Ski2Live Live2Ski

Weather Channel app on my phone has lows in 20s in Tannersville PA at night Friday to Monday. That will get CB open for Xmas barring another thaw.

From what I am seeing overnight snowmaking temps are coming back in NEPA and Catskills by Friday night. Which should make next weekend another bust but should set up Xmas holiday period for some skiing.

Making lemonade I am taking the kids biking today

Above I obviously should have said recently apprpved expansion of Belleayre

Starting to feel less like a late Winter and more like an early Spring

Not in PA, but I could see Plattekill giving up the ghost due to a combination of a heavy reliance on natural snow, and the recently approved expansion of Montage. With the complete lack of crowds there, opening on non holiday weekdays only when there is a foot of snow, and always reasonable and regularly discounted prices, I often wonder if it is more a labor of love than a business model. They can't operate more than 40 days in an average year or average more than 200 skiers a day. And I expect the average skier pays no more than 40. Can you run a profitable ski mountain on $320k annual revenue? Maybe they rake it in during mountain bike season?

By total bust I don't necessarily mean no skiing at all, but clearly a lot of places could be at risk of missing at least December and if their snowmaking is marginal may not really be able to compete with others the rest of the season. I would think Alpine and Montage would be most likely to be at risk as they seem to be fairly threadbare operations and don't have deep pocketed corporate owners.

So what are the verticals for the various parts of frost?

475 feet is TTB at BB and my impression was that Freedom was quite a bit less.

So what is the vertical on Freedom?

Don't tend to take pix while skiing, unless with kids and taking pix of them, sorry. Skied Blue on a real powder day? Hard to say for sure as I have been skiing there 35 years. But I don't have any distinct memories of that. Fresh snow days sure, but it is most often that heavy eastern snow not the light powder that Utah gets. And sure K got scraped off by the end of the day, but the trail off Skye was to me better than anything Blue has to offer, had ample snow and soft bumps through late AM and no lift line whatsoever. Not actually going to Belleayre this weekend as I would be skiing with kids this weekend and think the combination of the terrain they are opening and crowds they will be getting will not suit my kids. Just trying to build some stoke and encourage the rest of you to get out on the snow rather than hang out here all December pondering whether the local hill will refund your passes or open a bunny hill to avoid doing so.

Oh right this is the boycott skiing until Blue opens the valley triple and maybe a tubing run so they don't have to refund your pass and can get some xmas week $ page. I'll take 1600 feet of WROD over that.

Hunter at least will offer a 1600' vertical WROD

Belleayre reopening tomorrow same terrain as last weekend. Bottom line, if you aren't starting your skison by this weekend, you don't want it that bad :-)

Belleayre confirmed reopening tomorrow. Same terrain as last weekend.

Hunter TTB as of Dec 11

Hunter opening TTB (run starts with Hellgate) Friday. That is 1600 feet of vertical off a high speed lift within day trip range. Ski season is here folks. I won't be there this weekend as I would need skiing my kids could do and this is a bit beyond them, particularly with the crowds it will draw. Maybe Belleayre will offer somethung they can handle. Either way I will hit the CSkills the following weekend (when I will be kid free) if there is nothing closer worth skiing.

As someone without VIP line priviliges, I will almost always choose CB over Blue on a weekend day.

I could buy Spring based on its climate and BC based on its basically being a hotel and wedding reception facility. Could buy Montage based on its being an iffy shoestring operation. Could buy JF if they wanted to put all their eggs into BB. But I am quite confident the big $ players Blue and CB will be open with something and pretty sure they will pull it off for Xmas week.

Western places have a lot less snow making capability. There has not been a season in the history of Blue where they have not opened.

No way there is going to be no season at all. I say they open Vista Xmas week if it takes 1000 sno cone machines to do it.

That was a typo on my part, meant to say Blue is "not"

So assuming we have enough snow for anyone to be open, what NEPA/NJ/NY slopes are typically open on Xmas day. I know Windham and Shawnee are and Blue is now.

Nice that after 2 days out my skiing stats are past where they were on 12-12-14. Now I just need PA and NY to step up for me to keep pace.

Even better today than yesterday. Some real skiing in VT. Well worth the miles & $. Better than the best at Blue imo.