Timeless

So you ski at camelback a lot then?

Please explain why? For the benefit of those of us out here, maybe we can benefit from your experience / knowledge. Thanks

makes perfect sense, you are at JFBB for the park scene and wish you could sell your place at CB but the market sucks. If you are not into the park, I would choose between JF and CB based on ease of access or if you can only ski'ride at peak times (in which case go to JF). personally I would (and do) pick CB over both because I live very close. If I lived near JF I would be a pass holder there, no question. If I lived near Blue I would probably be a passholder there. There's a big difference between "excellent snowmaking" and "they make a lot of snow"

It has 200 feet more overall vert, but the trails are no steeper, in fact I would say they are less steep in general because as the (very biased) blue groupies will tell you half of camelback's black are just run-out but therefore the upper part is that much steeper (if admittedly too short). Taking a typical "black" run at Blue (say mainstreet or midway), they are not as steep as big pocono or pharoah if you are familiar with CB as a reference point, and the "double blacks" are probably justifiable as a real black diamond run. Some people will tell you that Blue lacks variety in it's trails, but when it's fully open it does OK in this respect. The snowmaking / grooming is generally better at CB and certainly the conditions are generally better at JF. If you like the park, then when it's open they have a great one in sidewinder and generally speaking they have a decent one in Come Around most of the year and it looks pretty impressive already. If you haven't been, it's certainly worth a visit, overall I would say it's on a par with CB and JF.

Even though my son is 7 now, I still make sure I can lift him onto the chair if needed, you can never rely on the lift people at CB to catch the chair, I'm not sure you can rely on this anywhere.

Given the general quality of the skiers (and riders) at CB on a weekend, the fences can only be a good thing. They are only placed where there are big drops, or rocks off of the trail, or a drop down to another trail, and I think their (serious) injury count would go up significantly without them. Besides, it's much easier to unhook a dumbass New Yorker from a piece of fencing than it is to have to go into the woods after him/her.

Unless his binding is still broken there is probably nothing so badly wrong with his board or set-up that would cause this problem. It's most likely in his head. Have the board / binding checked out by the repair shop at your hill (they probably won't charge you anything if there's nothing obviously wrong), then start with the basics again. If he cant get a grip, he'll have to change to soemthing easier like skiing, or maybe blades....

Was up at the hill from opening to 12 today, conditions were pretty damn good, a little "blue like" (small snow pebbles) on upper cleos but all the other trails were very good and as the surface broke up it got better (looser) and never really softened up which was great. We did everything open except the bunnies and birches, pick of the day was undoubtedly Marjies, with great loose surface conditions, almost powder like. They were still blowing on a lot of (closed) trails like pharaoh (sp) and nile mile plus the advanced park but not the big pipe. Looks like they might be able to open rocket soon. Crowds were not bad at all, never more than 20 people waiting at the quad and the trails were quiet enough. All in all, a great first day at CB for this year.

Ashleigh, and CB management as a whole, Thank you for seeing sense and changing the approach on this, I'm not sure you can pass it off as prior confusion though as the previous responses were quiet clearly stated. I'm looking forward to a great opening weekend. Thinksnow & the message board, Thank you for being available to air this, I'm sure it was instrumental (along with Dave S's eloquent e-mails) in the change of policy.

Must be refraction through the ice.

Yeah, but to be fair I'm not sure if the first pass at newly blown snow comes out very well. Some of the "first mornings" on newly opened trails at CB are not much better and I think their groomers are among the best in the area. I wonder if it has to do with the type of guns used. The early season conditions at JF were excellent last year despite horrible, marginal conditions.

There are quite a few of us and I would be very disappointed if the CB representation went elsewhere. It wouldn't matter if they set up a CB only board, the old one was full of social / mental retards (even more so than you might think are here). Despite the general "hating" by some people towards CB, some with gripes, other that just enjoy stirring it up, it's still a useful point of information for those of us that are interested.

