C1erArt

Good to hear from you R2. Conditions aren't as bad as they could be, and cold weather is coming next week.

Light until about 10:30 when I left. Starting to pick up - had to share a couple of chairs. WNMR day is next Friday, I think.

Not sure how the 41 got on there, should be 30. The pictures of E mtn were too depressing so here is one of Challenge glade.

Partly cloudy, light wind blowing down the hill, about 32 degrees. Soft cord, left upper part of Challenge glade skiable. Left side of T-Bolt still has some small whales from the guns. Quiet day. Still a ways to go on East Mountain. They opened up a road from Challenge to the top of Rivershot.

Think they are putting some snow down on the base area of East Mountain. The top cross over was still bare.

Blowing snow on Challenge, Tbolt and Exhibition. Tbolt is about half covered. Challenge nice with an inch of powder on top from the fans. Soft on the skis but stingy on the face. Sunny no wind about 25. DeMattes is nice and fast, but a little bumpy from the heavy traffic last week.

Blowing snow on TBolt.

Colder today, about 19. No wind and sunny. Blowing snow on Exhibition and the tubing runs. Packed powder with a dusting of blown snow on top

Nice using phresheez to find people on the mountain. New 4s, and the battery is holding up pretty well on the app.

There is some snow, but still a lot of rocks showing.

Top of Exhibition

Sorry, Exhibition not open. Does look like they opened up the choke point at the first headwall a little. Photobucket is great on the iPhone.

Cloudy, light flurries, about 30. Exhibition, deMattes and Challenge open. A little soft packed powder. Legs not used to this yet.

First run down Challenge

73 year old patroller at Blue Mountain. Pocono Record

Was a great season though, the snow dumps helped out quite a bit. The webcam of One Park at Frost still looks mighty inviting.

Slept in a little an hit the slopes about 8:45. Around 25 degrees, no wind, cloudy to start off with then sunny until the clouds rolled in around noon. Appeared not to lose any coverage due to the rain, and there was some new snow filling in the pockets of the glades. Started on East Mountain, and did Floyds, River Shot, and Mad Tree Glade a couple of times. The trees to the right of Telstar were a lot sketchier than they looked from slopeside. Elevator looked suicidal, but still had coverage. Groomers were very firm but not icy, held up well all day - didn't see any scraped off areas when I left around 12:30. Headed over to Challenge Glade - a little bouncy - skis made quite a racket but sharp edges helped. Saw more people hit it later in the morning when it softened up a little. Spent the rest of the morning lapping Challenge and T-bolt before heading over to Exhibition Moguls and a run down One Park glade - things were softening up by then so it was pretty nice. Saw Dan and Barb briefly. Was the ski for the cure day, with a fun race down DeMattes.

Out for a couple of hours again this morning (Tuesday). Everything groomed with a soft cord (except Exhibition bumps and the normal right side of Lightning. Still fluff in the glades

Got out for a couple of hours this morning (a nasty cold is pretty much behind me now), roads were a little tricky first thing in the morning (a snow plow was off in the ditch on 115). Jack Frost was pretty quiet when I hit the slope at 8:30, but still a lot of tracks were down already. Challenge and T-Bolt were half groomed, half natural with 8-9" of freshies. The groomed area was still very soft, and got cut up as the morning went on. East mountain was completely natural. Got some comments from the lifties about being snow covered from the waist down, but it was just from the spray coming off the skis. Had to work on keeping the ski tips up. River Shot was great early on, and Floyds was nice for a longer period. Wasn't too adventurous, just watched a couple people run elevator and e-glade. Did a couple runs down C-glade - a little bouncy where the bumps were under the new snow, but nice and soft. Didn't have to turn too much to control speed, just float down between the trees. Left around 10:30 - everything steep except the sides of Floyds was pretty tracked out. Hard keeping your speed on the flatter parts. Mad Tree Glade and One Park Glade still looked good from a distance. Exhibition bumps were also still there under the snow.

Was there a couple of years ago, saw it, but the slope was closed due to lack of cover. Pretty steep, but short. Slopes were interesting, but snow making was pretty poor (it was early in the season and not much natural snow). A nice WPA era stone lodge. Never saw so many straight skis in the ski racks. Hopefully the gas frackers haven't run over the place.

Conditions a little challenging. Freezing mist covering the goggles, groomers are nice with a couple inches of soft heavy snow on top. Off piste stuff has chunky broken up and refrozen crusty stuff - not nice places to be.

Working from home this week, so been out each morning for a few runs. Monday was pretty cold - after the weekend the groomers were unbelievably well groomed. Looked like a Japanese guy had been over them all with a little rake. Was a shame to mess them up with my tracks. Tuesday was warmer, and hit it first thing and DW joined later (dear wife, that is). Worked Exhibition bumps a little. Nice. Was waiting for opening this morning with freshly waxed PEs. Didn't get as much snow as farther south, but they got 3-4". The groomers were soft as silk - they left the left side of T-bolt ungroomed (would have been nice to have an ungroomed Floyds too - not many people on it - we were all off-piste). The short radius squiggly ones in the middle were mine. East mountain was the place to be. Hit the bumps above River Shot and over to Floyds and then a couple of Elevator runs from the apex straight down the steepest part. Pretty sweet. People were jumping off Risk it. Again the run of the day was Challenge Glade - did a dozen or so runs there. A lot of people in it. Exited the middle a couple of times and ran down under the chairlift. Pictures above were Challenge Glade at the start of the day. I worked extra hard all morning to be sure there weren't any freshy lines left for PASR day. Everyone was over on East Mountain, so the Challenge lift liftys got a little bored.

Hit T-Bolt and Challenge for a couple of hours this afternoon with b-in-law. Just getting back on skis after trying to take out a Toyota Corolla with his Harley. Helmet cams of C-glade and Exhibition bumps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b7ZJ0cmjiU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1OWlFmyi5g

Cold (-2 by the car thermometer) and sunny, no wind. Trees had a coating of ice from last weeks sleet. Another great day - hit the slopes at 8 AM on my Rossi 9Ss and did some groomers to get warmed up for an hour. Switched over to my PEs and did the off-piste stuff. Elevator was nice, right side was big and soft, thought I was doing great until one run when I had to wait for the developmental class of 9 and 10 year olds to clear it. Ran E-glade twice and didn't embarrass myself too much. Risk it looked prime, but I don't want to do a high-speed tree wrap. Solitude glade is getting there, could use some more snow. Did a couple of runs of the Exhib moguls - center section is getting blown out but nice rhythm on the upper section. Saw Dan a couple of times. Run of the day, though, was C-glade. Still a lot of soft stuff in there (a couple of icy patches), and the middle line through the center of the trees is sweet, as well as the bottom section below the racing shack. The upper section of the far right side (to the right of the little trail) has some nice lines through it now. The upper exit to the e-mtn Rivershot run-out is pretty well covered (trail down to the chair lift still needs some filling in). Got to watch that merge though, saw someone almost get a high speed hammering coming out of the woods. Could use a couple of warning poles if a lot of people start using it. A lot to do at Frost - my legs gave out before I hit One Park glade.There is always tomorrow.

Sounds good to me.