method9455

I agree with you once the season gets rolling, but for all practical purposes it is impossible to keep a park with 4 or 5 features in good shape considering the crowds. Even if you had 2 guys working on each feature all day, the snow gets torn up such that you need a snowcat to groom it out, not to mention when you throw snow in a bombhole after a landing - it just slides out with every fall if not packed down by a snowcat. My concern is more with people getting injured early season, it is safer with smaller crowds and better conditions. Most of the kids who are hitting small stuff but not big stuff really aren't hitting things properly anyway and when your throw in a lot of ruts and beat up landings combined with rusty skills from the summer off, the recipe for injury is very high early season among newer riders. For the more experienced, the difference between a 10 foot box 6" off the ground and a 30 foot box 2 feet of the ground is nothing - but it scares away all the newer guys so the crowds are down.

For the snowboarders - we always put the goofy people on the left and the regular on the right, then when the bar comes down you only criss cross in one spot and its just the noses. I kind of sit sideways to make it work, but it is much better without the footrest. Wasn't there an incident with a kid falling out of the laurel glade lift at Camelback last year? If I remember correctly his backpack got caught on the way down and he was hanging there but they rescued him.

Argh won't be making it up tomorrow. Friday is my next day. Might head up to MC for 2 hours but I have obligations in the afternoon.

A lot of good comments in here. We did in fact have a death from my town with 2 kids screwing around on a chair lift. The quad at mountain creek at South crosses a trail that is pretty flat about halfway up - the trail goes perpendicular to the lift. The two kids were fucking around and even with the bar down one slipped through and fell to his death. While I agree the bar coming down on snowboarders is a hassle on a triple with foot rests, if there are no footrests it doesn't matter. Double/Quad its an annoyance but should be done. A triple it just doesn't work - the middle section is too narrow for the board to come up and rest, and the rests are usually too low and drag you down, so the bar has to be up. I think on triples they should cut out the middle foot rests or limit it to 2 snowboarders per lift. Brakes on skis also give out, I've seen skis come back to the shop a couple times every year with brakes that don't work, I bet a high number of skis get loose too. Moving skis and snowboards are very dangerous - especially to little kids or beginners who are sitting/have fallen.

My point is that the harder stuff is easier to maintain early season than the easy stuff, rather than make all that snow on Laurel - go for Rhodo first. Plus, the other mountains are setting up parks wherever they can (Sayonara at Mountain Creek? Come around at Blue?) only Bear and JFBB actually put their parks up on the trails - so ratings don't matter right now. If you put up easy stuff - everyone hits it. If you put up hard stuff - only good riders hit it. Thus you have less people on a smaller number of features and it lasts better - and it uses exactly the same amount of snow. Also, beginner riders need to work on their riding first. If you can't hit a big rail but you can hit a small one, chances are you need to work on your riding and early season the chance of injury is super high (especially considering most beginners don't have the right form down yet anyway), so it is probably actually safer to scare everyone away from park early season. Later on when the beginners are all warmed up, throw out some small stuff. The better people will be in the advanced park, so the crowds are again less, and everyone is more warmed up. Plus with more reglar trails open, people are more likely to be outside of the park, again smaller crowds.

My biggest issue is the snowboard leash. 1) Snowboarding bindings don't release, if anyone is going to have a leash shouldn't it be skiers? 2) The leash isn't connected in any manner that makes sense. It goes from shoe laces to the frame (Most bindings) or the straps (Ride Bindings). First, straps are the #1 thing that break so why connect the leash there. The #2 problem on snowboards are loose screws connecting the binding to the board. So now we have a safety device connected to the #1 and #2 worst points of failure. Sounds like a poor plan to me. In stead there should be a little insert maybe 6 inchs in front of the front binding, with a loop to attach the leash to directly to the board, or don't bother with one at all. 3) The most likely time to lose a board is when you take it off. I've almost lost mine before hiking in the park if it slips in your gloves and goes flying - no brakes on it, easy way to kill someone. A longer leash like the oldschool way would prevent that. 4) The other time is falling off the outside of gondolas, which has happened before, those need some redesign although most places they let you bring the board into the gondola. Don't know what this has to do with restraint bars but it seemed appropriate.