Blue had more than their advertised 10 trails open today anf it looked like they might have 2 or 3 more by tomorrow. Just hope it grooms out a little better tonight after a days traffic. Go where you like to ski, I don't think you would be disappointed with either.

I've just arrived at work having spent the morning at Blue. Had a great time, it was very quiet first thing but got steadily busier through the morning. Positives: I was really surprised as I walked out with my ticket at 8.30 to find no-one at the gate and only a few people on the hill, my first couple of runs down mainstreet there was no-one else in sight. The top 1/3 of mainstreet was nicely groomed, decent surface and the bumps were quite nice (soft) They seem to have done a great job on that park set-up in come around, lots of features, looked well set-up and plenty of people there to maintain it. They have blown (and are still blowing) a ton of snow, they even opened Raceway mid-morning. $35 morning tickets. Did 6 runs each on mainstreet and lazy mile plus a couple of "filler runs" on midway / vista etc, then 2 raceway to midway runs. Overall a good morning, seemed to be a lot of kids there for a school day..... Negatives: Not sure if it's just new snow, or the grooming quality but the middle of mainstreet and all of raceway were pretty ropey right from the off and got worse. On mainstreet there were loads of "pebbles" and some seriously deep ruts across the hill especially where the other trails feed in, not quite what I would have expected after a week of perfect snowmaking weather and no traffic. I hope they do a mid-day groom for the rest of you heading up later. When they opened raceway it was like they had groomed it with the bulldozer, all scraped off and bumpy. It was nice to have another trail to play on but a really sub-standard grooming job. Great to be back on the snow though, it's been two weeks since my last confes.... I mean ski-day. Beats a morning at work anyday. Camelback on Sunday, hoping for a good start there too.

Or they could just open for night skiing straight away like everyone else. correct in everything you wrote

I think this comes from the same article I googled to find out as I was curious about this too. I just couldn't get past the repeated references to importance of the "cuff", as if we didn't already know how important that was......

Just recieved a response from SkiCamelback regarding the use of "Sun-Friday + nights" passes for the time before night skiing starts. I thought I'd post it just to save anyone any embarassment this weekend (or next). The offer to use the "nights only" pass during the day DOES NOT apply to the "Sun-Friday + nights" pass. Not sure I understand the logic here, as it should allow the holder to ski/ride after 4pm on a saturday, but the bottom line is they will not be honored this saturday.

Aren't they going to mess that up with park stuff?

So is that lazy mile, mainstreet and vista/midway then? My knowledge and recollection of blues trails is somewhat hazy but aren't Easy Out & Vista one short trail, Mainstreet and barneys are two sides of the same trail and midway and Xing are just connectors. And just the mainstreet lift? Is that still that creaky old black double double? Doesn't sound like a lot for $50, but if it's open Friday then it may be enough.

Looks like I might be there for "first lifts" (I assume they'll be open only from the top so that's a bit inaccurate), will be going on my way to the office so may only get a couple of hours in.

I have less issues with "True" than I do with "Mountain" The only definitions of mountains rather than hills I could find are that a mountain must have a definable peak (not the case here it's just part of a ridge), or in England there is a convention that dictates a minimum elevation at the peak of >2k feet (also not the case). In both cases that make CB much more of a mountain than Blue. Poo also rhymes....

Almost certainly will be full price this weekend as they have way more terrain opening than they had last year at christmas and they had no discounts for that.

do you have some kind of auto-post thing going with this inane message?

So CB has a good base of snow down (check the webcam or drive by like I did), is apparently blowing on a ton of trails according to the website conditions page, and yet still no sign of any kinf of opening announcement. WHAT"S GOING ON!!!! Even Blue mountain is going to be open this Friday, I don't want to do it but I might have to go there. Website still says "early to mid december", well that whistling noise isn't the snow guns it's the sound of early december rushing past. Somebody must know something...........