Johnny Law

I've spent maybe 30 days at Pow Mow over the last 10 or so years. It is flat relative to the other areas nearby. Also ignore their acreage claim 50% of it is lame and includes James which most people will not ski. Pow Country, James/Lighting ride and that area in the middle are really the only areas with decent vert. That's the bad, the good is you can meadow skip pow all day there and everyday after for a week after a storm. Powder Country is beyond sick, if you haven't ridden Pow Country you haven't really done Pow Mow. They almost always have considerably more snow than Basin, their neighbor, and when the conditions are right you can take 12$ cat rides to the col near James. 15 mins of skining later and your posted up on a pretty big mtn. Beyond the numbers and all that shit, Pow Mow is about the experience as a whole. The food is shit, the lodges are old and cramped, it was not uncommon years ago to run into the lift house to find the lifty asleep. It's an old school place that oozes soul and legit non-corporate character, its a ski mtn that is actually really only about skiing and snow. It's a heaven for those that like soft snow and no bullshit. Maybe 8 years back we rolled up after 30-40 inches had fallen over a number of days, I can't remember the day but it was during the week and they were opening pow country for the first time that year. We ran lap after lap of armpit deep blower, endless lines as far as the eye can see and saw maybe 20 other people all day. The bus that picks you up and brings you back up top adds that cat skiing thing were everything is perfect in the world, you can bullshit with friends about how fucking awesome this is because your in zero rush, unlike the rest of UT outside of Sundance, there is very little Bro-Brah let's fucking murder this pow in 20 mins shit going on. Woody ran the pow country bus back when it was a flat bed that would occaisionally bounce peeps out, woody is now the director of operations or some similar shit. Woody's sun now runs the buses and it's not uncommon to hear his dad rip him a new asshole for crashing the bus, being behind or anything really. One time when the bus broke they let us build a booter into their parking lot, employees, randoms all got in on the act. That's the kind of place Pow Mow is, that's why it's so important it retains that character in a world of sell outs. The pow skiing is fantastic but it's really the entire experience that brings people back. If you go and are the right type of person you will understand, Pow Mow will forever have a special place in my heart, some of my best days where spent their killing the meadows in waist deep. Being able to do that with nearly nobody around is not something you come across everyday, it's something that if you are a real snow person forever changes you. All of UT is great, the bird is everything you've heard it is. Solly has sold out but it's still fucking legit and relatively quiet. Alta is alta, there is not a place that tracks faster on earth but for those 2 hours life is pretty perfect. Basin is seriously underrated, the No-Name shit is a shangri la if your willing to do some work. Brighton is my favorite hill, Hidden is something you dream up in your head perfect, their is a veritable playground between Milly and Crest, Preston gate off snake is an entrance to a BC world almost unimaginable in scope and options. Still all things being equal, I'd probably ride at Pow Mow, the Pow Mow days really stick in my head, I can recall nearly every turn from that first run down Pow Country all those years ago. That feeling is something a billion fancy ass lodges and nice food cannot every compete with and that my friends is why you go. P.S. Sundance is a gnar little hill, timing is everything but hit that shit right and it's a steeper Pow Mow that is almost as good.

She grew up 10 mins from my house, weird people try to find her house, classic wyo family, lots of money I respectfully disagree, I mean Ylvis asked one of the most fundamental questions of existence....

hahah probably, may have to help my family move some shit down at the beach and this is looking like the best weekend to do it.

This is PASR all comments are in jest. LOL

Love the epic deviation in this thread

Mounting your own shit and waxing should be a requisite once you've skied a certain number of days in your life. Maybe edge work too but that can really fuck up your day if you screw it up. There was a dude on TGR selling a custom jig with various removable plates, Look/Rossi, Solly, Dynafit and Marker. I picked one up and they work fantastic, if you can't find a shop jig Jordan check the tech talk he may still have some.

Saturday is a good day, definitely better than Sunday, certainly no Friday post work when the options seem endless. College football is never as good as NFL but Saturday more people are out at the bars and what not. Overall my thoughts on Saturday are that's it's probably the best day of the week, I really like all of the days though even Monday.

Maybe....Maybe not.....maybe go fuck yourself

I think 100,000 people agree with you, so it's strange they don't offer one. I doubt it's a mold issue........

Stockli - how do you post an umlaut......the price though isn't even close Jeffery is mid 20's radius ? Pretty versatile ski if I remember right.......I wanna snag a 176 Tychoon in touring layup, would make an excellent EC touring ski

Blue's snow is a result of intent and equipment not knowledge. The old style guns are cheap but require better atmospheric conditions than the newer fans guns, additionally water heavy snow is cheaper as it's more resistant to fluctuations in weather and the constant pounding it takes from the 10000 idiots that constitute a good percentage of blue riders. Upper Main St is always better because it see's less traffic, more sun and doesn't require the newbs to make a billion turns. Lower Main St is narrow, generally in the shade and is steeper almost all the way down to the lift which is rare for a PA hill. This means all the newbs getting funneled into that lower section to ride the only decent lift open have to make a billion turns to slow down to get in the lift line. The snow there needs to be rock fucking hard to put up with the skiers and snowboards going 40 into the last 200ft where they jam on the breaks throwing all kinds of snow into the woods. The trail design at Blue is very good, Switchback is one of the best in the state, designed by someone who actually rides but lower main st is always going to be difficult.

