method9455

I don't know there are a lot more skiers throwing down at mountain creek than snowboarders with spins on rails and off not to knock you nipples cuz ur a lot better than I was on skies but it might just be your height. I'm not sure how tall you are but when I was younger I couldn't jump nearly as high as I can now on skies or a snowboard. Once you get taller and stronger you can get a lot higher off the flat ground, especially if lift a lot. I'm in the gym or at practice 6 days a week all fall and spring and now in the winter I can get so much higher than even 2 years ago much less like middle school age. I've heard that complaint a lot from skiers though so I dunno, but I still say there are guys at mountain creek who throw down way harder than snowboarders on the jibs. Now all I have to figure out is how far BB is from University of Delaware. Anyone know?

actually they are, Big Boulder confirmed it

Where are you heading to? You did a great job on it last year.

yea I dunno how hardcore it will be day 1. They did have 2 progression parks at mountain creek last year, with like 6-15 foot tables and ride on boxes and rails, and a little quarter pipe, it was like 5 rails and 3 jumps spread out on two trails. Then they had a medium line of 1 gap on box, 2 gap on downslope boxes, and a like 15 foot table. But the main park was like 40 foot rails with streetstyle setups, kinked rails, round rails, 40+ foot jumps, a 65 foot hip, wooden features, a 50 foot battleship box, 50 something foot down-flat-drop-down box, so I wouldn't be suprised by a shitload of hard rails in your park becuase I don't think they would have left to go and create a bunch of small park stuff, it was like you had to drag them kicking and screaming to make small features (which made me happy, becuase learning on small shit is good but if you make it too easy it dhttp://www.paskiandride.com/forums/style_images/pasr/folder_rte_images/image.gif Insert Imageoesn't prepare you for big shit and u just get more hurt) that last one is a picture of like the easier setup stuff

Coming from a Mountain Creek local, I'm so stoked. I moved down to University of Delaware, and heard rumors this was coming. I had hoped Blue had recruited them but it was rumor they were going to the Poconos, and I knew it was BB, Blue, or Bear Creek (cuz Camelback wouldn't spend the money these guys want for sure, and Shawnee has a good manager already). BB is in for some good shit. 30 jibs in a summer is no big deal for them I'm sure, they build average 15 a year just to refresh mountain creek, at the minimum. They will build 4 or 5 for an event (example - Grand Prix rails every year, the Casino rail for that one jam session in Atlantic city). And if you think you won't have gap on rails in PA, well there wasn't a single ride on rail at MC last season in the main park, in fact it was all pretty much street style or like deathly gap so expect a big step up in the difficulty of the park and the size of hte jumps. The big question is what happens to Mountain Creek? They will still have lots of good jibs but will it be groomed as well? Becuase a lot of mountains have good jibs and then suck

seriously i would live in like east bumble fuck utah, colorado, montana, idaho, anywhere. You make it work. I drive 2 hours for shit now I'd drive 4 for a great mountain. Park City is an hour from more mountains than you can shake a stick at. The best mountain within an hour of my house is Mountain Creek. The best mountain within two hours of my dorm room is blue mountain. Imagine driving less than I do to get to blue, and choosing from Park City, Brighton, Solitude, Snowbird, and Alta. I agree Park City might not be the cheapest, but the more tourist a place is, the more jobs there are. Sure the same # of jobs on the mountain, but when u have a place like Tremblant with a town of shops, restaurents, bars, etc, they all need employees. Or you can go to Blue Mountain and theres nothing there so the only jobs are on the hill. Yes I know a job on the hill is preferabble for the season pass, but I think I'd rather work everynight in a bar and ski during the day, sleep in the afternoon than have to work the lifts for half the days you can ski. Either way, your one lucky mo-fo.

yea instead of the teeter tot how bought a single barrel rail like 2" diameter 30 feet long? Probably easier to make too. I'd take one 4 foot high and flat or streetstyle downslope same height as a handrail, that would be way more fun than a teeter tot rail. I still say the only fun circus rails are S rails becuase they actually make you focus on your balance, where as the roller coaster rail is just something people ride on and 50-50, enough tries you get it.

