method9455

I'd say depends on if you are taking a weekday or weekend. If you have a weekday, hit Hunter. I'd avoid it on a weekend but its great during the week without crowds. Thats probably 3-4 hours from your house and I'd put that at the limit of what'd I want to do in a day round trip. Theres no way your making to VT and back in 4 hours each way. My next option would be Mount Snow at only another 1-2 hours, but I'd do that if you had 2 days. Stay somewhere like the Horizon Inn, I think if you do the 1 night ski and stay its like $30 on top of a regular ticket for a decent room and pool/hot tub. You tolls and gas are going to be more than that so just get the most out of your drive. Great park, good trails, plenty to hit. Killington is definitely better but if you've never been anywhere but BC, Snow will blow your mind and then later in your life Killington will do it again. I'd skip Stratton, more $ for no gain over Snow if you are trying to keep it cheep.

Not really, although there is a picnic table depending on how bold you wanna get. I feel like if you want to get lost in a glade, go off the right of Telstar or the right of Solitude, not really visible from the lift and pretty large.

My girlfriend and I went up to Jack Frost today. We left a bit before 9 but took a detour to blast around a local meadow in my Subaru, apparently 10" of snow on grass is not a problem for it either. We got to JF at 10:30am and left at close (4pm). We considered going to Big Boulder after but didn't because we were tired & not doing park anyway. Weather was about 28F with 15-20 mph winds. Bluebird at home and all the way to Camelback, but completely overcast at JF all day. On the way home it broke to bluebird again as soon as we got just west of Camelback, very strange. Some flurries, but the main factor was the wind. Sadly they didn't have much snow from the storm this weekend, maybe 3", we could really see the snow depth dropping on the side of the road as we drove west. They were making snow on every closed trail, and about a third of the open trails, primarily on the west side for the beginner trails (which were groomed to perfection) and challenge. Every trail but Floyd's Folly can be open tomorrow or wednesday, they were grooming out the one next to One Park that was closed during the day. I'm sure Floyd's will be ready by the weekend so they'll be 100% open for the holiday week. The wind was blowing everything around so you basically had that January packed/groomed manmade. It was not hard or icy, I was on my jib board with round edges and wasn't skidding around at all, but it wasn't soft on most trails. The exception was Challenge, the fan guns were going and the roll of the trail was blocking the wind from taking the snow away and it was real soft and nice, definitely the trail of the day. The trees on the right are sweet now that they are extended all the way down. Good glade to learn in because the trees are spaced very wide and there is just as much base in there as thick as a regular trail. Seriously there must be 30" of manmade snow in there. East mountain was in good form, although Telstar/Solitude were a bit worse than the rest of the mountain. I think they just opened this morning and they were a bit bumpy. The Elevator glade is legit, I didn't go in but it has a serious entrance. I took the challenge glade cut through to under the east mountain lift, but once you got out of the range of the fan guns the glade was thin and I hit a lot of rocks, wouldn't recommend going there or under the lift just yet. I did Elevator twice, love that it is cleared out. Definitely a trail where you have to think about where you are going to turn. Nice soft coverage, but still a bit thin there were some rocks poking through and its steep enough you often can't see them coming until you hit them. The run out isn't open yet either so you had to contend with some wet sticky snow and ungroomed snow boulders on the way out. One park is well maintained but I only did two quick passes through so no comments on flow or the jump line. Not many features right now but the setup is: 1) Butter box or tree bumpy thing 2) Flat box or down-flat rail 3) Small (5') jump or upslope box 4) Small (10') or smaller (5') jump 5) Down rail or down box 6) Battleship rail or flat box Overall, excellent day. My legs feel like jello and I remembered what the hell I was doing which I couldn't really warm up on opening day at Boulder. I'm going to take 1 more day before going to Colorado on January 4th, probably to Elk to avoid the crowds and see someplace new. I wish I could go a few more times but I don't have a pass and don't have much money, so that's all I can get in. Pictures later

10"+ inches here in Dirty Jersey, just took a ~10 mile drive to drop my girlfriend off at home and lots of it was unplowed. Seriously enjoyed my Subaru, had no issues even in the parts that were deeper than my ground clearance. It's really dry snow, it will not pack at all. I'm not riding tomorrow, but I am Monday. I was thinking do Camelback now and JFBB during Christmas week because it has fewer crowds, but the trees at JF are probably going to be the best spot in PA tomorrow. With this wind, I doubt much snow will stay on top of the trails they made snow on because it is higher than the surrounding area. It is whipping right now. I'm thinking of getting some turns in at the local golf course tomorrow AM, 15"+ by the morning I'm sure and the sledders won't be out for a while. It has about as much vert as Freedom Park but steeper (isn't everything?). We'll see if I can get the crew together.

Fair enough, it came across that way to me but tone is often lost in text. I think JFBB is appropriately priced. Its kind of ridiculous that people are hating on them charging after they had 2 free days to open the season. They could have just charged $20, $30, $40 on opening day and people would have showed up. They sure as hell would have made a lot more money that way. At some point that have to actually start paying back for the massive outlay on snowguns that is letting them open earlier than the others and giving them better snow conditions. JFBB has the best product right now in PA. They are going to charge a premium for it. Blue is charging $25 for Come Around, Main Street and Vista. Camelback is charging $35 for Rocket, Marge, a green trail T2B, and Rhodo. JFBB is an extra $10 over Camelback and you have a couple trails at JF the same length at Main Street, a park at JF bigger than Rhodo, and then you have Boulder and Love trails at Boulder that are as big as Main Street, and Little Boulder which is the same size as Vista, Freedom Park which is better than Come Around, and you have better snow conditions all around, and maybe a glade and some closed trails you can ride at JF. Seems like a no-brainer if you don't have a pass anywhere.

http://www.paskiandride.com/forums/topic/14674-december-6th-report/page__view__findpost__p__246595 Not sure if it was just once.