I agree all the mountains are super short on snow. Thats why its all jibs and no jumps aside from JFBB. Lets ignore JFBB because they had such a jump on snow making - which may or may not happen in the future. As of 1/20: Mountain Creek - 0 Jumps Blue Mountain - 1 Jump Sno Mountain - 1 Jump Shawnee - 0? Camelback - 1? Bear Creek - 1? So I don't think we can complain about Rhodo not being open (they didn't start at MC on any park trails yet and they're known for their park) - what we can complain about is what they did with what they had. Everyone has no snow, yet everyone else set up a better park (although Shawnee didn't and blues sounded weak) - creek has only 4 rails but they are big, setup well, and smooth. Bear setup like 20 features with almost no snow. If camelback had better quality stuff, they could make a sick little park with almost no snow like Mountain Creek and Bear Creek - it doesn't take much. A tip I have found holds true - when you have a small park it is better to put in nasty large stuff rather than small stuff. If you have a small rail, everyone can do it. If you have a big one, only the better people can, the others are intimidated - cutting crowds. If every person who can hit a 10 foot flat rail can use one of four features - the park gets destroyed fast. Creek has a 40 foot rail, a 60 foot rail, and a 30 foot to 30 foot combo, and one 15 foot flat box with a long drop at the end. Bear creek has a staircase, a 40 footer, some other stuff - it cuts the crowds down. There is no way to maintain a park consisting of 4 features that are all easy enough for everyone., I dont' care what mountain we're talking about.

Right now I'd order it 1) JFBB 2) Bear Creek 3) Sno 4) Blue 5) Mountain Creek 6) Camelback 7) Shawnee Ultimately I'd see JFBB, Bear, Mountain Creek as equals but different, Blue and Snow tied for good but not great, and then Shawnee and then Camelback, from best to worst. Although Camelback's park this year will be better than any park in the area 10 years ago - I'll give them that. Unless VV/GG had a better one, I didn't go until it became Mountain Creek.

Wow thats not a bad setup. Anyone have pictures? And 4 cboxes? What?

It was super crowded today. The park setup was pretty nice, luckily they had a big fence keeping all the gapers out. A couple dozen people but the rails where big so it was largely uncrowded which is a good move. The super small boxes attract people in huge crowds and its impossible to keep setup. Park crew was on hand to keep things smooth. Snow coverage on open trails was excellent, edge to edge, deep, and good quality on top. Almost 0 snowmaking everywhere that is not open, that 1 or 2 inchs this morning will make it easier because the ground is more frozen, but aside from half moon I saw no other snowmaking that got start on Vernon yet. Not a snowflake in the main park aside from what fell last night, I'm a little concerned by that knowing how long it takes them to make snow in there, and I'm leaving Feb 6th - not sure if I'll see it open before I go. I was glad to see they haven't made any snow in the pipe, hopefully they won't waste snow on that thing this year but they might. I usually love the pipe but I think this year its just not worth it. Oh yea, and the Gondola was shut down for like an hour today, so they opened up the triple which then had the longest line I've ever waited in, but then the Gondola opened back up again. I stayed from 9-1:30 and then headed out to BK and then home, glad to get back out on the snow. If this were opening day in December I'd be stoked, they made a lot of snow in 3 days - just one trail. Instead its January 20th and they have one trail, fucking I hate warm winters.

I'm not sure that janes lane should be a terrain park, it seems like a fun trail to just ride. I think they just the ONE Park at JF, and then make Boulder the park, there isn't any height at BB anyway, you get down it in like 2 seconds.

Tomahawk and Arrowhead aren't open which are the two best trails, aside from that turn on lower delaware, so much fun to slide around when I was up there for middle school ski club every year.

Anyone going up? Right now I have no one to ride with so I'm deciding between using the pass for 3 hours at Mountain Creek alone or coming out to JFBB and buying a lift ticket for the day. I'm probably going to do the park early at BB then go over to JF for the afternoon, demoing some elan skis or snowboarding not sure yet - but since I have to boot up anyway it doesn't matter much. Anyone up for park at BB in the morning? Riding east mountain in the afternoon? Better question - how do you think skiing will be for the first time in 5 years?

It is a fact they get charged less during off peak hours, although I would think during this cold weather they would make snow during the day because it is so efficient at cold temperatures it might offset the power issue. Or maybe they are thinking they can get all the snowmaking they need during the off peak hours. I wonder if Saturday/Sunday are considered off peak, and if we'll see snowmaking on the weekends.

Yea I really like Blue when its open, its my favorite terrain - although the east side of Jack Frost is 2nd. Mountain Creek has the shittiest black runs ever, one drop and then you intersect a green trial and blow your momentum, fuck that. Camelback is ok but again not as consistent with the drop, Blue you can get some decent speed worked up and get moving, as soon as that part of the mountain is open I'll be there.

They need one of the front four for me to show up (Sidewinder, Razor, Challenge, or Paradise), I just don't think its worth the extra time in the car to hang out on the shorter side of the mountain. Although I'm hitting up Mountain Creek tomorrow and they will have ONE trail open so, I probably shouldn't talk about not having shit open.

That would scare the shit out of me, I've worn a helmet for about 3/4 of my skiing, since I was in like 5th grade so I feel kind of naked without one. I've taken maybe a dozen runs without one since I started to wear it, and I just feel really out of sorts.

