Ski

Again, it's one slope in the photos...one blue square at the top of the mountain in the sun. Amazing that you can extrapolate that into deciding Blue has better snow coverage. I thought I read that Blue's marquee diamond was chunked out and dangerous to ski? Yeah, your're not just trying to be a dick.

Thanks. It's crazy, Poc, but it's the same schedule as when I was skiing ASRA and getting Ty's sister down to CB. Sleep from 2am to 6am, then a nap around 7pm. I'm sure glad I'm not a school teacher having to do it 180 times a year. The diamonds have lots of snow. Both pics are of the same upper mountain blue square trail that gets hit by the sun hard. It was deep enough to hold gates all afternoon. How was the NASTAR racing at Blue today?

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Jdew, do you wear a Giro helmet and tell everyone on the lift about your son attending college in Colorado? Remember riding up the CB lift with a guy wearing an orange helmet? You were also on a snowboard and fell off the Sullivan on your fat ass. Sound familiar? Dude, you came here to pick fights with TP4, Toast, and about a dozen other really cool people. Why? Bored? To display your incredible depth and class? You're just a poser with no talent, which just leaves you to sit around and type out hate messages. You're one lonely ass clown. Have fun, hater. That's my final word.

You're welcome, dumbass!

A pretty amazing day as far as the weather goes. We pulled into the lot at 8am and it was surprisingly empty. A ranger on the shuttle mentioned that not one bus was expected today. Seems people in this area really get freaked out by rain the night before. You couldn't see the upper half of the mountain because of a dense fog. For the first hour, it was cloudy though bright at the base, but really soupy and dark as you rode the lift up over Switch. Then, the sun started to burn through the swirling fog and blue skis started to break through by 10am. Not long after, it was warm and spring-like and the snow was corn and pretty carveable. Ty took off with her team and is in her own routine. They did drills all morning, then took a NASTAR run after lunch. Her coaches also let them run through a stubbie course set on the left side of Whistler, which is incredibly cool. The lot remained mostly empty all day and there was rarely more than a half dozen people in the lift line. It was great skiing today and we pretty much had the slopes to ourselves. Some pics: from Iron Horse: Amy: Ty on course:

Hey, Melissa, you'd asked when NASTAR starts...they run it every Sat/Sun from 10-12 and 1-3. It's $5 for two runs and $10 for unlimited runs each session. I'm pretty sure you'd be in the bronze medal range right away. Just sign up at the start shack at the top of Switch. Otherwise, I don't think there are that many special events. A ski shop demo day, a couple of USSA races, whatever snowboard or terrain park events, and then the pond skimming/passholder party stuff at the end.

Headed over for today's Mountain Dew Vertical Challenge, which is an ultra-amateur one run fun race where they give away pretty much all you can drink Mountain Dew, skis and boards, t-shirts, etc...plus, medals for the first three racers in each age/gender. We pulled into a surprisingly empty lot at 9am. Sunny skies for a change and the temps were in the 30's, with light wind. We took a few warm up runs on Whistler, then pretty much hung out at the start house in the warm sun. It was awesome to finally ski in the sun---it seems like it's been foggy and damp for weeks. The people that run the Mountain Dew circuit do a great job. They also raise money for Make A Wish, so it's a good cause, too. The race is free, but you can buy raffle tickets, plus they have a ton of sponsors. To the race: Ty was in the 7-9 yr female skier category and ended up the youngest and smallest. But she made some nice turns and finished 2 seconds behind the winner for third place out of five or six kids. My wife hates to race, but handed me her skis last night to tune and beat eight other women to also finish third. Kind of funny that Ty is now within 10 seconds of my wife's time on the NASTAR course. Ty should be taking her down by February...and maybe me soon after. After the race, we headed to the lodge and checked our skis at the FREE SKI CHECK. Good job to Sno for not charging $3 to check skis anymore. Amy entered a soda chugging contest and won a soft cooler and three long-sleeve t-shirts. She totally smoked a couple of 12 yr old's, which is fair because she's built like an 11 yr old. Then, Ty won a raffle for a cooler, basketball, Shrek puzzle, and two long-sleeve t-shirts. Every racer also received a t-shirt, so we scored eight shirts in all. They are four different designs and styles, so we don't need to shop for Mountain Dew t-shirts for at least another year. My good friend (and racewax.com teammate) won my division and his son won his. I was .07 seconds behind second, but that guy was wearing a speedsuit, which is good for shaving about a second or so off your time on that course. I'm not big on pulling out my speedsuit for NASTAR type races. When we were leaving, I noticed the entire right half of the lot was full. Good news for the new owners. The slopes weren't crowded, but it seemed like business was solid for the day. Def their best day of the season.

Since I have to be at the mountain from 8 to 3 every weekend, I'll probably be hanging out and helping my friend with the NASTAR course a lot more this year. So I'm always around. Just don't be like Nick and throw sh*t at me from the lift. Godd*mn punk kids... Well, I'm always humbled by Doug's TR's...not that I want to talk about sausage and my fav rap tunes. Ha, c'mon over to the NASTAR course and I'll spot ya 5 seconds

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Nick, you wanna ski with me...

Some days just make you feel that way.

Oh, jeez, right through the heart, DH.

Yeah, I couldn't handle it, dumbass. BTW, what are 'critisizing' and 'montain'?

Headed over at 5:15pm to get used to my GS skis, since I've been on my rock slalom skis all season and plan to race with Ty in tomorrow's Mountain Dew fun race. Took 8 runs down Boomer, which had a kicker built at the top left break-over. Snow was mashed potatoes, but not a deep slush, so it was pretty fun. Snow snakes tried grabbing you every once in a while. Coverage is fine and there were less small stones than last night. There were also a few more people---maybe 40 or 50 people skiing/riding the NF. I decided to bail after an hour and was starting to pull out of the lot when I saw Melissa at her car, so I rebooted and took some chairs with her. She'd been drinking heavily as usual, but still wanted to ski the diamonds. We took a couple runs down Cannonball, which also had decent coverage, then a few laps back on Cannonball. I didn't see BigDaddy, but he keeps getting pulled out of the lift line and sent to security for doing some sketchy things---for some reason they don't like his type, but I told the lifties to leave him alone. We'll see what happens... The upper mountain was shrouded in a light fog, but it was cold enough that conditions should hold up through the weekend.

Ha, and I get told to shut up Special dispensation for the gimp?

***a classic movie scene...

Okay, I just didn't want to start making a list of names for your intervention. Gonna read the Hermann Maier book?

You know, Jeff, those prescriptions will someday end.

I bet she has a nice personality or whatever.

Pffft...Glenn and I are old friends. He knows I'm just kidding. No cosmic tragedies going on. Clap that.

Welcome to PASR! Nothing like digging around under a bulldozer in the dark. Well, we have a fireplace and four of my wife's cats to shoot. Beat that. I'm obviously missing out.

Followed by Twister.

Worth the admission. And Shadows, did I mention the hot tub room was finished? Do people still have water beds?

Maybe. And that's fine. I'm just curious, though. I was stopped a couple of times at CB.

72 hours of cold. They just have the left side to go, which is a lot of acreage, but a pretty straightforward job. But $10 tickets to BB got you, Schif? Slut Zonked, Missy, Melissa, and 'Kitten are staying at my place.