method9455

100% the girls parents fault Whenever starting downhill or merging into a trail, yield to others. Observe all posted signs and warnings. Even though she was SLIGHTLY downhill, she basically merged into his lane, they both passed the ramp at the same moment and right when she gets to the end, he is already up the ramp and she cuts right, at that point he can't do anything. Plus she didn't observe the warnings about it being a park and staying off the landings. Obviously not her fault, but it is the parents fault. The spotter doesn't even wave him off because it doesn't look like she is going to go in there. I've been the guy to hit people this way before, it sucks all around, but I would in no way say that it is the guys fault he is doing exactly what is intended to happen on a jump, nothing unpredictable about it.

Those are the covers for the snowmaking valves but I don't know what one is doing down there

I don't remember exactly how my dad taught me to ski but I do know that he didn't use a leash at any point. I think actually we rented skis when I was like 3 or 4? but started in the backyard, we have about a 40' hill that was enough to do a few turns while he was on foot. Then we went to the local sledding hill and did more turns, before moving up to a "real" hill (Split Rock/Cragimeaur - both gone now ironically). The thing I like about that approach is that you can start the kid off with really short sessions. A lot of kids get burnt out on a long day, we could go outside for an hour or two here and there and it was something to do instead of sledding, and then when I was 4 or 5 we started going to a place with a lift. I've taught about 20~30 people how to snowboard but all from teenager and older and I find there is a huge range of how people learn, doesn't help me add much here but it does make me think the whole "there is a right way and a wrong way to learn" argument is silly either way. I'm not a huge fan of leashes, I think they are a hazard. For the same reason that you want to be behind the kid (to stop an out of control skier or snowboarder from hitting them), it seems dumb to have a leash. Now instead of hitting a tiny target if a person hits you, the kid, or this giant leash, your kid is going down. I'd rather be right behind doing the pole across their chest thing at first, and then probably slightly in front leading, I think the bigger danger between someone hitting them or them getting out of control and hitting something is your kid getting out of control and hitting something. Generally the out of control people are there later on the weekends, we used to always go early and leave by 11 or so to avoid the crowds and keep the day short. As for skis for you, if you are going back I would definately go shorter like ski said, but honestly short and twin tip might be the best combo. It is difficult to believe that you will find a short twin tip constraining if you are just going back and planning to be with your kids. The twins are fatter so they are more stable, shorter is easier to handle, and if you do end up skiing backwards they are great for that. But as Ski said almost all skis are twins now to some extent - and you generally will pay more for twin tips because the bindings are bought separately, most stores mark down the skis at the end of the year but not bindings as much, so if you are buying something at a sale you will get a better deal on a ski with integrated bindings. Even mid winter I found twin tip setups to be more expensive for most people by the time you add in a good binding. As for boots, definately give Tecnica's a try. Of the hundreds of ski boots I've sold, I am sure the largest group is Tecnica, they are incredibly comfortable. Comparing my K2 T1's (Snowboard boot) to my Tecnica Vento 10s (ski boot) it is even, if not more comfortable in the ski boots.

Yea and the Chevy Grand Prix is 2nd biggest, so this is 3rd at best. Considering this is the QUALIFIER for the other event, I don't think that is debatable.

Hey, Went up this weekend, had a good time (except for crowds). Just wanted to say the big pipe is great, that was the best pipe I have hit so far this year. Damn good work and I like the feature at the end too. Good work Camelback!

Thats what I was thinking, the shape is there but the finish is not. Props for getting it open though. That is obviously early morning though after a lot of people hit it they might have smoothed out, I would like to see pics after they get a good amount of time to cut it, it might look real good later when it gets warmer because its all snow so they can keep cutting it back till the end of the year without hitting dirt.

I'm with Glenn and Toast. 1) Don't moderate this shit, I made a huge mistake as a moderator once deleting a really bad comment by one person and not the response by another person, which made the 2nd look like an asshole. The problem was it was a discussion board for a school and they where all friends so it spilled over to the real world. Just leave all the comments unless its like a picture of tubgirl or something you know? We can filter through it, there aren't many kids on here anyway, unless you count a 13 year old as a kid and at that point, they've heard worse. 2) Seriously? Why do all the Sno threads degenerate so much? It IS the new CB forum, but not even the PASR one, the Camelback official one that would always turn into CAMBELBACK SUCKS! NO IT DOESN'T! YOU SUCK! YOUR MOM SUCKS! YOUR MOM'S FACE SUCKS! <Ban> Yea but back to that pipe, short is bad, but I'd be worried about the wall vert and the snow consistancy. If I had a choice between a 500 foot pipe that I could get 6 or 7 shitty hits or a 300 foot pipe where I got 3 or 4 great hits, I'd take the short one EVERY day.

