method9455

For tuning yourself, I recommend a stone grind and edge polish for the start of the season, and as long as you wax often you won't need to go back to a shop until the start of next year. For the wax - a variable temperature iron is key, don't let the wax smoke, and pretty much your good to go.

Well the major difference is that while it has been a really crappy year - that doesn't preclude the park from being good. The difference between a good setup and a bad setup on a rail is about 3 or 4 cubic yards of snow. The difference between a black diamond being open and not being open is thousands and thousands of cubic yards of snow. When nature hands you bad weather - it is expected for some of the trails to be closed. When the weather turns around (as it finally has) - trails open (as they are). Yet, the park has been the same size at Camelback for the entire winter. I wouldn't ask it to be any bigger, just to be better. That is something completely in the control of the management (not even the park crew really whose hands are tied) at Camelback. So regular skiers can understand the weather, but when something is in the domain of human decisions - the complaining gets much louder.

snowboard.com -> eastern mountains -> mountain creek thats their official forum, all though by and large it has crap in it since the original forum got destroyed when snowboard.com got "upgraded" for like 6 months. So there is a mountain creek forum with its own threads under resorts, that no one uses, and one single thread that rambles for about 100 pages in the eastern mountain sectinon. basically I watch that and the myspace.com/mcjiblab for info - although the guys watch/post here sometimes too.

Many. When creek had their S-rail up I sessioned it for like 6 hours before I got it, damn it took a lot of tries.

I'm stoked. I think the most annoying thing about Mountain Creek's pipe was that it wasn't park pass protected. I can understand why they didn't want to hire a guy for just 1 feature, but at least a sign SAYING it was would have helped. There is nothing worse than people snowplowing down the middle going LOOK AT ME I DID THE HALFPIPE and leaving a bunch of ruts for you to hit at 30 miles an hour, when you are looking up at the wall instead of the bottom anyway.

Quoted from the Jiblab else where " Hey guys, sorry I couldn't get in here sooner to speak up about the park status... We've had quite a lot of big things happening lately so us park guys are a little overwhelmed at the moment... We will be building the Half Moon (INTRO) park overnight on Thursday... Keep in mind, all of these features will be relatively small and will all have 'ride-on' take offs. With the amount of snow on Half Moon, we are hoping to throw in a couple smaller snow features on the trail as well. Friday morning we will begin a mini build at the bottom of the superpipe for the Volcom Peanut Butter and Rail Jam... We have a layout chosen for the event, but we may still make a last minute change... any suggestions?!? Great Northern to Indian may be open by this weekend, but only as a ski trail and not as a park... This may or may not occur, either way it will be for only ONE weekend if that, as just a ski trail. Expect to see the main park open in about a week and a half... Sugar Jib Park will be built within 10 days (at the latest) from now... Hope this information helps guys... Take care! -Marc "

If I had to bet - your injuries in the park are down cuz anyone with more than a passing interest in park has left CB.

True, that is actually a better measure of snowmaking than anything else. I love how places count '# of guns' like it means something - when was the last time you went to a mountain and they had less guns than they could pump for?

Yea and I wouldn't say JFBB is 100% until both mountains are - because individually they are quite small. As a side note, a mountain that is twice as high as another is at least four times longer in length from top to bottom in a straight line - assuming a 30 degree angle for the terrain. Now consider almost all the stuff we ski is less than 30 degrees - and that means it takes less than 1/4th the snow to open a trail top to bottom at JFBB than at a place like Mountain Creek - and BB's trails largely go straight down hill with no turns in them. So it takes significantly less snow. Not saying it isn't impressive - but clearly the amount of snow made there isn't higher than anywhere else. If you had Hunter's, Killingtons, or Mount Snow's snowmaking system at JFBB they could open 100% in like 2 days.

Actually its not that hard, its just ugly as shit. Go hang out in a beginner park some time and 1/2 the kids are just doing ridiculous spins on boxes as if it has style.

It's true - if you keep your hands in fists there is less leverage when you fall. I still do that sometimes. As for wrist gaurds - most people don't know that they are important so whoever is teaching/renting them stuff should recommend it. If you have a choice the better wrist gaurds are made by R.E.D. - they're thin and flexible. They basically surround your wrist with metal strips that will bend a bit when you fall. They will prevent most of the wrist injuries and can fit under your glove easily. The ones from Dakine and others that are the hard plastic under the palm that are from roller blading don't work great because they are hard to fit under gloves (although mittens is usually no problem) - and they also just transfer the energy up your arm. On rollerblades its ok, or when you are learning, but when you fall on a really big jump that plastic will just transfer the force up and snap your arm instead. The R.E.D. ones absorb energy and while you still might sprain your wrist they won't break your arm. I have both, I like the R.E.D.s better for comfort although I only wear them when I recently hurt my wrist or trying something new in the park. I do always recommend them for beginners. As for helmets there are a lot of people who ask what the 'best' helmet is. As far as I know the protection is similiar, but the fit is paramount - so try them on in the shop and don't buy them online!

I'm finding the mountain report at JFBB to less than accurate sometimes. How are they blowing in the glades? Wouldn't that wreck the trees?

