enjoralas

Wind wasn't bad but it was icy death.

Long range forecast for precip looks terrible for next week. My gut says Blue will be open through Sunday, then closed for the week, reopening for next weekend and then calling it a season.

Also another vote for Parking Spot. Love them when I am paying for parking. The online coupon makes the valet really reasonable, you drop off and pick up inside a covered garage and the shuttle is in there too. I might have to check out that winner tho, getting picked up at airport in my own car would be nice. Do you then drive their guy back or does a runner come with him?

Allegiant charges for bags too, but it seems more reasonable. I think it's $44 for a checked bag and that covers both ways, at least if I was reading the website correctly. It's probably who we'll be booking for our May Disney trip. Usually use Southwest out of PHL, but they are way expensive this time.

They always seem to close at least a week earlier than they say they are going to. I do predict that if they have the snow and the hotel occupancy levels that they will push for the 16th tho.

Need a fridge with LED lighting. It'll change your life.

I don't know about all that, but the nachos were cheaper, bigger, and had fresh cooked chips and not bagged tortilla rounds. Had them at Slopeside back in January.

Brisket is looking good. Hoping to be nice and early tomorrow to set up ez up and all. Still debating if I should bring the bigger tent.

Nachos at the Thirsty Camel destroy the nachos at Slopeside.

Brisket is on

No, but I rented there once. No complaints about the staff that time. Wait, I did buy a pair of gloves once. But nothing major

They closed those peaks in freaking February. It's like they didn't even try this season

Damn, just checked the weather, that sucks. Last time I looked it had chance of showers Friday and Sunday, 41 and sunny Saturday. Well, if 70% chance of rain holds, I might have to bring the 10x20 tent instead of the 10x10 easy up

It's cold out. Things shrink.

I'll have at least the one grill, probably a second smaller one. Some sausages. I'll try not to forget the pepper relish. Probably bring the portable propane smoker to keep the brisket nice and warm. At least one folding table, might be able to scare up another. 10x10 easy up. Oh, also I'll bring a jar of my homemade jalapeño jelly for bagels if I get there early enough for breakfast.

Must have been hell.

Really had planned on getting up the mountain in the morning, was aiming for 9ish, but, you know, life and all that. By the time i got up and cleared the driveway and sidewalks of the snow that had accumulated so far, it was after noon. Got hold of Pops to see if he was up for going, and he was still taking care of snow removal at his place. Long story short, we suck at Powder Day rules and ended up not getting to Blue until almost 3 pm. Booted up and hit the six pack and headed over to Lazy Mile. The wind drifts on Tuts were nuts! It was like the Roller Groomer had a triple sized Red Bull while grooming. Dropped in to Lazy and got quick confirmation of what I was expecting, with so much fresh on the trails it was pushed all around in bumps and piles -- and it was fricken' awesome! Far from the frozen ruts that get dug out with traffic after a freeze/thaw, or the giant sugar/slush piles that come during the springlike days, these bumps and piles were like giant soft pillowy milk-filled titties of goodness. We may have missed the untracked snow, but hell, at least I don't know what I was missing. The snow was very forgiving to less than perfect form and skill level. Line mistakes that on another day (and on other skis) would have thrown me out of rhythm or grabbed a ski and thrown me were just absorbed into the soft bumps and I continued on my way. The E88s couldn't have performed better, I couldn't be happier with the way they skied. Went down Lazy doing a lot more work that usual and made the hairpin down to the Main Street Lift. Took that up and thought about a run down Switchback but Dad vetoed it, thought it looked too tore up so we headed over to check out the woods in the Sleepy Hollow glade. Thought the cover looked a tad thin so we didn't get in there, instead cruised down Come Around to Burma and took a nice run down that all the way to the valley. On the way I cruised through the Yeti cutoff on Burma and there was actually a bunch of untracked in there! I saw why as the lack of pitch on the trail made it some hard damn work getting through there! We took the six pack back up to the summit and the wind was something special. Watched some little shaver going in reverse as the wind blew him backwards. Fought our way to the top of Paradise and swapped skis out with my dad to let him take a run on the Rossi's. That was enough to convince him that it's time to upgrade. It was a lot spicier getting down on his sticks than mine, but I still enjoyed the heck out of the run. I did have to fight to hold on a couple of times, but completed the run without wiping out. We jumped back on the lift and went back up into the wind to run ParaWeaver, after swapping skis back. Just more of the same -- fun, soft bumps as far as the eye could see, no wrong line down the trail. Pops had said that was going to be his last run, but enjoyed the Para part of the run so much that we decided to head back up for another Paradise run. I focused on trying to run the edges, and slightly off the edges, during that last run. While not untracked pow, it was certainly less tracked and bumped out and had a nice layer of loose on them. I would have liked to get off the trails and into some of the more creative stuff, but just didn't trust most of it and didn't want to mess up new skis. I did take one detour through the trees on the right on this last run, leading to a quick little switchback on what I guess will be part of Trail Coming Soon before it rejoined Paradise around the corner. So that was fun. We only took the 5 runs and didn't stretch ourselves with any blacks (almost ran back up for a solo Main Street run) but damn, just a fun hour and half or so on the slopes. Definitely sorry I didn't get out earlier, but also definitely glad we came out. Don't think I'll be back on the snow until Friday when we are playing hooky to head to Camelback. Tomorrow after work I own my 3 year old some time playing in the snow.

So, Pops is ready to upgrade and asked me to post up to see if someone had something in the closet that might be compatible with what he's looking for. He's at that stage where he's improving but not ready to drop a grand on new skis yet. He demo'd the Rossi 84 and 88 Experience HDs, as well as the Volkl RTM 84 and liked them all. He's on some 168cm Solomons that are 75 underfoot right now, so there's not much that isn't an upgrade. If anyone has anything they've moved on from that might fit the bill, please let me know.

Grabbed a pair of Rossignol Experience 88HDs, 172, on Saturday at the Camelback Demo sale. Demo'd them and several other skis at Buckman's demo day at Blue. Was hoping to get a chance to get either those or Volkl RTM 86 in 170 at a decent price. Put a few runs on them on Saturday and Sunday, couldn't be happier with them at this point. Hoping to get to try them tomorrow as well.

If I make it, the grill is still in the car, so . . .

From the base I thought the dude who likes rollers must have groomed it sideways

What was up with the grooming on Challenge Doug mentioned earlier? I didn't ski it, but from the base it looked like snowtubing lanes or some shit

Assuming we get enough snow that I'm not working, I'll get up there come hell or high (frozen) water. If I have to use the Bronco I will. It has expired MD tags on it, but whatevs.

Guns coming on all over the mountain. All in baby!

It was quite nice. They set a really high bar last year with the giveaways, only reason I said not as good as last year. Was hoping for another freebie for the Beer fest or laser tag, and the chance to win a prize, lol.