Yo thats awesome, you should wear it the other way though with the fur on the outside. Style is doing something no one else is doing, not doing what everyone else is doing.

Yuck, I've been a season pass holder at Mountain Creek for the 5 years UNTIL this year. The UNTIL part is because I finally got fed up with their crap and took my money to PA, even if it is twice as far for me. Seeing how poorly Mountain Creek was run, this can only be a step down. There has never been 1 thing Mountain Creek did that made me say "hmm thats a good decision". From how badly they make snow, how bad their lodge is cleaned, how they groom, how they decide to roll out terrain, how they decide to open and close lifts, to how they keep giant corralls up when there is NO ONE there, everything Mountain Creek ever did screamed "don't care about the customer" to me. That sucks for Camelback, hopefully things won't change too much.

Oh I definately agree with that, the jumps in Boulder are so damn big they intimidate everyone from going in. It looks scary so people don't do it. That is mostly because of the step down, I've realized that a lot of people don't know that you are supposed to be landing on the LANDING, and they don't realize how much it hurts to land on the top of the deck. So they see a table top, even if it is a 40 footer and get like 2 feet of air off the lip and think they can do it, or a 3 foot step down and land in the middle of the deck and think they are doing it right. If you see a 12' step down, they realize it is serious. Boulder made those even more exagerated by kind of making the deck lower than the knuckle so the step down looks even more extreme. I've been riding jumps for 3 or so years and the first time I saw them even I was taken aback, it wasn't until I saw a lot of people hitting them that I even attempted. But medium size and smaller, its a shit show. Im going on a bus trip to camelback this weekend, and for some god forsaken reason they are planning for us to be there from 11-9 on Saturday, that park is going to be a disaster I'm sure.

They need access from that direction with the cat to push snow downhill into it, a ramp would get in the way. Mountain Creek used to finish the pipe, then bring up a pile of haybails the day before and just push snow over the top of it to open it up. I don't know what happened to hte hay at the end of the year though, seems like it would be pretty messy. Dirt grading is ok but you have to be able to push snow over it, so the structure would have to be able to support the weight of the cat too.

Rock climbing & sailing team. Rock climbing I'm keeping but the travel for the sailing is killing me, when you lose 2 or 3 whole days a week to an event, it is hard to recover.

honestly their website BLOWS. That is a simple fix, hell give me two free lift tickets and I could whip one up on my laptop while my girlfriend drove us there. They would be better served by a blog.

Thats gnarly

That sounds serious, hope your friend will be alright.

Ha I'm just going on adrenaline 24/7. I'm doing 2 engineering majors, have a girlfriend, working at a tech startup, playing a sport at school (probably quitting that though not enough time), snowboarding, and try to party a bit (that usually gets left out in favor of snowboarding this time of year though). I sleep like 4-5 hours a night tops and I don't even drink soda much less coffee. So it all kind of comes out rapid fire, plus I was a nerd in middle school typing is faster than speaking for me. It just sucks for my snowboarding, I have 22 full days this year, but I was aiming for 35+ and I only see myself getting 8 more this season.

No, its not too harsh. Those two things are minor things for some people but major for others. It screws college kids in several directions. If you want to take a whole day to ride park at Boulder as a college kid, you need to go Saturday or Sunday and pay full price of what? $49? Or I could go to Blue on a wednesday for $30 and get the same amount of time? I like Jack Frost, but if I do that I end up with about 3 hours at Boulder late, much later than I would like to be out in PA with a long ass drive home afterwards. It is nearly impossible for me to convince my friends to go to Boulder so I end up riding there alone a lot of the time. The only day that has a college discount is wednesday, but that is only at Boulder so again, what are we going to do? Go up for 3-10 all night riding in the park? It just doesn't work out. So thats how I end up at Blue even though it is a further drive for me, or Belleayre which is a real long drive, because no matter how long the drive is I will end up starting sooner and getting home sooner than going to Boulder even though that is close. If they had just 1 day where Boulder opened in the morning I could adjust my schedule accordingly, but until them I'm screwed into going on the weekends - which sucks when I could take any day of the week and go with NO crowds. As much as I like JFBB I think I won't be getting a season pass there next year because when I look back at my days there, I spent about 80% of my time at JF and about 20% at Boulder, since I'm going there Monday-Friday and Belleayre for the weekends. Why don't I just go to Mountain Creek then? That opens 3 hours earlier, is a 1/2 hour closer, and sure I liked Boulder better than Mountain Creek but Mountain Creek has a better park than JF, and Belleayre kills JF for free riding so what am I doing going to JFBB? So next year instead of getting 400+ out of me + the friends I bought, I envision going for a day here or there, and early and late season, get a pass to Belleayre, and see what kind of deals Mountain Creek has for discounts (though probably not a pass).

