method9455

Exactly. Forget the stuff that is actually dangerous, skiing down a hill backwards is the problem. Forget the fact that the guy who CAN ski switch is in more control than 80% of all the people on the hill anyway. Forget that if I fall and hurt myself while doing a 180, I only hurt myself, and the kid who doesn't belong in the park is going to hurt everyone but himself, just let a bunch of old school ski patrollers act like they know whats best.

Current Feature List: From the Top of South Chair down Canyon: 8'x2' Progression Flat Box 16'x2' Progreession Mellow Kink Box 16'x2' Progression Flat Box 20'x2' Progression Mellow Rainbow Box 20' Fat Bob Low Flat Rail 8' tall spine w/ 10' long Mailbox on top Mini Table Top 27'x1 1/4' Flat Box 27'x1 1/2' Down Box 30'x 1' Battelship Box 15' Mini Battle Ship Rail Mini Table Top Mini Table Top 40'x2' Flat Box Medium Sized Hip/Table LARK TO CLIFF RUN: 27' Flat Rail 25' Step Down/Table 32' Step Down/Table Bottom of Bear Peak 35' single-barrel DFD, next to a 15' down with a donkey. Next up is a 40' rectangle down bar and a 40' down round bar. Finishing off the course is a mini wall ride and the new skate spine. Pics in the 0708 Shred Pics album. Please note that all these features are considered Large by Smart Style standards.

the patrollers at blue need to get a life. my run in with a patroller on thursday at JF me: hey, when is this run going to open? (they where grooming it out with a cat mid day) patroller: (standing at the top of the trail at the rope making sure no one ducked in and got hit by the cat) i dunno, about an hour? me: oh ok, we'll check back patroller: you know when you see me putting the pads on the lift towers its just about time, it will still say closed on top but if you come through then i won't say anything, you just can't come through with the cat on it me: sweet if it where at blue, I would probably have gotten tasered for going past a closed trail sign when we went down later for first tracks

Ouch that is rough as hell, hope for a quick recovery

I had 0 (new) damage to my board at the end of the day, and I spent about half of it off the groomed trails. I was expecting quite a bit from because of the cover and I didn't care because it was my park board, but it is actually a decent amount of snow covering it all out there. Hopefully the rain won't hurt too much, but it is pretty crusty so it might survive. Another snowstorm would seal the deal right about now, if we had that much it would probably stay skiable for a long time.

No, thats not a mistake, blue mountain IS jackson hole height. Thats why doug likes it so much. Aside from that though, big improvement.

that was nasty

Yea they're not hidden they're gladed marked trails in most cases, and the one line I was taking was literally 10 feet under the lift. I saw one or two guys doing it all day. Honestly the difficulty of both lines keep them from getting crowded, lots of people saw me taking mine all day and yet no one else took it during the entire time I was there. Half the people going up that lift can barely handle the groomed trail on east mountain, the mad tree glade had a dozen tracks in it tops, unmarked stuff was untouched.

try snowboard.com and ebay you will get a lot more potential buyers, a lot of people want to get their hands on this board you should have no problem selling it if you put it in the right place

I'll be back a lot as soon as the holidays are over, work gets busy this time of year so I don't get many days off until after new years. Hopefully we'll get a little more snow over the next week or so I think some of the stuff might become unskiable if it rains this weekend.

um, I'm going to have to call BS on that one. Wind speed and direction are going to negate any difference in weight quickly.

It was but we didn't hit it, ski team was practicing on that and Yahoo.

I didn't try the rainbow so I dunno, you are definitely right though, it throws the usual hikable dynamic of freedom out the window, there is no way to hike and I hope people don't. I don't want to see it on a weekend. They could have eliminated one set of features and spread it all out a little bit. We didn't take the freedpom lift up the first time, we came off the merry widow lift and took sitznak over and when you hang that right hand turn and see how much snow they have and how many features they have, my jaw dropped. they have completely regraded the trail at points it has to be 15 feet deep of snow. Oh, and they left the rome pre-mature jibulation setup above the lodge, that whole setup is gnarly. I kind of wish they would pull out the rail after the snowbox though, I want to 180 to 180 it, but I don't have enough confidence to land on that rail after that gap, I don't understand how you line up for it if you can't see it the whole time. Boulder Park is unbelievable.