That happened to me more than once, it is fixable so the board is rideable again but it will never be the same. They will cut/grind out the broken crap, epoxy the edge back in, fill the area with ptex, stone grind it, wax it. Maybe a $75+ repair. The problem isn't that it wont be rideable, but that the front is going to be super fragile from now on, I broke mine once and fixed it, then when I hit it again, it just got worse and worse. When I did it to my board I ended up just buying a new board but it was closer to the end of the season, with the cold weather coming back you won't find many great deals until end of march. If you are looking for something in particular, I can check my shop for last years stuff and I might be able to cut a sweet deal so what are you replacing?

I agree completely, I saw that and now its no where to be seen. They've had the temperatures, where is the snow? And they have made snow during the day before so I'm thinking it might be equipment failure or something.

Who cares what you look like, they are fun and are better for your balance than any 4 wheel board for sure. I do want to try out the free board, but I just got a downhill long board so that is super fun. I got the Origianal Custom 35, made in NJ with super grippy trucks, they are great. It has a concave shape so when you are pushing it you still get good leverage, it has been helping cure the lack of snow blues for me this winter.

Whatever I get free at work, its usually Swix, and I use the temperature one not the all purpose for the most part since wax is free and I do it all the time, I can just re - do it. I wish they sold the size wax we have at work, its a huge brick that can do about a million pairs of skis and we have it by the case, I just want to buy one case and it would last me years. Does wax ever go bad? Sometimes I throw high Fluro wax on when I'm really going crazy, but not too much cuz that stuff is expensive and I bought it seperately.

Yea I just bought ski boots yesterday at work so I'm going to try out skiing again for the first time in 4 years, mainly just to demo stuff so I can answer questions on it better because right now I'm going on 2nd hand knowledge for the most part. We have a few demo skis at work that I'm going to try, but no twin tips. I'm going to try out anyone in the shop's twin tips that fit my boot but I'm not sure how many will. One guy has the same size boot as me, and he has 5 pairs of twin for me to try (Prophets, Chronics, Foils, 1080s, Kharmas) and there is another guy that has about 5 pairs but I'm not sure what size he has, although I know he has Invaders and an Armada ski. Not likely that I will get to go out on all of them but, I'll certaintly check it out. I wonder how I will be on twin tips, I stopped in 8th grade when I was landing 3's on straight skis, it will be nice to try out something actually designed for park.

Yea the difference is that I have a helmet and I also think that snowboarding, although less stable at speed, is safer when you crash. You have a triangle created between your hips and the board, which really prevents lower body injuries - unless you impact something lower body injuries are minimal and those are usually the catastrophic injuries that screw up skiers - knee damage and such. Upper body damage, you might break a wrist or your arm or shoulder easier than skiing, but those are fixable and dont' have much influence on being able to go out or not - plus we dont' have poles to really fuck up our shoulders if you snag them on something. Basically if you fall on a snowboard going really fast, you tumble a bit or slide really fast, but as long as you don't hit a tree the risk for injury is very minimal. Probably my favorite fall, I was bombing a run in Tremblant going pretty damn fast, and just tried to make a turn too tight for the speed and tumbled for a few flips, and when i stopped tumbling I was still travely probably 40 miles an hour head first on my back. The board was up in the air above me, and I was sliding down this trail for maybe 200 or 300 feet just gaining speed. I put one of my arms out and dragged it like a brake, and spun around so my board was downhill, and then I touched the board down to the ground and instantly went over the top of it into a frontflip, but put the board down and landed it. My friend couldn't believe it, but it was scary as hell to be sliding faster and faster toward the end of the trail and a thing of trees knowing if I didn't slow down I was toast. On skiis, not sure what would have happened but there was no way to slow yourself down there with just your boots, and i would have lost my skis a while ago.

Hey, I'll be out Friday 1/19 at like 10am. I should be there a solid 8 hours - even if it is just Horizon that trail is pretty epic for practicing butters and flat ground shit. Plus right after snowmaking the snow is stuck to the sides and I can do wall ride shit all fucking day on just one trail. I'll be happy just to get back to creek. Hopefully they open up some park features somewhere, I can't imagine them not putting stuff up - but so far doesn't look like they have anything on the report. I'm going up with 4 guys from work and my best friend, anyone else going up that wants to ride? I'll have a red jacket, white helmet, gray pants, white/black checkerboard goggles, not sure one what board/bindings I'm bringing yet, we'll see.

Its not a great idea, it doesn't gain you much if anything, (I think you lose some control although the board flexes easier), and the chance of breaking your board goes WAY up because they are not designed for it. Although last year the Uninc boards had 2 bolt standard and next years burtons have a completely different mounting system that only uses 2 bolts. It's called EST and the bolts are on the outside of the bindings, and there is a long track to slide the binding on, so the middle of the binding is just padding. Think just like a wakeboard binding.