C1erArt

The last drop is pretty narrow though, I try to hit it right at opening and ski it until it starts to crowd up. Going over the lip of the last drop is blind, and if you have to stop and check for fallen or traversing skiers – what’s the point? I’m starting to prefer Challenge, it’s wider and easier to get a good rhythm in your turns. Plus, the East mountain lift is 90 seconds longer than the challenge lift, and you have all that flat runout at the bottom of East mountain.

Was out yesterday, skiing river shot, challenge, thunderbolt, and exhibition. Started out on my Rossi 9s’ on River Shot and switched mid day to my experience 88s to get some more speed and bigger turns on the other slopes. With the A lift still not running to the top of Challenge, and with a strong headwind when coming down the connector from East mountain lift, I did a lot of tucking and skating yesterday. To add insult to injury, they don’t have the crossover from the connector trail to challenge open, so you have to go almost to the lift to get on the trail. On the plus side, challenge and exhibition were still fairly pristine and empty when I left around 1 PM. Getting close on Floyds, hope the warm weather this weekend doesn’t set them back to far. I think Vail is keeping them on a pretty short leash. . First picture is the top of Floyd’s.

Took the wrong turn coming out of the development this morning, and wound up at the wrong mountain. Also liked Paradise and Dreamweaver, but Challenge was also real nice first thing in the morning. Hit Lazy Mile and Main Street a couple of times. Left about 11:30. These days I’m wearing a helmet with black front and green back, bright green gaiter, and my Leki poles. If you see me, say hi. I have four more discounted tickets, so I’ll be back a few more weekdays.

Nice day today. A couple of inches fresh snow, and the sun peaked through a couple of times. Conditions were pretty good all over the mountain. Quad lift still down. They groomed out the whales on Floyd’s, but still need more snow at the intersection of Solitude, Lightning and the top of Floyds. Taken from near the top of where Elevator would be.

Controller or comptroller? I always thought the latter sounded more impressive. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

A far as the mountain is concerned, I’d recommend Jack Frost. It is more manageable with a lot better snow conditions. Haven’t had any problems with the instructors. They also have the trail difficulty segregated across the mountain, so the left side are the easy slopes and the right side is the difficult slopes. So beginners don’t get run over by expert skiers wanting to go fast. Also the slopes are pretty much top to bottom with no crossovers or connecting slopes with blacks crossing greens. The higher cost of a larger mountain is not worth it for beginners. I’d try to get there early on the weekends. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Foggy and warm today. Skiing was pretty good though. Crowds started building up around eleven, and with A lift still closed today I packed it in. A few rain sprinkles, but not too bad.

Hit the slopes first thing today, the 23rd. Some new slopes were open – Rivershot over on East Mountain. It was in pretty good shape except for the bottom of the last headwall which was a little cut up and icy. It got pretty crowded later on in the morning. They opened Thunderbolt today which had good coverage but a lot of ball bearings on the slope from the grooming. Hopefully, it will be in better condition tomorrow. Exhibition have the full width opened also, and was in pretty good shape. The major problem was they didn’t open the quad chair at the bottom of Thunderbolt, so if you skied Challenge or Thunderbolt you had to go over to the east mountain chair to get back to the top. Since challenge was the slope in the best shape, I spent a lot of time on the slow east mountain lift and traversing over to challenge. The snow started getting a little soft around noon time so I called it a day. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Finally a sunny day today. Challenge was in really good shape, looks like Thunderbolt’s whales are going to be groomed out pretty soon. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Why change now? Blowing snow today on Rivershot and Exhibition. They have bunch of guns all ready to go on Thunderbolt. Lapped Challenge again today. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Out today (12/16 Monday), no new terrain open but conditions on Challenge still good. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Some short trips to New England to use our Icon passes. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Spent most of last winter working, except for a trip out to squaw. Retired this past September, so now I’ll be one of those mid week old geezers you see. Skis were turning pretty good today though. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Conditions were pretty good today, a little warm and the fog and mist started taking over around noon time. Did a bunch of laps on challenge. Still pretty quiet on the slopes. Snow conditions were pretty good first thing in the morning, and got a little soft and rutted up later in the morning. Doesn’t look like much different at Frost, just spruced up a little bit. Thunderbolt and East Mountain not open yet. Looks like the ice storm last weekend hit Challenge glade a little bit. We had the crown of a tree come down on our roof, no damage but it took a while getting it cleaned up. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Peak Resorts, Sacklers, and Purdue Pharma? https://wapo.st/2mKl43a Was Peak Resorts part of a money laundering scheme for the opioid crisis?