Did you hit the glades or stay mostly on the trails?

Paradise is the best green circle I've ever skied, anywhere, no doubt. There are longer ones at other mountains, but Paradise has just a good easy pitch the whole way, no flat spots, just keep cruising. You can pick up some great speed to, I never hit it as a beginner but it has helped me learn switch a lot so I bet it is good for an up and coming beginner as well.

I love that your description says gaper

I went today, I found the glade you where talking about, it was really obvious and it definitely wasn't there last year. I also found you could enter under the east mountain lift above where that glade dumped out, just cross right above the last rivershot headwell (I had to unstrap to get over the snowmaking tubes without cutting them but that wouldn't normall be the case). It is kind of a "chute", although it is just bushes on either side. I would say 5 feet wide, at what would be about a blue square steepness. A skier had left tracks in it, but no other snowboarders. It is about the limit of how tight of a radius turn a snowboarder can carve, I was initiating a new turn while my other edge was still exiting one, which is kind of like what you have to do in moguls - and you can see how many snowboarder do moguls. It got the adrenaline going for the first time in a while, the lift pole came up really fast. And I threw a nice 180 in off a snowbank right under the east mountain lift, it felt great. Oh yea open domain policy.

lock this? there is another thread

It was very nice, I don't see why skiers wouldn't like it. The first and last feature where original, all though I don't know what the hell you would do with the last. The 3 jumps are good but are small and randomly sized. One is like a foot, one is about 5 foot, and one is like 15. They should have made them all about the same it is hard to get a rythmn. The upslope box is ok but sticky. Didn't hit the rainbow I was using the jump. Battleship box was nice as always, a random barrel bonk and then a bunch of flat rails. If you are going top to bottom it is good but if people start hiking it, it might be a shit show. It isn't as tight together as it looks, I dunno if you can ride well it shouldn't be an issue at all. If you are one of those people who can barely ride and are good at jibs, then maybe it will be hard but in general if you can ride they aren't too close together at all. This is going to be wrong I didn't look much to the right hand side and I only did 4 runs through -Channel gap quarterpipe with a pipe across the top. Think of the two wedges they had last year but with a pipe across the top and made out of snow. -3 choice flat box/flat rail/barrel bonk setup -3 choice small jump, down box, down rail -3 choice small jump, battleship box, rainbow rail -2 choice 15 ft jump, upslope box -2 choice butter box, flat-down rail -Up box gap down box setup, although the gap is filled with snow so you could ride across. The boxes are like 3 feet wide, it is really weird, I want to see what other people do with it. I just straight aired it and then rock to fakie on the first box, I'm not sure if you can spin it with plastic, when I do my spins I put my toeside edge down, I dunno. I feel like the bottom need a quarter pipe, there is a lot of empty space.

Wow..... WOW..... Wow. I'm about to hit the shower before a detailed TR but I wanted to write this asap. If you are thinking about going to JF tomorrow at all, go. It is mid february shape, and there is NO ONE THERE. The only trail that wasn't already open, or being groomed with the intent to open for tomorrow was Floyd folly, and even that got hit hard last night. They will be 100% by christmas. There is PLENTY of snow in the glades too, I spent almost 1/2 of the day off the trails. Oh and boulder, off the hook. I was too tired to hit much by then but Boulder Park is insane, the new Freedom park setup is packed but is a work of art, love is the only disappointment, 2 good jumps but it is sparse. JF park was decent too.

Yea it was our first time, we bought season passes without having gone there based on the advice we got on PASR a few months back, and we're really happy with it. There might not be a trail with the sustained pitch of the stuff at Hunter, but there are a lot of trails with good headwalls and it feels a lot less artificial than Hunter, everything kind of flows better it was a lot of funny. No crowds, great snow, 30% cheaper than hunter, and lots of trails to explore made it fun, and it will only get better as they open more up.

