ever runs at Blue on Main Street. Truly JF quality snow for an hour or so. People seemed pretty considerate, but there were a lot of ‘free the noses’ on the high speeds, so I was on the slow lift for a while.

Floyd’s was very lonely, didn’t take a walk over there.

Back from another morning at Blue the True Mountain.... Wait, that’s GSS’s line. Reserved a JF $40 senior ticket last night. Just back from Jack Frost. Sunny morning, high teens, no wind at all. Parked slope side, got my RFID card that can be reloaded online. Got my gear on and walked 50 feet to the top of Thunderbolt to wait for 9:00. Nicely groomed soft cord on top of firmly packed powder. Spent the morning lapping Thunderbolt and Challenge, doing nice high angle GS turns. Had a lot of fun. Only a couple of runs I couldn’t ski right on to the lift. Maybe a half dozen people on the slope until 10, mostly blue coats, when some small groups started. Everyone masked. Some rollers on Thunderbolt as usual that could give a little air time, but Challenge had nice smoothly rolling terrain. Lifties were nice. Looks like East mountain is ready to go. The crossovers, top and bottom, are groomed and ready. The first drop of Challenge glade is rocky, but the rest seems to be covered, but I skipped it today. Left around 11, 16 runs! with the conditions as good as when I started.

Do the lifties and staff still get family passes?

That was the first time I looked at speed all season. Can’t ski fast at Blue. Concentrating on trying to make pretty turns. Glad I got shorter skis this time.

I use Slopes. Was doing about 24 when you guys passed me as I was trying to do pretty turns down the right edge. All I saw were your bright orange bindings through the fog. You guys I trust, BMR I don’t. Top speed of 34 today. Even at those speeds I was skiing by feel most of the time. Fortunately slopes were in good shape at opening. Put in some upgraded headphones in the helmet end of last year, unfortunately the iPhone doesn’t drive them loud enough, although they have really good bass. Yesterday I got the Kaiser music player app, with adjustable gain. Definitely loud enough now.

Nightmare Dreamweaver was also nice. Once the 6 pack stops, the line builds up and doesn’t appear to recover when it gets going again. Miss the 8 AM weekday opening. A few blurs went by me on Main Street.

Code readers can clear codes also for intermittent or problems you can ignore. Dealers charge 100 bucks just to put a code reader on. I hated that my Toyota would disable electronic stability control and traction control whenever the check engine light would come on for an emissions problem.

Yes, it takes you under the East mountain lift, and you can keep going to the River Shot runout, or turn down under the chair lift if there is a lot of snow. The last picture seems to be the other end of Marks Way cutover from Rivershot runout.

I think a lot of people work at JF for the passes for themselves and I think their family too. Not as valuable this year having to reserve ahead.

I thought the top half of lazy mile was in the best shape, although nearly got taken out by a gaggle of BMR, one who came about a foot from the front of my skis before turning away. Switchback was enjoyable, not too many cookies or marbles. Pretty solid though. Fortunately I switched feet on the skis today so I had a fresh sharp edge.

On lower paradise below dreamweaver? Maybe someone else. Definitely having fun!

Be careful when you blow by the old guy. I thought Nightmare was nice, but a lot of marbles on Dreamweaver.

Have a green helmet, green gaiter and green on my ski poles to match my Experience 88s. Now I need to switch to orange.

First day out this season, and as mentioned above conditions were pretty good. A little foggy to start off with, but the sun started trying to come out. Took the second 6 pack up, started with paradise, a couple runs on challenge, then over to lazy Mile and Main Street which were in really good shape. Then back to paradise and challenge, which actually was in better shape than the earlier runs. I think the mountain handled social distancing and mask wearing pretty well, most of my chair lift rides just had two of us on it although I left around 11 when it started getting a little crowded and the started putting 3 on the six pack. Seemed to be mainly groups on the quad, so wasn’t as good as the six pack for a single. First day on my new to me Vokl Deacon 80s, 167 length. Got them from the Loft sale of their demo skis this fall. A little apprehensive since I didn’t try them out before buying them, but I like them a lot. They handled the frozen stuff in the morning and the softer stuff later really well, and were really fast turning and fast edge to edge. A lot more responsive at slower speeds than my Experience 88 180s.