method9455

Root owning it on the TRs this year. Oh man I love Stowe, those pictures are great.

Some pictures from January 4th

Made it out yesterday about middday. The whole airport experience sucked, slept about 45 minutes Sunday into Monday. We arrived 3 hours before the flight (for a domestic flight and using the first class lines for security and check in), and got to the gate with about 20 minutes to spare. Our whole flight was standby from the night before, I guess the upside is that we didn't have to sleep on the floor in the airport like so many other people. Got into Denver around 9:45, the roads were dry up to Winter Park so it was a quick ride and got to our condo at 12. We unpacked our ski gear, grabbed a shuttle, and got our season passes. On the snow by 1. Bluebird day, sunny as it gets, and around 35 degrees so really warm. We rode until close, not sure how many runs we did or really where we went. We just got on the first lift and kept trying different runs until the lifts started closing. It was awesome. We talked to locals on pretty much every lift and asked where to go next so it worked out well. Snow conditions were very good - true packed powder not what PA resorts call packed powder. They got a few inches of snow the night before so I hit some trees near the end of the day and found some. Overall it was awesome, even only 3 hours was great. We were exhausted and fell asleep around 7 last night. The views are what got us the most, and the mountain is taller than I thought which is what I worried about the most, I think the trail map just makes it look short. A lot of the locals were complaining there isn't much snow yet, but coverage everywhere we were yesterday was good. As for the shuttle, we're lucky it literally stops outside our door, so its a 50 foot walk. It comes every 15 minutes so you do have to time it a little but its not unreasonable. I also got the phone number for the car service that brought us here from the airport so if I need a cab I can get one. Today we're going to get groceries right now and then hit the mountain from like 11 to close. It didn't snow last night so we're not missing out on morning tracks and its a lot colder today.

Had an earlier thread planning this trip, now it's time to start a massive running TR for no reason other than narcismism. Well, maybe it will inspire someone or people will like the pictures. Original plan - drive my Subaru to Winter Park and stay for a month. New plan - use frequent flyer miles to fly out there and use shuttle bus. Advantage - save 4 days of driving and wear & tear on the car. So far the new plan is sucking. Right now Newark has a security breach with someone getting through security and hiding in the terminal I need to go through, 5+ hours of delays, and there is no word on when our flight will leave. Should have gone with the driving. Grrrr. http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/03/new.jersey.airport.breach/index.html I was hoping to ski tomorrow but that probably won't happen now because there is no way in hell my flight is getting off at 6am as planned. Definitely not sleeping tonight.

That looks real nice

JF has college deals now too, not just BB, but it is only 1 day of the week. If you can grab some $10 off coupons from Lukoil or a ski shop you can get the same deal at JFBB you get at Blue everyday, though Blue is pretty good too at $10 off. I like Belleayre but it is a hike, college discounts everyday even on weekends.

That jumpline is TTC6 approved That jumpline is TTC6 approved

Yea I'm thinking Elk is a good place to escape the holiday crowds that are going to crush Blue, Camelback, and Mountain Creek. I've already hit JFBB twice this year so I want to go elsewhere.

Your good pretty much anywhere then. I still say go to Hunter if you want a single day trip and Mount Snow if you want 2 days. Skiernet.com is a decent resource for getting an idea of whats available out there too.

So true.

Sounds like a good day, I've never been to a hill on Christmas day but I bet its nice and empty. Did it seem like they had a lot of snow on the open trails and did it seem like any of the other trails were opening soon?

I think we'll be OK, it's actually supposed to be ice and then fog and rain. So the ice will be the saving grace and hopefully seal things up a bit before hand. Fog is actually the real killer of snow, a cold rain won't do much damage (but a warm rain is a snowpack apocalypse) I don't know why, but it sucks to watch a pile of snow when it is foggy.

It's top down view with north up. Thats the way you see it on google maps/google earth which i assume is where they got the data from.

Not to hijack but check out the bottom of this post for a list http://www.paskiandride.com/forums/topic/14802-jf-12212009/page__view__findpost__p__248513

C1er's getting it done this week

Woot woot

Considering the only trails at Blue are easy as shit you should shut the fuck up. What trail at Blue is more than intermediate? Edit - and your lack of knowledge is showing through, Floyds is the most likely to be covered in moguls of any JF trail.

