C1erArt

Better day today. 27 degrees and the ice nicely ground up and formed into flat cord. Got in and on the slopes at 8 and only had to share the mountain with the red coats and one or two others until 9. Lapped Rivershot and Floyd's until 10 and called it a day. The cord was turning into sugar snow and people started traversing the slopes. Hopefully some snow blowing will happen this week. Lots of cars coming in as I was going out. Music at the lodge tonight.

Thinking about it for next year. Getting lonely here. Raised my season pass by $200 and then flood the slopes with $9 discount tickets. My wife has decided to skip her season pass next year. Lost track of R2.

Got out for a couple hours this afternoon, should have stayed home. Ice, sugar piles and out of control skiers. The place desperately needs to blow some snow. I'll see how things are first thing tomorrow morning. Best run of the day was down the center right of Exhibition - all the snow was scraped off and the ice was nice and smooth. Time to sharpen my edges again.

Back on the slopes at two when my wife came up. T bolt lift was packed and apparently they weren't staffed to have a corral guy, so it got to be pretty annoying. Switched to East Mountain lift that had no lines and lapped Challenge for the rest of the afternoon. Plus it had a much more amusing show going on. Red Coats were kept busy today.

Low 20s, breeze blowing up the hill, hit the slopes just after 8 and headed right over to east mtn. Conditions very good, but no sign of snow blowing on the blacks overnight except maybe the bottom of river shot. The couple inches of snow yesterday helped and the grooming was excellent. Skied the golden two hours until 10 and taking a break after the rentals started drifting over. Used some black Friday discount tickets to cover my blackout pass. Floyd's is excellent, race team on Telstar, so was able to carry some speed crossing over from the River shot side. Some early morning pics of Rivershot:

Apart from a serious infestation of ball bearings conditions were surprisingly good. Solid ice where it wasn't groomed, but the groomed areas were flat and fast. For once I was glad of a brisk wind blowing up the hill. Low 30s and sunny when I started around noon, 15 runs on Tbolt, Challenge and East Mountain. Top of Floyd's

Was out with my daughter and her beau (a first timer). Was a little surprised at the poor conditions of Tbolt and Challenge. The greens on the west side were in a lot better shape. I'm thinking they blew and groomed over there after WMMR day yesterday and didn't do much last night on the east end. Nice sharp skis made an icy and scraped off Floyd's a lot of fun though, right side is fenced off and ungroomed - just snow boulders at the bottom. Does seem like they are trying to groom it steeper. Odd seeing another PAS&Rer, been lonely over at JF.

Nice day, got to the mountain about 11:30, skied to 3. About 35 degrees, no wind. Conditions very good and light crowds, skied onto the lift pretty much all day, 25 runs. River shot was open, Elevator appeared to be a bunch of snow boulders. Floyd's was about half covered and another cold snap should get it open. Right side of Exhibition was open, and Challenge and Thunderbolt in great shape. Challenge glade in good enough condition to take my new skis down to the race shack. All in all, a good start to the season.

First day out. Picked up my pass, the one with blackout dates since they don't offer a senior or family pass anymore. Their new set of season passes is a good deal for twenty somethings though. About 15 degrees and a very light wind. Got there about noon, and skied Demattes, Challenge and a run down One Park. Conditions were great, firm, flat and fast. A few people were in parts of Challenge glade, but I was on my new Rossi Experience 88s, too soon to get them scratched up. A lot quicker turning and just as fast as my old Elan Apexes. They were blowing snow on Thunderbolt and it looked almost ready to flatten out. Nothing on Exhibition, and I didn't get a look at east mountain. Had the slope all to myself the last half hour before closing.

Its also on the snowmobile route from Errol to Canada, so there are a lot of traffic from that at the café on the site.

My wife and I would go up to the Balsalms once every couple of years with the kids for the past 25 years. We liked its 'old timey' slightly shabby elegance, 5 star formal dining (they had a chef training program), extensive cross-country trails, snow shoeing, ice skating, friendly local staffing, and all in one package pricing so we didn't have to ski every day to feel we got our money's worth (too high end though to go more often). The ski area had slow lifts but because the only customers were the resort crowd, the slopes were pristine and no lift lines. It also had a LL Bean and ADK outdoor center at various times over the years. Also had a golf course and resort activities in the summer, but we were never there in the summer. It was built in the late 1800s, and expanded in the early 1900s, and is one of the few New England resorts that had not burned down over the years. It was owned by a latex millionaire that owned latex plantations in South America and manufactured balloons on site as well as other rubber products elsewhere. He didn't run the resort for a profit, and probably took losses over the years. When he died, it struggled for a few years before closing down 5 or 6 years ago. Local business owners bought it, and are working with Otten on plans to make it the largest ski area in the east, put in condos, a conference center, and basically ruin what we liked it for. It looks like it is going ahead, because the local government (as well as state government) is desperate for any types of jobs in that area - when the Balsams was in operation it pulled in local people from Colebrook to staff it. One of the minor disasters during its struggling period was to bring in H1B workers from South America to staff it. I do hope they get it running again, even if we don't plan to go back to a Otten resort. They tried to get foreign investors involved, but after the Jay Peak scam that fell through.