I don't care how it comes, if it is a park pass I'm for it. Creek's was a little plastic card just like their pass and they gave you a lanyard so if you didn't have something else it was under your jacket and you had to bust it out every time, not so smart. I just clipped it with a leash to my pants and that worked, but as they gave it to you it was more of a pain in the ass than this system. My only thought would be losing the pass, but that could happen with either one so who cares, its only $5. They make such a difference in the park, that it is unbelievable. I think at this point it is almost negligent to NOT have them, cough Blue and JFBB cough. I would rather waste 20 minutes once a year, or even 20 minutes if I am going to a mountain only once in a year, and have fewer gapers there to kill me than get an extra 20 minutes in a park that is getting rutted out quickly anyway and full of newbies hiding in landings. Not to mention, fewer gapers in the park = fewer accidents = park crew able to build bigger things because the insurance company isn't breathing down their neck about safety.

I'm way too verbose, that really only took 5 minutes. I am used to speaking in front of large groups of people where you have to repeat yourself throughout and so it comes out in my writing now too.

Things I want to see: Clear out some of the former glades that are getting a bit unskiable, there was plenty of snow this season to ski a lot of stuff off trail, and it was a great attraction. A little clearing of downed trees would go a long way for opening up more stuff. Clear out elevator a bit more. At Boulder, open another trail along with Freedom for just freeriding ASAP after opening freedom. Maybe blowing snow on the tubing park to the skiers left of freedom that is accessible from the Freedom chair would be the best bet, then you still only have to run one lift, and you have a bit of snow to open tubing beforehand. Plus extra snow that blows over from there lands on Freedom. At JF, lets run Nastar on something. At Boulder, I'd rather have Merry widow built up before Boulder, more people use it + not ready to jump onto big stuff at the start of the season. My #1 wish would be to have earlier hours for Boulder, even only 1 day a week. My #2 wish would be college discounts on par with the other mountains, it is ~30 at Blue, Camelback, Belleayre, only Mountain Creek is more expensive than JFBB, it is hard to drag the friends out to JFBB if they have to spend so much more.