I'll be up at 11ish with a friend. I'll have a red jacket, gray pants, brown board, white helmet, black/white checkboard goggles, my name is Kevin just shout and I'll say hi. My friend will have a blue jacket, black pants, and a white board. Don't remember what color his helmet is. We're doing JF from 11 - 3, then boulder from 3-5

Left NJ today at 7 am, hit Poughkeepsie at 8:15. I stole some breakfast from her dorm, switched cars and hit the road by 9.On the mountain at 10:15. Crowds: About 40 cars in the lot, so about that many people on the mountain, plus two or three bus loads of high school team team kids. What the hell are these kids doing that they are off from school mid-week middle of the day for ski team practice? And more importantly, if you are taking off from school to practice skiing, shouldn't you not suck? A lot of these kids where really bad what is up with that. Largely they where on two trails (yahoo and one way out by tomahawk) but randomly you would see them on other trails in small groups. Overall, no crowds, never waited for a lift. Mountain: It was my first time at belleayre, I see what people mean about being horizontal rather than vertical. The 3 main lifts are very spaced out. Vertical was good but not much greater than PA stuff, probably 800-1000 on the main face. Hypothetically less than Hunter but I always end up just using the F lift at Hunter or the back side which is about the same, the quad at hunter is too crowded, so it is a wash on that front. It felt like there where a lot more trails at Belleayre, every named trail was substantial. Although it was hard to get a feel in the amount of time we had. Trails/Conditions: The best trail of the day by far was Area 51. It wasn't the steepest, but it had the most untracked powder of all the trails. It was edge to edge with 10 tracks when I showed up in the morning, and at 2:30 when we left we where still getting some tracks. We took chair 7 and got off at the mid station so it was only like a 600 vert run, but it was awesome. I don't think they had made snow on it, just the natural stuff from the last week or two, and the drainage ditches where deep with lots of pop for powder ollies. The rest of the day was spent on corduroy, everywhere, grippy but fast. No ice except 1 random ass patch that must have been a poorly adjusted snowgun. There where many other powder stashes, a lot of trails where 1/2 groomed half powder, and there where seemingly an endless number of closed trails with 2' of powder with a lot of tracks through if you didn't mind a few branches here or there, and the poach. The only trail we didn't like was Onturio? It was really moguly but in the way snowboards are terrible for, very irregular, just a bunch of powder that had been pushed around. Snowboards can handle harder moguls that are regular by staying high on the bump, but if you have to fight your way through the troughs it is impossible. I am one of the only snowboarders I know that likes bumps, and even I said fuck it the second time down the trail and just bombed straight down it flattening a bunch along the way. Sorry guys. Park: Didn't hit it, 4 jibs all ride on, one jump, I would call it a 0 footer. The lip ends and the landing begins, there is no table at all. The jibs themselves looked like good quality, but its just not there yet. I dunno if I'll ever hit their park, it probably won't be that good. Weekend outlook: I dunno, they weren't making snow at all when we where there. The snow that is there is great. By the weekend there will be no powder left I bet, even the closed trails where getting tracked pretty good at this point I guess they don't care much about poachers. It looks like every trail just need 12" of man made snow and they could be 100%. There are several runs that need 2 or 3 areas covered that are so small one gun per run would do it, belleayre run was a prime example, so hopefully they will get some more open for the weekend. As it stands right now, all the greens and blues are open, but it is incredibly sparse up top, you only have 2 or 3 options off the ridge, and not knowing the place that meant we couldn't really get onto a lot of the blues because their upper half was closed. It seemed kind of dumb to have so many trails open that you can barely get to. I bet locals would be able to find a bunch of good trails that are not getting any traffic at all in the middle area. We could see them through the trees and have no idea how to get there. Overall, a very good first day at the mountain. Some pictures from our last run of the day on area 51, of course I had to wipe my ass out the one time the camera is there. The drainage ditch is about 3/4 of the way up the photo it is hard to see. Check our lines coming down next to each other - thats at 2:30 and still plenty of powder to float on, oh yea. And this stuff fell on Sunday night? Its awesome.

I went to belleayre today and used my season pass for the first time there, they have the same system. I hope this isn't a new trend.

If you open up too black trail heavy in these areas, all the beginners/intermediates scrape them off and it sucks quick. Open a bunch of green & blue and the conditions stay better longer. Killington can pull off the black trail opening because it is mostly a destination, but the PA mountains definitely can't.