Looking pretty damn good up there......thanks RD

Nice to see them open, has to be the earliest ever.

Blowing weather is on the way out. Blue maybe could do tonight will poor production and maybe tomorrow with a little better production. W,T, and Friday are out, with a good chance of heavyish rain Friday during the day. Once that air mass moves out Friday night a cold pattern looks to be in place for sometime. Sunday's high maybe sub 32 which should get most of the PA hills open and near 100% assuming they want to be open. (looking at you Elk)

Webcams look good, if they can blow some tonight and tomorrow night they should be in good shape for Friday.

Bojangles>all others The only one I know that is in the NE is in Reading, it's dirty as fuck and delicious.

But how ? Clearly that isn't possible as Elk Mtn is the greatest place in the whole world. What did we pay this year for Blue ? Elk pass is 880 hahahahhaha

[video=youtube;FErYhMt_-Cw] Snowed this morning near Reading, crapped out at about 11 when I was on my way to work.

I respectfully disagree. Aspen isn't real, Snowbird isn't real. These are the 1 in a billion places, they are like a mythical shangri la. They have snow, and big mtns and at least in Aspen, vagina, which is hard to come by in a ski town. If you are lucky enough to be born there or move there everyday is a testament to how unreal those places are. Blue mtn......blue mtn is as real as it gets, well maybe Spring mtn. The weather is terrible, it's cold and windy and when it's real cold it generally isn't snowing. When it does snow we are almost always on the rain/snow line so we get heavy heavy chunder, hills here are so lame they mostly groom that shit out anyways. The 99.9% of the time it's not snowing, its generally rock hard ice, we use big expensive machines to turn that shit into something resembling legit snow. Most of the hills do not have the vert for anything more than 3 turns and then your back on the lift which is multiple of the time you spend riding. Most of the peeps around are well intentioned but don't know fuck all about skiing and riding, your mostly trying not to be hit by them or do the hitting as they generally find the best place to sit down is on a blind turn under a lip, this ensures a clean decapitation I guess. Yet even in these gritty pockets you got your hard core mofo's. Riding the concrete shit lap after lap, day after day, year after year. By any reasonable measure they aren't really mtns. but they still sing that hypnotic song that brings you back. The friends and the booze helps but that isn't enough to counter all the money you spend, all the shit you blow off to go ride. Alta or Bear Creek your still chasing that same feeling, that minute of floating where the entire universe comes together, where your entire body is in concert with your mind. At Alta your odds are going to be alot better and pow is always the holy grail, yet there is something to be said for being able to ride two 1/4inch pieces of stainless around a 20 degree bend at 40mph while dogging wanna be's from NJ, probably while high or drunk in what is generally the worst snow imaginable. If that ain't keeping it real I don't know what is. You got boots ? I got 17 of everything else if you want to ride. I even have boots but they are all retired for a reason......

Won't be there Friday, got a thing in DC. Will be there all weekend and since my wife is now slinging helicopter parts I have no scheduling issues.

Are you like 9 ? Seriously, my daughter would phrase that similarly. It is dangerous to use the entirety of one's vocabulary in a single sentence. By the way do you live in VT now ? I'm not sure as you have only mentioned it 100000 times in sentences in which it had no relevance.

Can't even rip on Huntah anymore.....whatever that dude was that loved the joint is long gone....

Extreme at Denton is steeper and the best skiing in PA is Blue Knob and it's not even close. The Knob has legit glades with a pseudo bowl and it actually snows there, 7 Springs is also probably in the running but the crowds there get crazy. You want to get legit challenged in PA ride at the Knob take upper Extrovert to D-Trail down to East Wall Glades. Once your done call me on the phone and tell me where else in PA you can ride terrain like that outside of the Pine Creek Gorge and there your walking. I don't mean you GSS, I mean the royal you if you will. Telluride is heaven on earth but that village is a monstrosity. It's almost always empty, the people that do have properties there don't live in CO let alone Telluride. It's a waste that turned perhaps the most beautiful place in the lower 48 into a wanna be.

Gotta give them credit they are really pushing for Black Friday, it appears as if in the last year or so they've done a complete 180 in terms of opening and closing.

I don't know, there used to be one that ran next to the Pine Creek but it's been a rails to trail for like 20 years now. I did see three bears there once about 17 years back. Best train spot is in the fine town of Altoona. My other cousin, who didn't put a ski pole through his leg at Denton, wanted to attend ye ole Penn State but wanted to spend his first two years not in Reading so Altoona it is. Altoona is like if a whole town looked like Tyler Durden's house on Paper St., he had a fine estate that was missing a load bearing wall in the basement and the porch hung off the house like a 60 year old ladies titties. The finest entertainment in Altoona if you don't like meth addict strippers is the Horseshoe Curve. A long time ago PA needed a rail connection between Philly and Pittsburgh, the easiest passage over the Allegheny mtns meant building the curve rather than using a time consuming portage. The Nazi's in WW2 apparently targeted the curve but obviously never got the job done. Now homeless people and train aficionado's can enjoy the curve which is something like 200 degrees.