oh yea that wasn't hating on nipples at all don't worry, just icon. Its not about age its seeing/complaining about park progression. Icon complains because every park on the east coast didn't just come out of a mack dawg movie. But COMPARED TO WHAT THEY WERE, the poconos has stepped up so much in the last 5 years. Remember when Shawnee only had 3 jumps a mound of snow for a halfpipe and a pipe half exposed in the ground as a rail? Oh yea and a 3 foot long rainbow rail that was 6" high. Or when Mountain Creek's halfpipe was at South and it had like 8 foot walls? Or when Camelback's park sucked balls (oh wait it still does). I had never been to Blue before this season, but I've been going to Mountain Creek (VV/GG), Shawnee, and Camelback for 15 years, so the progression is there, and in 5 years what we have now will look quaint (although I plan to be out west in 5 years so you'll have to tell me). Sure they're not perfect, but I don't expect Blue mountain to wake up tomorrow and make a better park than mammoth, its small steps every year. They took a big step this year by clearing the trail wider and straighter, that was one of my biggest complaints. Lets see how things are setup this year, Mountain Creek has improved their grooming a huge amount just this year vs. last year becuase of people complaining, and their pipe was twice as good and open a month earlier, just one summer made a huge differance because they knew how much snow had to be made, they implimented park passes, and they got a new snow cat. And yes, they too need more improvement (open more features earlier!), but it happens over time be patient.

In case you didn't know, Icon is the best snowboarder ever. Thus he has the only opinion that matters on parks, becuase at 12 he has seen more parks than anyone else here. Forget the fact that a lot of us were throwing 360s on skies before he even thought about snow, and THEN we came and started doing it on snowboards too. No no no, KNOWING about parks just comes down to being young enough to try a frontside boardslide enough times becuase falling at age 7 doesn't hurt.

Tettertot rail is a waste of time. If it were the only one ever made it would be interesting to hit a few times, for creativity, but its not. It is a copy of some one else's unique idea, except that its not really a good one. What can you do on a tettertot rail that you can't do anywhere else? Better question what can you do on any other kind of rail - you can hit it with less time inbetween becuase it doesn't have to reset - you can not look like a tool the whole time your playing on a circus rail - you can have a sweet smooth rail setup well that can be hit nice and fast which is more fun any day case closed

Traversing I plan to do, I've seen pictures of a short hike off of millicent that leads to some cliff drops, I've never dropped anything more than like 8 feet so that might be worth a hike and my girlfriend doesn't have to go up with me for that. Timeless I saw your pictures when you posted them before and it was one of the reasons I really wanted to go to Utah becuase it looked so good. Thanks for the advice I'm going to look into SLC and busing, it should be about a half hour to the mountain right?

no steeze don't worry we get that one alot. just to put that to bed before the thread gets hijacked about it, we've been together for a long time, but me being in delaware, her in hawaii, in college, we know thats not going to work out so we're single now ( i just can't get my mindset off calling her my girlfriend), we just talk a few times a week, but i can do whatever i want at college, so we have no expectations, thus nothing ot fight over. Our going to Utah is 99.99 percent certain. Assuming we're both still breathing in March, we'll be there. Hell we already have $1500 each saved seperately from everything else just for this vacation. (Yea she snowboards well AND pays for things - come on I'll still be with her in March thats too good to be true) The rest day is more likely the only day we won't ride first chair to last chair, more likely an afternoon ticket and i'll ride park and she can cruise short runs so we can catch up, don't worry I wouldn't waste a day away like that. My Tremblant trip I did 5 days straight first chair to last chair, actually we were literally first chair 3 days, and we would bring our lunch up on the last chair, snowboard down 100 feet or so, wait till the lift shut down and everyone was down, and go for an empty hill run down to the base area - but I'm not sure how her legs will be with 2 months of not snowboarding even with running/gym time so some rest has to be in there for her. Anyway back to my questions - primarily, which has better steep groomed trails, is park city worth the extra money for the restaurents if we don't have a car, and it looks like the brighton/park city public transportiation issue is answered. i saw links to the public trans info, but the webiste was down so i wasn't sure.