For a guy's whose quote is "A bad day of skiing is still better than a good day of anything" you sure bitch a lot.

100% open at Blue = 0% area with snow equal to the quality at JFBB.

50% open at JF and 30% open at Boulder, I've seen far worse. Mountain Creek used to charge full price even if they had 3 trails open. When Blue is 50% open what will the price be?

If that actually happens, what a joke. Mountain Creek has worth weather than Blue by far, it is comparable to or worse than Bear Creek. And they have to cover way more trail to get open so that's not an excuse either. I think the shortest route they open with is about the length of paradise.

Great work by the GM

Woohoo

I'll be there. I'm up in NY but Hunter isn't opening tomorrow so I'll be stopping at JFBB for a few hours on my way back to school. I feel like it will be 12 or 1 which is less than ideal but whatever, I can't wait to be riding. Red jacket, gray pants, brown snowboard.

I'll be at my girlfriends this weekend so I'm actually closer to Hunter than JFBB.

Well the JFBB webcam is down, but based on Hunter and Mount Snow losing almost all of the snow they made (and they made more because they had better temperatures) I'm going to bet JFBB has 0 snow left and is starting from scratch. Kinda sucks. I am lifted by the quote from Jesse about opening weekdays, maybe if they miss Sunday they can open Monday, kind of unorthodox to open on an early weekday but I'll take whatever I can get at this point.

Every night on that forecast you can make snow, and a day or two as well. At least some of that has to be right.

Yea right, I'm not going to die on the hill in a lesson. None of us are going for private lessons for safety reasons. Another example - I took some rock climbing lessons. 6 hours for my girlfriend and I, and I paid like $250-300 including equipment. We were total noobies but the guy teaching us was like 50 and was ridiculously good at it, so we didn't have some kid. Again that's $50 an hour. Climbing is just as dangerous as skiing. I've spent 1/20th of the time climbing that I have skiing yet I've had a rock climbing injury and only 3 or 4 skiing injuries of the same magnitude.

Damn the webcam is down for Freedom park right now. What time did they start last night? I checked at about 11 and didn't see anything going on. Funny how on Sunday night before snowmaking you get a black box because there was no light, but last night the snow reflects the moon and you can actually see something. JFBB and Bear have way better webcams than Blue and CBK. Not much of a metric, but it is a fact.

But that is really a ski industry specific thing and it is ass backwards. If I want a tennis coach, I go to the local pro shop and pick up a business card and pay him direct. There is no tip because I'm putting $75 in his pocket as the cost of the lesson. When I want a sailing coach I call up someone from the local club and pay him $50 an hour direct in his pocket. Same goes for golf I'm sure. I feel like the mountain should take $75, give $50 of it to the instructor and take $25 for themselves, and you shouldn't have to tip. That would be reasonable. I do think the guy deserves $40 or $50 for his time and his skill, but I don't want to pay $125 so that the guy can make $58.

I agree that the instructor deserves more than $8 an hour. In other sports an instructor will get $50-150 an hour for a private lesson (example: golf, tennis, sailing). But that is going 100% to the instructor. The problem is that out of my pocket if I give the instructor a $50 tip, I'm paying like $125 an hour. The last time I got a lesson was at Mount Snow and I got a recommendation for a specific instructor, went 2 out of 3 days to the guy for an hour each time and it was money very well spent. But the time before that somehow I got in on a 3 person lesson in PA and it was a complete waste of time and money. So it is $125 for a chance at a good lesson - for an hour. Coming from the guy who was choosing boards based on <$100 price difference between different models/stores I'm absolutely sure you would not be taking this side of this argument if you hadn't been an instructor once. Guess what, everyone thinks their work is valued higher than the market says. The reason why so few people take private lessons is because they are over priced. When I think about a lesson I want to go out for 2, 3 hours at a clip, multiple times. Go out for an hour with a guy one year, and then an hour with another guy the next year is not going to improve me enough to make it worth the money.

I don't question they are serious and I'm hoping for Sunday opening, but last nights weather was not very helpful.

Come on DHarrisburg, the kids are "getting their dubs on lock" without ANY chance of getting hurt at all. Don't come in here with your "facts" and "experience" and try and rain on the parade.

Sadly Jeff is right, they didn't really do anything last night. I went to bed around 3 and they had nothing, if you look now its like 1-2" at best in the deep part and a dusting everywhere else. If it lasts through the warmer weather on Wednesday all they have succeeded in doing was get past the initial putting snow on grass step (which is hard when the ground is warm so it wasn't entirely pointless) but there are no "piles" and this really won't make a base. It's good marketing, but when it was 1am and they weren't able to make snow yet I pretty much lost hope for a Sunday opening. Maybe I will be proven wrong but I was hoping for a solid night last night and they didn't get it. That's probably why Camelback didn't make snow, although it is good both Blue and JFBB made some. It's not their fault, guys were out there from 9pm on but the temperature didn't cool down enough, it was hovering barely out of range for a few hours.