method9455

It is going to be damn cold tonight, tomorrow, and sunday night. Low of 14, 14, 22. Highs of 30, 28, 33. Almost 24 hour a day snowmaking for 3 days, they should make a good amount of snow. I wonder if at this point they will expand to new terrain or build that infamous big base on Boulder Park they need for the jumps or what. Snowmaking looks possible every night in the next week except for maybe Monday and next Saturday, if the forecasts can be believed. My big questions, how many more trails are we going to see by the end of next week, I'm going to guess at least a few, and when will they start blowing at JF? If the first opening at another hill is going to be Nov 28th, Boulder could be half open. And by Dec 5th when the rest are opening, they could be 80-100%. I know they are smaller in total but they definitely are rolling out acres faster than anywhere else.

He basically made the Sno forum. I hope bigdaddyk plans on posting lots of JFBB TR's again.

The pitch is the ratio of the height to the horizontal distance. I.E. your roof being a 5/12 pitch is 5" vertical rise vs a 12" horizontal run. The angle is the inverse arc tangent of that ratio. The pitch is a lot easier for the end result when you have to build it and you have rulers and levels, the angle is much better when you have to do the math of designing it. At very small angles (less than 10 degrees) the pitch and angle are going to about equal each other, and as the angle increases the values diverge. The 45 degree angle is a 100% pitch, meaning a 1:1 ratio of rise to run. A 50% pitch would be 1 foot rise for every 2 foot run, and the angle is arc tangent 0.5 = 26 degrees. It sounds a lot steeper as a 50% pitch but really, 26 degrees is pretty weak. A 78 degree slope would be about a 500% pitch.

I'm not going to lie, I'm going to miss Ski this year. What else have been hot topics? Camelback always has a cause to complain and the annual Blue vs JFBB park argument should roll in around January 5th.

Last year they waited a while to put features on BBPark because it is not very conducive to small features with its pitch. I would suspect that they are opening more non-park terrain (3/4 trails on saturday is a good ratio) in response to all the non-park skiers who showed up early last year. I could be entirely wrong, but thats my guess.

If it is new it might get better with time.

Great surprise, hopefully some get to take advantage of it. I really wish I had my gear at school I have to wait until I go home for thanksgiving to get out.

10/10 minimum, 5 is too thin you end up wearing too many layers. I have a 20/20 shell, generally wear it with just an underarmor underneith and no layers or liner on about 75% of the days and I'm fine. Its often a bit cold on the lift in the morning (I usually make it for first chair), but by 11 when the sun is out, or when I'm in the park working hard it is just the right amount. For Canada I bust out the down jacket, but around here - never really more than that. In fact down here, venting is more important than anything else because once you start sweating you get really cold. For me, water proof is more important than the thickness because I will ski in the rain a few times a year, but generally the insulation is equal or greater than water proof so it is kind of a moot point. Mine is an AK jacket that they no longer make. I like Burton/AK, Helly Hansen, Orage, Quicksilver, Arcteryx, Mountain Hardware. 686 looks good too but I have no experience with it. I often say that the jacket is the best investment you can make. Boots pack out, boards get scratched and lose their pop, bindings break down, pants get ripped up and lose their water proofing, goggles scratch, gloves rip, helmets get dented and lose their protective value. But the jacket keeps going and going if you buy a good one and keep it out of the mud.

What color livestrong bracelet is there for snowtubing, cuz I'm buying 3.

Preseason was Halloween, now it's the season, so passes work as usual. I'd still bring something for the charity Friday so you aren't THAT guy.

Yea man, just went up and earned some turns. It is covered edge to edge, 48" deep, with death cookies.

Wow we actually got a dusting in Newark, Delaware today. A little bit stuck to the ground/roof/cars. Usually never see that before December, if during the 1st semester at all.

Thanks for the link, for those that don't want to leave

Are the white figments used or new? If they are new I'll take them regardless of what lense it has. My current figment frame has faded out to hell after about 4 years.

The DH 155 is tempting as hell, great board and a great price. I could even pick it up when I come out to Utah and save on shipping, but I'm just not in the market for a board. If I were thinking about any park board, I would jump on this no matter what. The difference between a DH and whatever you think you want is a lot smaller than the difference between $275 and $450.

Trust me I'm literate but the skate bannana isn't all that common and some people don't read all of the mountain forums. If someone said, sure I have one but I only ride at Blue are you going to say no? You are the one asking for a favor. As actual Mervin Manufacturing demo days are non-existant on the east coast (afaik), finding someone who has one is pretty much your only shot at demoing it. There is definitely a PASR member with a skate banana but I forget who.

Move to gear? It makes initiating turns and butters easier. With a normal camber board when you roll into a turn the nose has to be bent in the opposite direction of its normal shape to go. With the "reversed camber" the board initates the turn easier because it is already pointing in the direction you want to ultimately go. Same thing for butters, before you had to bend it a few degrees through the camber and then get into a butter, now you are basically already started. It doesn't seem like much but it makes a difference. There is nothing inherently right about the camber of most boards. If you start with a blank slate I think you are more likely to end up with a "reverse camber" board than a "normal camber" board, except that when they first start composites where not as well understood as they are today, and the normal camber helped with pop and stiffness. Now there are ways to do that with the core selection and composites used such that the pre-bent shape is no longer necessary.

Now that I think about it some of them are round head, but whatever. I don't like the idea of using allen heads, I think a better investment is the right size screwdriver. Philips #2 should never strip them if you are doing it right. Now that I only have one pair of bindings that isn't broken I swap them back and forth between two boards depending on if I'm riding park or free riding and I've never had a problem with stripped screws. More likely you will dimple the bottom of the board if you are over tightening.

Thats what you are getting at Shawnee. I like lower arrowhead/tomahawk/delaware. Yea the lifts are slow, but they are slow at JF too and I still enjoy it.

Hunter still has the power house of snowmaking on the east coast. A lot of places south have similar density of guns but shorter weather windows. Up north they have less guns but longer windows. Hunter has the firepower density of a Pocono resort, with the weather of southern vermont, and uses it to the fullest.

Don't hate, Shawnee is great. They don't get much talk here but it is a legitimately fun hill, pretty similar to JF in my opinion except for about the 3 trails on the east mountain of JF that are better. A few years back they were often the first to open so I'm not that surprised.

I thought JFBB had some deal with the power company that makes it cheaper for them at night. Combined with it looked like they weren't running the fan guns full on last night as is, it wouldn't be all that efficient to do it during the day today. Camelback also still has mostly air/water guns going as opposed to the fan guns.

Elk generally does not aim to be open early. I think they are a low key operation. They've been one of the later ones to open over the last few years, but apparently great mid season. I'm looking forward to hitting Elk for the first time this year.

Thanks for the great pics, I've been refreshing waiting for your post. Your pics are better quality than JFBB's anyway so I'm stoked as hell. Where do you go to school? I thought you were closer than that based on you being up there for the first storm as well.