I only ski up to groomed blacks (or ungroomed blacks with an 'escape hatch' I can traverse out) and I think for Squaw alone a full day or two would be enough for me. But Alpine Meadows is on the same ticket and that is another couple of days. If you ski ungroomed blacks (without even getting into really hairy stuff) you could easily do a full week between the two mountains and barely hit all the major runs. This year might be exceptional since everything was open, no matter how steep or remote. My son who skied other areas around Tahoe on the Epic ski pass was really impressed with both Squaw and Alpine and picked up a Icon pass for next year. They put up a bunch of propane avalanche stations, so the first day we were there after a major dump the previous day we were woken up at 6 by those things going off for a couple of hours.

The Ikon pass isn't too popular with locals and regulars, and probably contributes to parking problems since holders will come for half a day or a few hours. Otherwise if I have a $167 day pass I would feel I have to limit the days I ski and ski open to close the days I do go to the mountain.

That’s what made it all possible. Using it worked out well. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

I'm feeling it now - more than a little creaky. A couple of days I was only out for 2 or 3 hours, but I did make opening to almost closing a couple of days - Snow got pretty soft in the late afternoon. I stayed away from any climbing, which helped. A ungroomed run would wear me out more than a morning of skiing groomers.

Still there, but after Squaw a little meeh.

No, she was carrying all the gear and supplies, plus bringing the doggies.

Plus my wife spent four days driving out, and then I drove back with her.The weather was fantastic, a snowstorm just before we got there and one just after we left. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Got back from skiing in Tahoe at Alpine Meadow and Squaw Valley with the extended family. Had up to 11 skiers of varying abilities (from beginners to ‘I don’t want to know what they are skiing’), and alpine meadow is great for being able to ski different terrain but more or less keeping together as a group since all the lifts on the front side loaded from one area. At Squaw there was a dizzying amount of lifts going in all directions. Squaw had a lot more dramatic scenery, and some great black bowls, but a lot of the green and blue terrain was not that interesting. Alpine had a lot of sections of bowls groomed, and I stuck with mainly the groomed sections or shorter less steep ungroomed sections. The younger folks did some of the off piste backside runs. There was a tremendous amount of snow, pretty much every line was open. They have some really sturdy houses at the resort. The weather was great, bluebird skies spring skiing. Was able to get in 11 straight days. Demoed some Head Kore 105’s but still prefer my Experience 88’s for the groomers and occasional ungroomed sections. Looking out the back of the house, towards the peak serviced by Scott’s lift Needless to say, they didn’t take the easiest way down, but I did. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Getting close to finishing out the season, was out for a couple of hours this morning at Jack Frost. In the high 20s when I got there and the slopes were a little crunchy. Coverage is still really good and it warmed up a fair amount as the morning went on. Pretty quiet first thing, but more people were coming in during the morning. Hope to get out next weekend if the resort is still open. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Floyds was nice but too short and had some red coats practicing on it with a sled. Top speed of the day though, 49.8 on my 165 cm Rossies Was out with my honey from 3 to 4, around 45 degrees and more sunny. The race was over, but Challenge was a little torn up. Challenge glade was pretty sketchy. Could have used a brush hog before the season. Tbolt was pretty soft, but got some nice turns in.