Everyone gets all defensive about their local hill, and then it gets personal like the Ski vs Papasteeze pissing contest, and the Toast vs JFBB hate, and the universal hate of CB (at least we can all agree on one thing, sorry Ski911), I'll even count myself among it when I flipped out about JFBB firing the JibLab guys last year, that was certaintly personal. But if you step back and be objective about it, some things stand out. I can be more objective than most because I think most people get attached to THEIR local hill and want it to bet he best so they can say they are riding the best. Who wants to be the best at the worst hill? Thats why no one posts in the Shawnee forum here really because no one there has pride in it. You are telling me there are more customers at Sno than Shawnee so therefore the Sno forum is more populated? No way, there are LOCALS at Sno, there are not many at Shawnee. There are LOCALS at JFBB and Blue and Mountain Creek and even Camelback, and everyone thinks there scene is great. Well guess what, none of them are perfect. JFBB - is short, has slow lifts, bad hours Blue - opens their park late, sucks at grooming Camelback - jesus christ is that a park? Sno - still not great with the park, slow lifts Mountain Creek - sucks at snow making, expensive, bad hours And they also have their good points JFBB - first to open, last to close, great park, best conditions, open domain policy Blue - lots of fun terrain, park is damn good, fast lifts Camelback - fun terrain, decent grooming/snowmaking, fast lifts Sno - fun terrain, good snowmaking, improving rapidly Mountain Creek - fast lifts, great park So yea, then after that its just an opinion of which one you like best. I never said I hated Blue, I hated their park, now their park is a hell of a lot better, and despite two days of shitty conditions when I went I had fun. I wouldn't say their park is great, but I would say it is a LOT of fun. Everything is medium sized, everything is GOOD ENOUGH, it just excels at flow. You go to Boulder and they have more variety by far than Blue, every feature is better than any one at Blue, but nothing is as long, the laps take longer, and the hours suck. Go to Mountain Creek and you end up with almost the best of both worlds, but the place is more expensive than the Superbowl and their snowmaking blows so it takes FOREVER to open. In a perfect world for me, Peak would have bought Mountain Creek, installed a snowmaking system on par with JFBB, and this debate would be laughable because Mountain Creek would be the bear park east. But since that didn't happen, so I have to compromise. No one will ever agree on what are the best compromises, if they did only one mountain would be in business. Until then, hating one mountain or other on principle is rediculous. I hate Camelback's park because it sucks, I certaintly don't hate Blue just because I think it is slightly lower on my list of places I want to go than Boulder. Although I would note that you busted out two videos of parks that no longer exist. The second video has the his/hers ramps that are no longer there, which to me was one of the better parts of the Blue park, I feel that park has a narrow range of difficulty, and while perfect for my skill it doesn't lend well to those below intermediate in the park, nor does it challenge those above. Boulder and Mountain Creek have a much better variety of stuff, but not so many of any one difficulty in one run. So Blue might be better for you or me because we get 15 perfect hits on the way down, but for those above they would rather 6 on Boulder Park that are better, and those below would rather 10 at Mountain Creek per run rather than 3 at Blue.

That is key, this is a good step the Park Pass at Mountain Creek made a huge difference.

