Justin

The DFD is in Sidewinder. There's also a DFD box next to it...no circle coping though. Hopefully the park will be there when you come...

Check Newschoolers.

You can build this yourself man. All you need is a semi-steep hill and a rail. Just look at the 1260 park. Look around for some cheap low fiber carpet (eBay, craigslist, even go to a carpet store and look for sales or leftovers). My backyard is basically perfect for a carpet setup and I'm probably going to put one in during the spring.

It'll be here faster than you think. Believe it or not ski season is half over. Just means that I need to ski more now

PE's will ski differently depending on how you mount them. If you're over 5'6" then you could most definitely handle them. They might feel a bit big at first (especially if they're mounted +2 or +3 which is recommended for that ski) but you can ski them without a problem. The only thing with PE's is that I think they're more of an all-mountain ski, they're a bit too stiff for park IMO, I'd rather go with the Fujative.

Which is why I probably wont even bother. Not worth 2 hours of driving and dealing with Dirty Jersey. I'll probably go in like August if they're open when I'm fiending some skiing regardless, I get crazy around that time to ski.

VT still blows PA well out of the water. The runs may not be that much bigger lengthwise (even still they're about double the vert, up to 5x the length, and some of the bigger resorts have avg. 100 trails open with good weather) but the snowfall, snow quality, and terrain kicks the shit out of PA. Get there on a dump and you can ski some sick, sick trees. If you know where to find them you can come across dropoffs, cliffs, and other sick stuff. Even after a dump you can still find powder stashes. Also there is some VT backcountry if you don't mind hiking. Just hook up with a local and they'll show you where - the backside of Stowe is super sick after a fresh dump. I noticed that the snow doesn't get mad shitty in VT like it does in PA. Even after the cord on groomers is skied down and tracked, it still stays nice and doesn't turn to sugar or ice, mostly because skier traffic is real spread out compared to PA. They're are bad things though. Some of the VT mountains have downgraded lifts compared to here. If they have a high speed or gondola its usually the only one and crowds up real quick. Lifts can be $75+ for a single day for some resorts like Killy and Stowe. A lot of places don't have snowmaking, so if you get up there after a warm spell or rain you can expect to lose a bunch of trails and glades, but even still their natural snowfall is enough to keep them afloat way better than PA will ever do with snowmaking. The parks usually aren't too great either. If you want park though I'd stick to NH or Maine (Sunday River, Loon all great) or check out Stratton (park passes!). But then again there are way better things to ski in VT than the park. All in all, VT is a great weekend trip destination when you want to get away from PA and have limited cash. You can wheel and deal for a room, and if you can get enough people to split up costs you can have a weekend for pretty cheap. I wouldn't spend anymore than a weekend though. I'd rather just stay out west for a week or so. When you look at the big picture you're still skiing the east which can be molehills compared to out west.

I think it would be real sick if one of the PA mountains puts dryslope in for the summer/fall. It can be done too, just with a little initiative... Also they are constructing an indoor slope in North NJ. They're saying it should be done by this upcoming spring, but with such close proximity to NY I expect it to be a madhouse.

160ish skis are fine if they're mounted back. But skis that are true twins and are mounted true center, are made to be skied long, especially the Invaders. As floppy as they are I wouldn't even feel safe with a 161, and I'm by no means a big guy. I've seen 4 or 5 people skiing at Blue that were either taller or as tall as me on 161 Invaders and they looked absolutely retarded, like they were on skiblades. I don't know how you can land on those things, especially landing fakie. I like having some ski to land on if I'm backseat or leaning forward landing fakie, even off of rails. My skis take all the impact and allow me to regain my balance. If they were any shorter I wouldn't even feel comfortable on them. 140s are freaking tiny man....kids skis are longer than that...

http://www.newschoolers.com/web/content/vi...d/766/eid/2219/ Absolutely insane. These people would kill to ski PA. Talk about dedication....

161s are straight up not the right size for you. One of these days you'll land way backseat and snap them. I'm 5'7" 130lbs and ski 171s true center, and they feel a bit short. With your size you're only hurting yourself by skiing 161s.

I'd get them mounted forward, mounting a 180 ski back from center would be too much ski in front.

Whats up with kids and buying tiny skis? I must of seen at least 5 kids at Blue this weekend with skis around 161.

I think that Blue should fence off their entire jump line. They could can the hip and just make that a starting ramp...of course widening it so you can use it for the left side as well. I really have speed issues on the left side, so I wish I had that hip wall to drop in from. Anyway you would start the fence from the hip onto the last jump. That way nobody can cross around in between jumps where it's blind, and it will create a path to the skier's right of the jumps for noobs to ski down. Maybe add a few rails or boxes. Also make the entrance to the starting ramp either a really steep quarterpipe type thing or maybe even stairs. I wouldn't mind taking off my skis if it means having a fully secluded jump line.

Blue's stairs do absolutely nothing. Now theres snow over it so you can just ski up. Even when they were stairs they weren't effective at all.

Well it would help to know your height and weight.... Typically the bigger ski you can handle the better, more length gives you more ski to land on. Look into a nice center mount ski because those ski a lot shorter than they seem. I have 171 Invaders but I wish I got the 178's. Unless you're under 5' 4" I wouldn't recommend anything under 170, definitely not the 161's. You'll feel like you're on skiblades.

I might do it as well. The pipe is so amazing so why not I guess. Trannys are so perfect it shoots you right up if you have enough speed.

Blue has a competition every Sunday and Tuesday night. Big Boulder has a competition every Friday night, and they just hosted TransAM. Not all of them are big time but you can still win some stuff.

I'd say about 90% of it is all mental and is simply based off of approaching shit with speed outside of your previous comfort zone. Some advanced things do require a technique but the basics really don't. If you don't hit things with speed, you wont get any momentum, and park is all about momentum and flow. Hitting features at a slow speed will usually wind up being more consequential. If you hit a jump super fast, it'll shoot you right over the knuckle and onto the landing. Basically the worst that can happen is you land low or off-axis and you use the steep landing as a slide. Knuckling from not enough speed can seriously do much more damage. The same goes for rails. If you hit a rail with a good amount of speed, if you lose balance or shift to one side you can just hop off the side and land clean. If you're going too slow you can get stuck on a rail or simply fall somehow and wreck yourself.

There's always a fairly large crew out on weekends, usually pretty early. I'm usually there at 7:30. It shouldn't be too hard finding anybody.

They reshape and groom the park every morning before the mountain opens....

Bear Creek = Fail.

You wouldn't be able to see much, but I guess that could be a good thing in some cases.

A properly built jump should shoot you right to the landing if you have enough speed. Popping off lips doesn't give you much more distance really, just more height and control off the lip.