Definitely NO sound system. In all my time in parks all over the east coast, whenever there was a sound system it just pissed me off. Buy a $30 MP3 player off ebay and bring your own music, because they'll never play what everyone wants. High - Speed lift - right now they can't do it. They need a longer cable run because when the chairs get deposited back on the cable, they aren't always evenly spaced. So they spread the chairs out further to compensate, on a small run like at Bear Creek the errors of depositing the chairs back would get worse and worse, and it wouldn't work. Unless Doplymar comes up with a solution, no high speed lifts at Bear Creek. I'm pretty stoked on the doubling up the amount water pumping power, thats about the most important thing a mountain can do.

Any idea when we'll see Bushkill opening up? By next week?

Tom not sure who the fuck you are - but don't attack Papa's kid because I've seen Nipples in action - and X Games he will be doing in 5 years. Realize his son is one of 4 on the team at JFBB - and there are lots of great guys there riding everyday so that says something. You can disagree all day long with Papa but his son knows his shit, rides the way everyone claims if not better, and will blow up soon so shut the fuck up. Not to mention Tom - but you don't get the way things are going. I'm sure you've been skiing a long time, but skiing is changing. Without snowboarding even more resorts would have closed down than already have. Guess what - there are now an equal number of Park only mountains (Bear, Boreal, Echo, and the one in New Hampshire) as there are ski only mountains (Taos, Mad River Glen, Alta, Deer Valley). Lets not forget all the mountains that are putting their parks front and center. What is the most visible event annually? The X Games. What is the biggest event at the Olympics? Snowboard Halfpipe. Work in a shop and everyone under the age of 30 wants to a ski or a board that can do at least 'some park someday'. Even if the number of park rats is smaller, there are a large number of people that are aspiring to it, a large number of people who do it sometimes. I consider myself 75% out of the park, 25% in it, but I still say that the park is a major consideration in my decision on any given day. I'll have fun going fast and making turns anywhere - but there is no park at Camelback. There is nothing I would try there because I'm afraid to get hurt on their 20 foot boxes. I'll hit a 60 foot rail thats twice as high that actually has a gap at Mountain Creek - but the stuff at Camelback is so bad its unsafe. So yes, Camelback is living in a bubble. No one is asking them to devote more than LG and Rhodo and the Halfpipe to park. But it would be nice if things were actually set up right, were built safely, and were maintained. If Camelback can't recognize which way the industry is going, then yes they live in a bubble.

Hit up Bear Creek this weekend, a higher percentage of their stuff will be open. Try out Camelback later in the year when they have more trails open - despite the trail count the actual number of ways down the mountain is small right now, not worth the extra drive time/money for the tickets etc. Plus it is more crowded than Bear Creek. Though we hate the administration at Camelback here, the skiing is really good once everything is open.

Are the rental skis you took from the same shop? Usually there is a sticker as to what shop owns them. Your best bet is to go back to the shop from which the skis you have came. Hopefully it is the same shop as the ones yours are from, but if not - find that shop and return them. The shop should have the serial numbers on file so that they can find the renters of the skis. It would be nice if the person took your skis, but it might be such that now there are several people with the wrong skis - or the person left with no skis thinking his were stolen and doesn't have yours. Usually these sort of things work out, it happens about a dozen times a year at my shop, we end up with Pelican's skis and send them back over there, multiple of our customers have each others skis etc. I would also recommend bringing all the rental gear you have back and getting the bindings check to make sure you have it all in order because if you have someone elses skis - even if the boots click in the settings could be wrong and the bindings won't release when your kid falls. Then in the future get a retractable lock, and just lock all your skis together through the brakes so they won't get mixed up.

The sad part is you are making things safer by telling the dad & his kids to get out of the park. No comment on whether you did it in the most polite fashion or not, but I've been as polite as you can be in that situation - and people still get mad. "Fuck you I paid for a ticket too" etc etc.

Thats a problem Not a great way to run a business

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That sucks dude, but at least its just your wrist. My best friend broke his arm 3 times and now has a metal plate with 16 screws - doesn't hold him back from snowboarding at all after the cast came off. So you lose one year - at least its not your back, your knees, or your neck. And if your going to miss a year, this one is about as shitty as they come so it could be a lot worse.

But I saw Shaun White do it in the X-games ..... it can't be THAT hard.

Well if we're talking about JFBB 100% would mean both places. Plus why do they still list cross mountain as not open?

Cecil County Maryland has the highest per capita KKK population in the country. I go to school bordering it, you can walk into Cecil from my campus. The sailing team practices in the cheseapeake in Cecil County and on the way there is a guy with a bunch of "ghosts" as halloween decorations that are clearly KKK members on his front lawn. Scary. Not to mention I went out there once to work on an engineering project with a kid from my college, and we were at a shop where some kid was getting a water balloon launcher, turns to his brother and says, "Lets get this and shoot some niggers", exact quote. I was in the store with my friend from NY and we look at each and are just like, OH MY GOD.

That's true, although I'm thinking Blue might win, we'll see. One things for sure - it won't be Mountain Creek.