Ski

That was just a 'cut and paste' of their website spelling of White LightEning. Anything you read on that website is likely to be about three weeks old. It even said "We're making snow" in August, which wasn't likely.

What a brutal, but awesome morning. Booting up in the nearly empty parking lot, with an icy wind and the first flakes just startin'. It was -14 degrees at 7am, but warmed to -8 when I was leaving...I blew off our ASRA race to open the Montage NASTAR season (showing some support for a bud that sets the gates) and by run three it was sometimes a white-out. And for all those people down in the ditches and gullies of 380/84 West, creating miles of parking lot: "Driving a little too fast, eh?"

I just talked to someone in the office to ask about the $10 discounts for other area passes and mentioned that the ad was actually scaring people away. That Montage skiers must all be totally dork headed *ssholes like those two, and if they wanted to keep the lift lines short, then that Jimmy/Johnny ad was the way to go. She seemed to agree. I asked if they had gotten advise from that d*ckhead Dave Kulish from Camelback about advertising, but she said she wouldn't know anything about that.

I just called Montage and it's good any day, any time all the way through February. Just "flash your pass" and get the $10 off.

Snowmaking: We are making snow on - Upper Runaway, Spur, Switch, Cannonball, Smoke, Boomer and White Lightening Upcoming Montage Ski Resort Events... 1/21/2005 - WHITE LIGHTENING OPENING AT NOON!!!!!!

Let us know how it is...I have work today, then Roundtop tomorrow and that flat little Blue Mountain on Sunday for a race...so not until Monday...

That's amazing that they caught him. Stupid to walk away with two boards. Probably the only way of being caught, you know? My suggestion: get a copy of the police report, which will have the kid's home address. Drop the charges and get your board back. Visit the kid's house when you're sure nobody is at home. Burn his house down. Then everyone is happy. You have your board and he doesn't have a police record.

All the J1/2 racers from PA will be at Tussey this weekend for two slalom races, as the PA Cup season begins. Our 'Dude and Missy will be there with the rest of the CATs. These races---as well as two GS's at Blue---will determine who gets to go to Cup Finals weekend at Elk, later in the season. Then, the top racers from the seven PA Cup races will get to head North to ski against the some of the best junior racers on the planet. Good luck and ski really freaking FAST!!!!!!

A lighter, unless you wanna wax at the same time--- but not really the right kinda wax.

hahahaha In 'Dude's state of mind, he never really leaves the snow. Ever see a mom trying to pry her kid out of a Chuck E Cheese? Even after she gets him out, he just doesn't wanna believe it. Davek himself has said year after year that CB blows to open, then just does touch up's when absolutely necessary. We had asked him a few times when it was 10 degrees on some late January night why the guns were silent. And that was his answer. But, IMO, there's a big difference skiing recycled, regroomed, oil-filled crap snow as opposed to fresh manmade. CB believes differently, though.

Sounded like a war zone over on White Lightning tonight as they PILE IT ON and get it ready. I was soooo tempted to duck the rope. Ungroomed man-made junk is skiable when it's really steep. But.... Condition report for the rest of the North Face: "F"ing perfect.

Poor lil 'Dude sitting in social studies class right now, wishing he had a coke and some pretzels and was in a car on the way to CB...with that damn teacher just droning on and on about some crap in a chapter he forgot to read...and the clock just doesn't seem to move. 'Dude thinking, "Ah, God, it's hot in here and what's that smell? This sucks!"

Started here about an hour ago... I thought so, Missy, but I always confuse E and W...I was asking 'cause your wrestling team had a match against the school I was just cancelled for.

Are you East, Missy?

Okay, so we'll try not to use 'Dude's Brillo pad anymore. 'Dude may have a feel for a structure brush and all, but using a Brillo pad is a little risky for the rest of us. And isn't soap included? I don't remember since I have Teflon coated pans and DON'T USE Brillo. So: brush with nylon or brass to open the pores and clean out some of the crap. wax. scrape. brush with nylon or brass. if you have one, buff with a horsehair brush. You asked about flouro? Here's the deal: the best everyday waxes are hydrocarbon. Added to waxes are PTFE or 100% flourocarbon (in the Teflon family, btw)...they repell water and allow the base to propell with least resistance. Hence (first time on a MB I used the word "hence"), they work best in high humidity/higher temp/manmade snow. High flouro will create suction on cold, dry snow. If you race or compete at speeds, then you need to know about either Low Flouro or High Flouro waxes such as Swix LF or HF waxes. BTW, the more flouro, the higher the price. What's really the bottom line on flouro? Well, I was the only racer at a rainy GS at Tanglwood a couple of weeks back that corked in a flouro overlay before each run. Normally, I'm an 18 handicap in ASRA. I skied about a 7 handicap. Roughly that's a percentage. Yeah, I wish it was me instead of the stupid wax... So buy a hydrocarbon wax. Swix and Toko are my favorite. Buy yellow and red and you're pretty much covered for most temps.

The headwalls are steeper than CB, but the runouts are much shorter. At Montage, you ski the headwalls pretty much to the lift, as opposed to the long flats after something like Marjie's. So even though the lift is slow, it's also not very long. You don't travel over 1000 ft. of flat terrain; just right up the mountain. And the lift is kind of cool how it travels up through dark pines without any plastic waterslide crap.

Yep, nylon/brass. Or just nylon is fine. Nylon is pretty much the best all-around brush, but it's good to have the brass half for harder (cold temp) waxes and to clean the bases.

Yeah, what separates Montage's blacks from CB is White Lightning. If you ski/board much outside the Poconos, it's not crazy steep, but I've done my share of top to bottom yard sales from not paying attention. Line's right that you should just check to make sure it's open. 1-800-GOT-SNOW is usually more accurate than the website.

Definitely for the weekend, although they could have it open tomorrow. If there was ever a week to make snow...I just saw the weather and the high tomorrow is 7 degrees. 2 hr. school delays have started. Mmmmmmm.....winter......

Man, it was cold tonight. I had to get new skis mounted at Bear Creek then headed up for a run to try them out.

We're back for a dual GS on March 5th...maybe Atomic will make his way up for that one, especially since one of his many houses is less than 1/2 hr. away. On race days, everyone is pretty much intent on studying the course and doing warm up runs next to it. Was your friend that worked one of the races named Shane? The only person I really know there is Kristi, one of the instructors.

If they screw up the dates on passes they gave out, then they had better allow people on the lifts. Jeez, what a freaking no-brainer. "We screwed up and gave you a pass that says you can ski or ride today and now you've driven up here, but SORRY! Our DaveK is a moron that can't read a 2005 calendar, but SORRY!"

Like every other ski area that hosts NASTAR in the region (except Roundtop), there haven't been any NASTAR races because of lack of snow on courses. I bet this is just killing Skimom... But Montage's NASTAR course SHOULD open this coming weekend and SHOULD have races on the PASR day, 2/6. There are AM and PM race courses set---that's 10am and 1:30pm. You sign up at the start house at the top of the course, just before the race.

You have to buy your ticket down at the lodge. It's just one building, with the ticket windows outside at the bottom of long stairs (orange shuttle buses also bring you down from the parking lot). If you guys both board/ski diamonds and are showing up at different times, then hook up at the top of the North Face lift (AKA the Phoebe Snow). There's just one lift that runs specifically for the black diamonds. All the diamonds are below the parking lot and the Phoebe Snow is the lift at the far end as you pull in; you see the top of that lift with riders being unloaded. There's lots of space at the top of that lift to hang out and wait.

Cool. White Lightening needs to be open for the PASR day, so the Blue boys can check it out...