I thought at first the liftie was going to kill them for not paying for the lift tickets. Maybe that would have been better than this crap.

Nice TR, wish we had crossed paths this week, I want to catch you one weekday later in the year when I'm up at JF. Saw two newbies try to poach Lehigh yesterday and got stuck, I tried yelling "LEAN BACK" but they couldn't hear me over the guns. It looked a little wet and they had workers walking down it adjusting guns so I didn't poach and get in their way, but it looked fun. Did you make it over to Challenge? It was empty yesterday because everyone was on the east mt lift and the connection to the top of Challenge was closed. I personally think Tbolt and Challenge are as much fun as River Shot because the top part of east mt is pretty flat and the trees aren't ready up there so you get basically 2 steep parts and thats it. Challenge and Tbolt are good the whole way. And without floyds open river shot gets skied off pretty quick.

Swix definitely still makes some variation of all-temp iron on wax. If you are going all-temp anyway, just go with a value brand at the store. I find that waxing more often is more noticable than the difference between all-temp waxes. If you start getting into matching temperature wax to the weather and additives for squeezing out every last ounce of speed, then worry about brand. I have some nice stuff for racing and it is noticeably faster than generic wax, but it is so much more expensive that I use it sparingly.

Slow and deliberate turns

Flickr set which I prefer over the PASR pic setup right now Snowmaking on the west side River views Entrance to elevator glade, it is pretty serious, we all know how pictures flatten out trails from the top Showing how overcast it was at 4pm on east mtn Blowing hard on floyd's with regular air/water guns I've been wondering how the snow is getting on elevator, right now is it only blow over from the fan guns on rivershot? It's good right now (could use a little more snow), but later in the season I would love to see a fan gun directed at it once in a while to keep it nice. If it freezes over it is screwed because you can't groom it. It's probably steep enough to slide too, though with skiers running over it so much it will probably be ok. Definitely the most challenging trail in PA even though it is short. It is only slightly steeper than some groomed trails at Blue or Camelback, but cut out the grooming and add in some boulders and unevenness and you can't just point it straight and slow down at the bottom like you can on most steep trails. Although I hope bad snowboarders don't find it and start side slipping down it, that would be absolutely awful.

Yea that was me. The first time I looked down the top I was disoriented, it looks completely different than it did before. Two skiers went down it before me the first time and basically stopped right above that little 2' cliff and basically stood there trying to figure out how to get out for a while so I was just standing there for a while. I checked out the pictures in the other thread and it looks like I was taking it a little more to skiers right than everyone else, you drop that little cliff by going right and have a bit too much speed to control with that little snow so next time I'm going to try left. I should have posted last night to see if any PASRs were going up. If my board could have been any more trashed it would have been, but it was actually my last day ever on the board I was riding so I didn't even look. I did get a thorn bush stuck on my jacket going through the glades, I don't mind on my pants but that sucked because my jacket is in good shape.

+1 for missing the other mountains forums, but I think the consensus was just treat general as general + other mountains and post TRs here. We all like stoke from out west, no offense to Doug's lunch thread but I care a lot more about what Aspen looks like right now than what people had for lunch at work.

I do drip more than crayon. I'm too impatient and I have big 12" long 2" diameter cylinders of wax I got free back when I worked in a shop, its like wax for life. Maybe when I have to pay for it I'll be more stingy but for now I think its better to get lots in. I wax at the start and end of every season, and then every 5 or 6 days on the snow. I would recommend a stone grind or at least a belt grind from a shop at the start of the year. A belt grind is $5 and tell them not to wax, pick it up the day they do it and hand wax yourself. It gets all the oxidation off the bottom of your board to start the year. After I scrape I use a cork block with a felt pad. To be honest I don't think it does a damn thing. It is quick and gets rid of finger prints though so I do it anyway. Also I think a good point (Justo I think made) is the iron on edge scratching. I absolutely hate that, it is like nails on a chalk board for me so make sure there is enough wax near hte edge that it floats well, another reason I don't like the crayon method. I usually drip a bead a half inch in from each edge and then just splatter a bit in the middle, the 2-3" from the edge in are all that matter on a board anyway.