skidude

Doug..Have you ever stayed at the Grand? Its pretty nice. (Not sure I would pay to stay there for Presidents weekend...) I would recommend the Greenbrier Inn to anyone who wants a nice room (not super high class, but nice, and large) for about 130-140 midweek-weekend in the winter. About 5 miles from K. Better than dropping whatever it is for the Grand a night...

But not many give them to families... Plus they are probably going to be working Saturday 8-4... Ash, who left?

Do you have a table or counter top you could use that you could put vices around? The biggest problem I have had is using tables/benches that aren't too solid, and they wobble while your trying to work. A pain in the ass. Vices- plan on dropping $100 for a decent pair.

Out of your way, and not open till the season, but I still say that Marc up at Camelback is the best guy anywhere around PA. He can do just about anything for skis/boards. Then again, for a tune, its probably not as important...

Your new home?

Stay away from Mammoth lift #23. Esp on a windy day.

I guess in the past they have had issues with kids not trying in classes after they got there pass, but either way its still a good way to encourage students to try

Interesting Killington is letting local school kids who make honor roll first quarter or semester or something get a pass for $129. If they can't afford the $129 then they can get one for $50+ 20 hours of community service (not related to Killington).

I don't doubt there are a few, but not that many of them. To give you an idea of how much $400 million is...you could buy: Killington about 4.7 times (85.2 million) Camelback about 8.3 times (48ish million) The canyons about 4 times (probably going to be sold for 100-110 million)... All for a little state run ski area. Should be great for bell if they actually go threw with it.

400 million for a state run ski area seems like a pretty big deal to me. Its not a huge ski area, or one that has massive skier visits. We'll see what happens Remember, Belleayre isn't Vale, or Stratton, or Aspen, the land around it really isn't worth that much, so they are going to have a very hard time building houses that people are going to drop ehh I'm gonna say 500,000+ on.

Got Killington beat by 6 days...If they open.

No more instructing? Even with out the great KB?

Not sure, but I'm doing an internship (35ish hrs/week) up at Killington from Dec. till March... So I'll be up there working or skiing probably everyday all winter. May swing back by PA in March and try to bum a pass off someone or other for a day or two...But I might just stay up here

No CB pass for me this year I guess I'll have to deal with Killington

It might not be stated on the website that it cannot be too turny, (15%, 25%, 304234%) but at the pacesetter trials they stressed that it was Nastar...and not Olympic GS, so setting courses that you had to make hard turns for was not what they wanted.

Rob, your not getting a pass to CB next year, are you?

I wonder if bode will go to the funeral, or just drink away the day. Nahhh I don't need to wonder about that.

First off, the tubing park is much smaller. Secondly, I think that a lot of the people staying there will be families with pretty small children. Maybe mommy wants to go tubing with the 4 year old, while dad skis with the 10 year old...But lets say at capacity (ehh ~1,200 people I'm guessing) half goes skiing, and half goes tubing (forgetting all other activities like shopping, etc). 600 more people in the tubing park is much more noticeable than 600 people skiing. Who knows what will happen tho. We'll see in 2009 I guess.

I bet the tubers will noticed a much bigger impact than the ski area

They'll duck. And all you need to do is pull for feet up

Just bomb the headwalls. Its going to hurt them more than you if you hit

Where do you live?

I wish I could get up there, but I don't have a ride. Looks like I won't be calling in sick from work this weekend

I'm not sure of any numbers. Lets say the hotel has 400 rooms, with 400 families. I bet most of them either already skied at Camelback. I don't think it would make any noticable difference to other areas. Nor am I very worried about CB being more crowded because of the hotel. I just don't see that being a huge issue. Average weekend might have 800-1000 people at the hotel, and with increased numbers of non skiers likely to go (spa/waterpark), maybe half will end up skiing. An extra 500 people a day isn't really a noticeable difference. I guess everyone will see what happens, but I'm guessing the place that notices it the most in the beginning is Great Wolf. As far as I can tell, its going to be roughly the same amount of money, for the same amount of attractions, but this one will be right on the mountain. Like I said, it will be interesting to see what happens in the next few seasons.