The Balsalms in northern NH. Late 19 century resort with 1000' vertical drop ski area. Currently shut down for renovations and expansion, may or may not reopen.

Looks like it is going right through the upper Blue Mountain parking lot. http://penneastpipeline.com/proposed-route/

Online at the Whiteface site.

Was up week before last and conditions were just ok. Looks like it will be below freezing at night most of the week, so they will be blowing snow. Looks like Wilderness and Thruway are closed, but they may be saving them for the weekend. We got a 3 day pass for $110, it's even cheaper now.

When I got sledded off Floyds 10 years ago with a season ending crash last week in January, Frost didn't refund anything since I had skied more than 10 days that year.

Everything was flat except a mogul race course set up on Wilderness, and some stuff right at the snow guns.

Looks like the poor winter hit Alpine Mountain pretty hard, gross revenues less than half of last year. Puts Jack Frost's increase in adult season passes in a new light: http://www.poconorecord.com/article/20160305/NEWS/160309724/0/SEARCH *bankruptcy

No, no natural snow at all. Even cross-country was closed.

Lived up to its name - ice face. The 6-10" of snow predicted for Wednesday turned out to be an inch of ice, but overall things were not too bad. Mountain Run, Wilderness, Essex, Upper Northway and Thruway were frozen granular with just enough icy spots to be sure you stayed on your edges. Likewise they had the top of the women's downhill (Upper Skyward) open to a cross over to the Niagara (men's downhill) and Victoria headwalls. Lower Skyward under the Summit Quad (chair 6) was closed (as well as the slides and lookout mountain - haven't skied either of them and don't think I ever will do the slides). Upper Skyward and Niagara were nice and fast (one of the few times I've seen Niagara without icy bumps), but Victoria was a mess of ice and blown snow piles. They were blowing a lot of snow (got down to -2 one night), but didn't see a groomer all week. The blue under the Face Lift (upper Valley) down to the mid-station lodge got pretty messy with whales, bumps, and ice. Unfortunately the way Whiteface is laid out all the Big Whiteface traffic funneled to Victoria and the blue Little Whiteface to Upper Valley. Mid-station lodge was the usual sun-tan hangout. No lift lines anywhere, except a couple of 5 minute lines at the Gondola. The mountain run chair didn't open until Saturday so we had to go all the way down when skiing Little Whiteface. My skis were pretty sharp, but I got a base grind at the Mountain for Saturday that made a lot of difference on the ice. I guess they know what it takes to get skis ready for the slopes there. We stayed at the KOA just up the road. We stayed there a few times in the 80's but the owners sold to new owners that wintered in California. The current owners took over last February and are renting out small heated cabins as well as camper spots all winter. Pretty quiet during the week, but the cabins filled up on the weekend. We were there in our truck camper (our new heated mattress pad worked great) and the kids and their cousins were in one of the cabins. Back in the day we used to stay in a ramshackle bar/lodge (Steinhoffs) that is closed now - the owner's son was on the race team and when he graduated they shut it down and left. Great ambiance. Kids did the bobsled and spent a few evenings in town. We left early today (Sunday) and my son and his wife took a few runs down Mountain Run before it got too crowded. Sounds like he had a great time: Needless to say, my top speed was about half that.

It seems that way, unless they add more options later on. We like to ski for a couple hours in the morning or afternoon. If we travel we aren't going to a Peak Resort. We went to Mt Snow a couple of years ago - it was nice but not worth going back to. Was going to join the midweek old geezer club, wonder how the retirees will handle the pass situation.

Season passes for my wife and I would go from $924 for this year to over $1200. Pretty steep to ski a 500 foot hill (pun intended)

Wonder if they are trying to move their customer base to other mountains and plan to close Frost and Boulder eventually. Can't have been too profitable this year and no reason to expect future years to be much better.

Looks like they eliminated all senior and family discounts. Pretty expensive for someone not visiting other Peak mountains, especially after season pass holders took a drubbing this year. Looks like we will be following everyone else over to Blue next year.

Heading to Whiteface this week. Hopefully there will be some snow left when we get back.