Hey, So I'm going out to Utah for Spring Break next year. Sunday March 25th - Saturday the 30th, skiing most likely Mon/Tues Thurs/Fri, maybe Wednesday but I bet a break will be appreciated. My girlfriend is going to college in Hawaii, I'm on the east coast flying out of Newark, so airfare is going to be a bitch, plus one of us will have to wait for the other so most likely no skiing that first sunday, or the saturday. Both of us are advanced riders for east coast conditions - ie no problem with any of the trails at Blue, Mountain Creek. I ride anything in Tremblant/Stratton/Mount Snow/Hunter (the only mountains I've been to north of PA/NJ) but she's never really had a shot at powder. I ride park, she does a few rails and jumps but like the smaller stuff at Blue not really anything over a 15 foot jump or a 20 foot rail. We'll be staying in bounds (considering she won't even see snow this winter beforehand). I've researched a lot and decided on either Brighton or Park City. We're both 18 so no rental car. One guy at my ski shop goes out to Utah all the time and he says he loves Brighton/Solitude, becuase Park City is over priced. BUT he does almost all of his stuff out of bounds, so he hikes out of Brighton/Solitude, which have good backcountry access I know. But I won't be doing that, and it looks like Brighton has much less vert and acrage compared to Park City. Any comments on that? Steeper groomed runs will probably be what we're looking for, and some powder thrown in. Definatlely skipping any begginer runs so looking for lots of runs that are like the blacks on the east coast, without the ice, which one has more terrain like that? The second consideration is lodging. Brighton has a baseside room for 125 a night with lift ticket included, Park City has an resort room for 140 a night with lift tickets included, its 2 blocks from the lift. Thats about the distance I'm used to staying at Tremblant, and a walk is fine, so that is kind of a wash. However I think the room at Park City has a fireplace which is a big bonus to dry the equipment out since we'll be riding 4/5 days. So thats kind of a wash. However the guy at work warned me food was mad expensive in Park City. Is that true, or can you get by on less? Plus I'm worried there doesn't look like there is any town at Brighton. While I'm not worried about finding clubs or nightlife really, it would be nice to have something to walk around a little for dinner since we won't have a car. What is the area around Brighton like? Final question, can you take public transit from one mountain to the other? No matter where I go I'm going to spend one day at the other. Sorry for the long post, its my first trip out west, its a hell of a lot of money, and the first time I get to see her in a lot of months (already in Hawaii) so I want to make it a good trip. Thanks for any advice.

i would do nastar on a snowboard if it was available, don't make me bust out the hi-flouro wax

your pictures died - too much bandwidth?

I'm heading to Park City in March for spring break I'll post about it when I get more details. But definately Utah just most likely staying in Park City and riding a day or two in Brighton, the rest at PC.

I don't think most of the rails are meant to be taken head on, every year the 'gap' gets smaller and smaller and the ramp lower. Basically the rail buts up to the ramp, the ramp is a foot below the top of the rail. Thats better than those rails where you aren't quite sure if you can make it cuz the gap is huge. At least here you know you have to come in from the side. I don't know what the equivalent of ollieing is on skis, but there are plenty of skiers who don't seem to have trouble getting on them from the side, and I it better because it forces you to committ more. I find on anything that you can hit straight on I end up not committing as much and if you don't committ on a straight on gap rail you may or may not make it on, where as a streetstyle setup if you don't commit you just land on snow.

well if they are widening the trail things associated with the edge of the trail will have to be updated i.e. lighting and snowmaking. I'm all for the weekday comp, as for categories, dont split it too much. Maybe just an open and an amateur catagory. The open would have a cash prize (or a big swag prize like a snowboard or bindings or something - get a local shop to sponsor one prize per comp) and the am category would have like a t-shirt or something much smaller. No one is going to sandbag for a t-shirt. The more categories you make, the more admin at the comp and the less just riding. Plus if you don't have that many poeple you get like 3 person categories. As for the gaps onto rails, I'm not a skier anymore but I will tell you the skiers at Mountain Creek throw down even more than the snowboarders so I don't think the gap is the issue, you just need to get used to it. I used to hate it, I broke 2 snowboards when I didn't get high enough and cartwheeled over the rail after clipping the nose of hte board, but I feel like a much better rider now than before I got used to it.

mountain creek has a winch cat and uses it for all their landings, and their landings are buttery smooth. That will eventually be a necessity at Blue, you end up using less snow becuase you can push uphill on steep sections with it, so the snow ends up on the feature not around it. creek also has an amazing amount of money in their halfpipe but I don't think Blue or Bear or anyone south of MC should bother with it. MC's pipe is amazing but without the Grand Prix it would never be open, it is always a dash to open it up and the weather is just borderline doable even with all of the management behind it as a marketing tool. In areas south where the weather is even worse, and without 110% support by management to it opening early every year, it would be a massive waste (example A - roundtop). As for sidewinder getting wider, that is awesome. Don't care step down/step up/table they are all fun. I say Blue makes the best lips on a step down around here, but Mountain Creek makes hte best table tops (the table top/hip combo is always a good one btw, setup the table on the side of hte trail with the lip on the inside so you can hit it straight or as a hip) Glad Blue is my home mountain next year. Better snowguns never hurt - they are all more efficient now saving Blue money and opening the park for us sooner. More streetstyle/gap setups would be sweet, ride on scare me becuase I'm so used to ollieing/climbing up into the rail from Mountain Creek

I don't know, never met him. Line never did a clinic, no Line rep ever stopped in, was the only one to do that out of Ride Snowboard, Burton, 32, Northwave, GNU, LibTech, Arbor, K2 Snowboard, K2 Ski, Volkl, Rossi, Atomic, Line, and Lange. So yea, no idea.