Sweet, inquiries. Go to Transworld Snowboarding's website, THE BIGGEST of all park magazines, count up the number of Boulder and Mountain Creek videos (several this season alone), now count up the number of Blue and Bear Creek videos (0), now find me a post where someone says that Sno is better than Blue or Bear Creek. Sno needs to pass Blue and Bear Creek first to even be on that level. Then they would need to get better than Boulder and Mountain Creek, there is momentum in the industry and it takes a while for it to shift. Boulder was much better than Mountain Creek last year, no one can argue otherwise, but who was getting all the press anyway? Mountain Creek, it was only this year that Boulder has been getting more press, and Creek is still getting quite a bit (although they upgraded themselves a bit too, it is more deserved this year). Even if they throw up the 22', make it perfect, and throw the best comp NEPA has ever seen, it will be a while before a park scene develops. How long ago was it that Mountain Creek was the first to have a Superpipe down here? 6 years? How long since they where the first great park in the area, 10 years? You go up there and the scene is incredible, there are more guys throwing down in the park on a given friday than all of the skiers sno gets in a weekend. Everyone is delusional if you think that making a 22' pipe in late february suddenly puts you on the map. Someone else mentioned it, but seriously how long is this pipe going to be open to the public? Lets say they get it open and perfect for the comp, it opens March 3rd to the public? How long is the season going to be? Even if they keep it open until April 15th, which I would doubt is possible, that is only 6 weeks. Do you really think that 6 weeks of a (hypothetically) great pipe makes them better than Boulder which has had a great park since mid November? Or Mountain Creek which has had a great park since mid December? ****Start long rant on why they should have taken the million bucks and built a killer park first and not a giant pile of snow that will not be a great pipe *********** And I for one don't think it will be maintained well, if they are having trouble with jumps and rails, what is the pipe going to look like? There is a huge learning curve on this, and it will take a season or two. I've said all along, until they have dirt underneith there is no hope, it just takes way too long. I'm glad they are starting this year because they will learn from it. I bet next year it will open weeks to months earlier, with 1/2 as much snow or less, and be decent for much longer. But it would defy all odds for them to suddenly make a perfect pipe first try and maintain it all year, yea right. Mount Snow has been building super pipes for YEARS, and Gaitor the guy who cuts them is a full time employee, and has been doing it for YEARS, and their weather is much much better, and it is on dirt. I went up early January, and the pipe was ALMOST perfect, but not quite, it had some air bubbles. A warm spell hit that week, the air bubbles melted it from the inside out, and the pipe got toasted and they had to start over the next week. Thats how fickle these things are. So far Sno has a giant pile of snow, that is 10% of the battle. Mount Snow had a pipe, even with all of their experiance it went badly, so they where back to a giant pile of snow, i.e. SQUARE ONE. A giant pile of snow is SQUARE ONE. Call me when the walls are cut in a straight line (how many years did Mountain Creek have to recut their walls because the Zaugg drove a crooked path down?) Call me when they cut it and there are no cavities in the walls (good luck), Call me when it is maintained well such that the walls are vert, not over or under, not hanging whales at the top, not washed out parts. Call me when they cut it often enough, but not so often that the zaugg makes it into a W rather than a U (mountain creek NEVER got that right, even after 5 years). Call me when its the right pitch. If any one of those things is wrong, the pipe is useless. First year Mountain Creek did it, the walls where over vert because people would ride down and be unable to air out, scraping out the middle of the wall not the top, so it shot you back into hte middle. So they cut it aggressively the next year to avoid that and hit dirt and ruined the pipe. The next year after they made more snow so they had more to cut back, and it started out as a taco but became almost perfect, by my eye it was but yet no one could get much air out of it, I was getting like 3 or 4 feet and the pros only about 10-15 and the Grand Prix. not sure if it was too icy, not steep enough, I don't know, but no one could get far out. The year after it was perfect for a long time, but after cutting it too much with the Zaugg the snow at the base of the wall was lower than the middle, if you look at a zaugg cutter it does the wall, the tranny, and some of the floor, but not the middle of the floor. So the middle was high, you would come down and it would blow all your speed, but if they pushed the middle out there would be no base, pipe was very technically difficult to ride because it bucked you hard, although still able to air it. Last year, it never even materialized. So yea, to you it looks great. But this is like an english major looking at the blueprints for a motor and saying it is going to work, when a mechanical engineer sees 100 flaws. It IS an impressive amount of snow. I will say I have never seen that much snow, not at Boulder, not at Blue, not at Mountain Creek, not even at Mount Snow. But that is because they all where sane enough to put dirt underneith it. The amount of snow isn't impressive, because I'm reading thread after thread of people complaining about a shitty park. Show me a perfect 13 foot pipe and a well manicured park with a thought of a 22' pipe in 5 years, and I would be a lot more impressed. Right now what they have built isn't up to what they said they would, and there is nothing to me that shows what they are going to build is up to it either. I have no idea what makes you think they can maintain at 22' pipe if they can't maintain a regular park, it defies all logic, other than that you have faith in the people at the mountain (like I do in Gaitor at MS, the JibLab at MC, the Iron Works at BC, maybe even Ian at Boulder but not much), which since there really are none at Sno I don't understand either. One thing is for sure, I am one of the people who can ride a 22' pipe, and one looking forward to a good pipe, and one willing to make the drive to Sno for it, and definately spend the money for a few days in a pipe, but there is just no way in hell I am doing any of those things this year. If there where park riders saying, man this looks good, and some video or picture of people airing out of it, I would consider, but all I have so far is a bunch of people who can't ride the park saying DAMN THERE IS A LOT OF SNOW THERE. which I even think might not be true, it looks short, and it doesn't look complete yet, which means they have less than 10 days to finish making snow, knead it and cut it, how are they going to get the air out? The proof is in the pipe, which is dependent on the skill of the guy cutting it (I have faith in Neptune for that part) and the skill of those cutting it after (I do not have faith in them), not the size of the pile of snow beforehand.

Yea, I never thought he could get elected. But I do think that the exposure he got was good for politics as a whole, a lot more people realized there are more shades between and beyond Republican and Democrat, if it had ended up being Hillary vs Romney I would have voted for Paul as a write in but if it ends up being Obama vs McCain I will probably vote for one of the two. That said, its not coming down until the Democrats pick a candidate and then I'll decide who I am supporting.

The thing for me that negates Camelback is that while there are the front 4, they are not top to bottom, they just a headwall that ends and then its run out for half a run. Challenge/T-Bolt/River Shot/Floyds are all fun top to bottom, plus are better condition, plus the glades never get old. There are two things I don't like about JF, and that is the lack of night skiing and the slow lifts. Aside from that, the vert never bothered me, I feel the trails are superior to everything at Camelback and all but Paradise/Razors/Challenge at Blue, which seem to have crappy conditions on 2 out of 3 every time I go. That said, if Camelback had a park like JFBB, I would probably rather have my pass there because it is closer and you can ride the trails all night, where as I don't like riding park at night for the shadows and BB has nothing to ride but park.