EdBacon

Arbor Landmark I got on sale. Union bindings. I think their standard model. Nothing fancy. It all seems to work well.

It's like ten minutes outside Bennington, VT. Very easy to get to.

Visited Prospect Mountain today. Opened in 1938 and operated on and off until 1991. About ten years ago it was reopened as a backcountry and nordic ski area. This place is a blast. Lodge straight from the 1960s. Wood paneled everything. Metal wickets for your ticket. Wood fired stove with bricks on top to stick in your stinky wet boots. Homemade cookies at the counter. I got a bowl of chili. There's a designated uphill track straight up the old T-bar lift line. The split board did its job. First time using one. I think I got the hang of it by the end of the day. The mountain tops out at 2770 feet and you get around 600 feet of vertical. A good first test for uphilling since I've never done it before. The trails are still cleared so there's lots of options down from the top, plus a few places where they've thinned out the trees. They're sitting on around 24-36 inches of snowpack right now in the southern Greens. About 8-10 inches fell on Sunday and a couple more last night. Fresh tracks could be had on a lot of the trails. The lift line and two of the wider ways down the mountain seem to get the most traffic. Those were choppy pow but still pretty fun. No real steep sections except for maybe the top of the T-bar tow line. Big old cross country championship thing going on today. Lots of buses in the lot. Place was packed with high schoolers. Girls race was on during my second run. Accidentally came out of a trail onto the race track. I think they rang the cowbell for me. It was all good. Love the split board. Today was tons of fun.

didn't see it

I rode the big blue bazooka bubble lift but I didn't get any cameltop. No crowds on a Monday. Snowed hard most of the day. Everything is filled in. Mr Snow has good trees. Never tried them before.

When people say they're going to Cameltop it means they're getting head on the bubble lift.

I don't wanna say "Cameltop" to people.

Is it different from a muffin top?

Maybe they don't like the competition and the camel will bust his kneecaps mafia style. The camel gonna be shaking you down for protection money soon. "Hey, salty. Be a real shame if somebody parked your car in so you couldn't leave. Wouldn't want that to happen, right?"

I'm not telling.

Its an end of life high-speed lift. The Sullivan was the same age and CBK literally ran that thing until it fell apart and put somebody in the hospital.

They should build a big bubble over the mountain and just turn the ski area into a giant water park. You know its what they want to do.

Floyds has been open all week. It's OK.

No but I clogged one of teh toilets in the mens bathroom. Wait, I guess that is a big tip.

This was how they had cars parked last year. I got lucky the person behind me had already left. Otherwise I'd have been parked in. And you paid them to do this too.

Won't ride it if you paid me.

Ha. I remember when they widened Timberline. Maybe 2004 or 2005ish? They built a banked slalom course/bordercross course on the trail with big berms and everything. There was a NASTAR style starting gate at the top and everything.

Sort of. It's closer to Coudersport.

Have they actually done any work on this thing? High-speeds are complicated and if you want to keep them running this long they need a big overhaul to keep going. Or are they just doing rattle can overhauls and hoping it passes inspection?

BC has the second lowest average natural snowfall total in the state (21 inches) ahead of only Spring Mountain (11 inches). That's averaged over the last ten seasons. Fun fact.

Wow! My favorite kind of skiing is the kind where you go uphill! Thanks CBK.

Heard Blue sent a snowmaking crew over to CBK. Thinking about it... why would you want to ride a lift that keeps failing inspection anyway?

BC invested heavily into snowmaking in the decade after the Doe/BC transition. They basically have one monolithic purpose-built system for the mountain, not the patchwork system most mountains end up with. They've always done a good job with snowmaking especially relative to their location.

The Knob is fun. Road up is dangerous when it snows because it's an upside down resort on top of a 3200 ft mountain. The lodge is where the old missile defense shield radar base was. That's why its upside down, when the military closed the radar base they repurposed it to a ski area, but the road and facilities were all at the top. Snowmaking is marginal. It's an old system that's in need of a lot of maintenance and upgrades. Really shines when there's a lot of natural snowfall. Sometimes it can get that owing to elevation and catching the same weather pattern WV resorts benefit from.

CBK doesn't want to operate the ski area anymore. They're focused on their waterparks. That leaves Blue and Shawnee. Blue is ridiculously crowded now and Shawnee is, well Shawnee. It's nice for what it is but it's small and doesn't even have the small geographic advantage of being on top of the plateau. Plus it's in an awkward location. It's the same drive to Montage as it is to Shawnee for me coming from Montgomery County.