Ski

Absolutely, Schif...I don't know what the heck I was thinking giving ski4food a hard time when he said his newbie GF didn't even find any challenge in WL. It's okay to harsh on Montage...and those freeeaaaking slow-ass lifts! (Well, anyone from this MB is always welcome.)

No, Upper Runaway is is just an incredibly wide, sunny slope. It's the antithesis of what you usually find in this area (no protection for snow from sun or wind). There is a steep headwall above this, so you can rip down it, but this stretch is flat. The next slope over to skier's right is Upper and then Lower Fast Track, which is a blast to scream down. There's one point, as you go under the lift, that the bottom drops out and you can easily catch as much air as you want, like some spots at Okemo.

Personal taste...the Tranny...but what the Hell was Spyder thinking when they decided on that name? Slip into a nice warm Tranny?

Thanks for the added info...we'll be up next Monday...but, uh, for $15k you'd get a year of lap dances along with a great design.

First (tiny) snowballs of the season

Upper Runaway on a Thursday---three or four days after it was last groomed:

Yeah, the major problem is the grading at the summit. There's no central high point that allows you to get off the lift and choose any of the summit slopes. It's especially bad for boarders. My little one loves doing laps on Highball, but we park next to Phoebe Snow and put our skis on there at the top of the lift. So you have to then have to choose your poison: ski down to Iron Horse, then skate uphill when you get to the summit, or ski down and skate around the lodge to Shuttle lift.

Thanks, Johnny! Just FYI, Doug, MSRT was charging $875 and I'm paying $650 for Sugarbush (although that includes lodging with a private room)...but you aren't wrong: racing and race training is about as expensive as a sport can get, unless you are raising a figure skater with a private coach.

I believe there's a lot more acreage they could cut trails on. They could even add a dozen trails within the current bounaries. They could do something very Mad River Glen-like between WL and Boomer. Replacing the Long Haul chair? Yeah, I guess. I mean, that's what would happen. But I like the novelty of how hard it is to even get to the far left of the mountain. The Long Haul hardly ever runs, which means you have to ski 50 yards uphill and around that lift to come down skiers right, which is an amazing, high speed cruising run. But because there's work involved, it's always empty.

We've been eight or nine days, mostly early season, since they usually open before the Poconos (except maybe Pennsylvania trail at Shawnee)... It's a much, much nicer and safer place to take kids than some places further east in NY when terrain is limited. Act like a drunken idiot and you'll get sent packing at GP. The terrain won't kick yer butt, but it really is a cool place. And the race team kids are pretty nice kids, too. My oldest used to ski with a few of them.

Ha...well, directions might be nice to have, as well.

Hey, I don't disagree with you. If you ever see any of my Montage posts, I applaud their inability to market, or even figure out how to update their website. But our home hill is meant for absolute newbies and we have an obligation to make it simple.

Ha! Snow Time has shown interest, but not until the price and conditions drop. Snow Time owns Windham, Rountop, Liberty, and Whitetail. The first thing they'd do is upgrade to a high speed quad. I would change nothing.

It's about 100 miles up Rt. 81 from Scranton. Most of it's highway, so it's a pretty quick trip. We tried to look at it from the perspective of a typical family of four that had never skied. Do you buy a lift ticket first? Do you go to the rental department first? Do you have to rent from the ski area, or is it okay to rent from a place on the access road? And what's the deal with the chair lift? If you really think about it, there are a lot of things we take for granted. EDIT: for ski4food: Is there an opening day price yet?

What trails? And, btw, I had a really hard time finding the trail map link anywhere on the main page: http://www.greekpeak.net/content/trailmap.asp But the page for beginners that basically has a photo essay on what to do when you've never skied/ridden is an example of what every ski area should have on their website. We did a survey (at our own ski hill) to find out why people DIDN'T ski/ride, and the #1 answer was that they just couldn't figure out how to even buy a ticket.

Ha, it's a clean run for Bode when he doesn't end up on his hip.

It changed to snow around here (about 12 miles north of Rt. 84) around 1pm. Tough to even see it because the wind's blowing so hard:

They had pipe issues on the far left of the mountain that are part of $1 million of needed upgrades. I can't imagine they fixed it, but I don't know. Also, White Lightning is one of the last slopes to get snowmaking. Despite it being their 'signature' slope---like Cliffhanger at CB---it's also the least trafficed slope. And unless you're skiing with newbies, having Lower Fast Track, Lower Runaway, Cannonball, Smoke, Boomer, White Lightning, and Switch open is pretty much considered 100% open... Part of the charm, Doug; it's like going to grandma's house where the toilet handle needs to be jiggled, it's too hot in one room and too cold in another, and the cat keeps yacking up hairballs and mice parts.

Ha, that took me a minute....

Yep, exactly right.

Amazing.

Not to speak for 'Mom, but it's tipping the ski more; angling the edge of the ski so the base is raised off the snow. It's pounded into racers in training to get your feet away from your body and tip the ski on edge. This creates more edge angle and the ski carves the turn, rather than skids. The hard part is to trust yourself. A coach has told me to let the trees on the side of the slope read the words on the my ski bases. Here's Bode creating some edge angle:

I was tryin' to cheer 'Dude up 'cause he's always bitchin' about stopping for pictures. And I did the best I could with Atomic's $4 digital camera, which had a battery you had to hold in and the viewfinder had the message Eat Me on it. You'd think he'd have a better camera...

GREAT pics! Thanks for sharing!!

Hey, that's a fair question. And the answer is absolutely. I love Montage. You do know that Montage is 1000ft vert, right? (My home hill is 125...) I love pulling into the lot and parking 20 feet from were I click into my skis. My favorite race event is GS and Boomer is a perfect pitch to run GS turns. And Montage's expert area, the North Face, is completely separate from the rest of the hill. The lifts are slow, but don't take long, since there's no runouts; you basically just travel right up the headwalls for laps. And despite what the Greek Peak guy said, White Lightning is a true black diamond---if you crash on the headwall, you generally don't stop until you are at the bottom. I'd choose Montage over any Catskills area. I don't know if you saw DMC's pics from Saturday (I believe they were his, but they might have been on the actual Hunter site), but that's busier than a midwinter weekday at Montage's North Face. Lastly, I can take my 5-year-old skiing ANY day at Montage; I'd never take her to Hunter on a weekend. That in itself is enough for me to choose a home hill.