C1erArt

The retired auxiliary of PA ski and ride hit the slopes this morning. A lot of rain last night and temp was 33 when I left the house. 34 when I left the slopes aound noon. Mostly cloudy but the sun peaked through occasionally. Very strong wind out of the west. Blew over the 6pack trash funnel. Sharpened the skis last night. Good thing, because the entire mountain was bulletproof. Has a great time. No loose snow anywhere except coming off the macadam at the valley lodge. Razors roped off, some regional races coming up. Nightmare was the run of the morning again. Some brown skid marks on the inside of the first turn of Paradise and the middle of Main Street and Switchback. Otherwise coverage was pretty good. Going to try some demos tomorrow.

Any vacuum bagging in the plans?

You could see the smoke this morning from the top of blue Mountain.

It is a great day today. Hanging around after my usual bugging out time for a few more runs. Razors open and in great shape, but nightmare is the winner today.

Bacon soaked in maple syrup, the best. Have to be careful it doesn’t burn when cooking it.

Not much. It is at best 40 to 1 ratio, but I have mostly silver or swamp maples, not sugar maples, so it is more like 70 or 80 to one. So maybe 4 ounces. Maybe 10 hours boiling time. But I keep adding to it and bottle 2 or 3 times a season. I usually get just a gallon or so per season with 10 taps. I go through a half dozen 20 pound bottles of propane. It it keeps me busy.

Got about 8 gallons of sap to boil up this week.

U16 state championships.

Out for a few runs this morning, nice sunny day about 18 at the house before I left. A race going on at razors edge, Paradise was closed first thing and they were blowing snow on nightmare. After a couple warm up runs spent a lot of time on challenge. Early on, one of the race kids wound up in the trees halfway downhill and was sledded out. Sae the medevac helicopter fly overhead, but don’t know if it was from that. They finished blowing snow on sidewinder, and groomed it out this morning. Opened it up around 11:30. Could be a busy weekend.

Looks like a race kid. Quick action all around.

You just need narrower and sharper skis ;-). It skied great today. Was 24 degrees up near us. And everything was in great shape. Still blowing snow when we left at noon.

Everything seem to be in really good shape today. Nightmare Dream Weaver was my favorite today. They opened up Razors to the public just before I left, and my run down it was marginal. If I were a racer and had my druthers I’d much rather have raced on Challenge than Razors. Challenge was bulletproof like it was water injected. They were blowing snow like crazy on Razors Friday, and I don’t think there was enough time for the slope to set before the race. Will be out again tomorrow with my sweetie, probably not at opening though.

I plan on being there.

Bit the bullet and got a season pass for the rest of this year and next year. Was out today first thing and lapped Challenge, Nightweaver and Sudewinder until about 10:30. No real lift lines and the slopes were in great shape. Big FIS multistate race today, but no big effect on the crowds.

Was up from about 930 to 12:30. Run of the day was lazy mile. Nightmare and Dreamweaver river were also pretty good, as was Challenge. The only sketchy part was the last drop off of challenge.

Not for a few weeks, was at Sunday River week before last.

Great, my favorite part of Whiteface.

Anything happening with the mid mountain lodge that had that fire?

We were using JF A lift in December until they opened up Rivershot and the East Mountain lift was available.

IMHO when the grooming has been subpar this year it is because there is not enough base to dig deep enough to do a good grooming job. This is the worst year for warm temps and rain that I can remember. But still most trails at JF are in great shape, just the high traffic steeper ones are showing the strain. A couple of lifts had dirt showing today if you cut the corner getting off. I don’t think Epic has increased their traffic at all, if anything it is down over previous years, although I have the luxury of not skiing weekends anymore so I miss the busses and crowds. With the changing climate, putting in a 30 year investment into a new or refurbished lift is pretty sketchy economics. Glad that Saddleback in Maine found investors to fund their lift replacement. The Balsams ski area in Dixville NH is still trying to get funding.

Was out first thing this morning, Monday, February 3. Nice and sunny, with frozen cord. After it warmed up a little bit skiing was a lot easier. Rivershot was in pretty rough shape from all the traffic over the weekend, and I don’t think there is enough base to properly groom it out. but Floyd’s wasn’t too bad, and Challenge in great shape all day. They groomed out the fresh snow we got yesterday afternoon pretty much everywhere except the left side of Exhibition. That was the run of the day, with nice baby bumps on the first slope with fluff on top. Left about 1, and the temperature was in the low 50s. Spring skiing, but it never got slushy.

Could be a multi speed motor and one set of windings is shorted out.

Friday radio station day. Got there early so parking and getting my ticket wasn’t too bad. Headed over to East Mountain first thing. Snow was in great shape (at one point, from the lift, I heard someone yell “it’s like butter“). They had a corral set up and crowds weren’t too bad even when I left at 11:30, The second lift was ready but they never started loading it. The slope crowded up a little faster than usual, but on the plus side, Challenge was in great shape all morning. Some of the other slopes tended to get scraped off a little. Very little cover right now. Was up at Sunday River skiing there for the first time last week on the Ikon pass. The slopes were pretty nice but the glades and double blacks were in rough shape. Kind of an interesting set up with a lot of little mountains spread out. Also on the bright side, it looks like Saddleback is going to reopen next year. Think I’ll wait until the six pack is running before hitting up blue again.

The home mountain for my sister in Maine was Saddleback, and they shutdown a couple of years ago because they couldn’t afford to replace their main lift. Hopefully they will manage to get investors to continue operations. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Hit the slopes right at eight and skied to 1030 when it started the crowd up. Personally I liked Challenge - they evened out the crossover a little bit so you could maintain some speed right to the challenge trail and it was pretty deserted. But Rivershot and Floyd’s were in good shape also. It was a real pretty scene, with sunshine coming through the trees behind me, but I just missed it by a few seconds when the clouds came in. The clouds cleared up, and it was sunny by the time I left. Nice skiing in the sunshine for a change. Rumor has it they found a crack in a chair on the Thunderbolt lift, and upon inspection they found a bunch of more chairs cracked. They may be looking at replacing all the chairs.