Yea the ski industry is more conglomerated than you'd think. And Justo I agree that sending out the letter that said stick with us we know we had problems, we'll be back next year etc was a stand up move. However we're in the only shop around here that didn't drop line becuase of this season, I know of 3 shops that did. THe only reason we stuck with it is becuase the guy who runs our ski shop is in love with his Prophets. But we had so many issues with them it was a tough call, and we have a tiny order next year from them. As for the bindings, I can see if they weren't servicing them or replacing parts, no big deal. But we were looking for simply a wide brake to mount the binding on another ski. With the freedom plate and all that crap the bindings were obviously intended to be on a lot of differant skis, and this guy only had the normal brake the first time. We called up line to order it after already promising this guy a brake and that was when we found out there was nothing available, they should have at least warned us so we didn't promise this guy something we couldn't deliver. It's possible your rep was better than ours becuase it seems like a lot of our issues are things like, basically no communication between them and us, where as you had that. Its sad but sometimes personalities effect what you can buy at a ski shop. If you come into our shop, you won't be able to get a Nitro board, even if they were good boards, becuase the NJ rep was at one point so bad and ripped our owner off so many times that he just will not buy Nitro boards anymore. Anyway - I certaintly hope they turn it around next year becuase they are sweet skis and its a good company, but they had a lot of issues this year that can only be blamed on trying to cut costs somewhere. THey probably went with cheaper epoxy, I'm not sure why no ski companies use Plexus epoxy yet, but they should.

Justo, I'm pretty sure you worked in a shop right? I dunno going into this season Line had a good rep, but 2005-2006 was a bad year. I worked at a shop, and the only skis we had come back for warranty repairs this year were Lines, like 6 pairs. 2 of those pairs were guys at the shop who bought lines (Celebrity & Prophet 80). All 6 pairs delaminated. One pair delaminated before it ever touched snow on the roof rack going from NJ to VT. Thats not a quality ski. They didn't stand behind their product very well at all, they gave the guys that work at my shop credit for an 06-07 ski, but no replacement for this year, and no cash to go and buy another companies ski, so they were SOL for this year, which in my opinion is not standing behind your product. They also didn't stand behind their bindings, someone came in looking for some parts to fix a binding (wide bracket I believe) and we said we'd order it. Call up Line - "uh yea we're getting out of the binding business, don't even have parts for ya" was their response. So will K2 save them? Maybe. Will you see an obvious differance in K2, probably not. Like someone said, K2 and Volkl are the same company, but they even have differant reps that come to the shops and they have differant technologies etc. Besides I believe at some point it is all just owned by Quicksilver so there are a million brands that are all together.

weather, have you ever seen how much snow goes into a super pipe? Even one like mountain creek's that has almost all of the base built out of dirt hills it takes a massive amount of snow. Think dirt mounds 15 feet high, however wide across. They have to fill that whole thing with snow and then it gets pushed around. It is a serious drain on the rest of the mountain's snowmaking budget. And mountain creek is getting big time money out of the marketing and TV stuff for the Grand Prix, Bear Creek doesn't have much reason to do it. Look at Roundtop, they dumped their super pipe becuase it was so expesnive.

I don't see what the differance is, the area is saturated with ski hills for the market. If one place did it, it would work. I've personally been thinking if Hidden Valley NJ did they would work out becuase u get a big draw from Mountain Creek already, it has almost 1000 vert but its like 4 or 5 top to bottom runs and a really long bunny hill, I mean really long. THe bunny hill could be a jib park, everything else a mixed park. The problem is right now there is basically no park. But its dieing, someday it will close. Thats when I see it following Bear Mountain, Ecko mountain, and boreal mountain. (all 3 are all park mountains and they work it just fine)

The mojos are a good ski, I was going to get Scratches only becuase the pro form deal was better. Too bad I got a speeding ticket and it wiped out my ski equipment budget this year. I would say Mojo, Scratch, and Prophet 80 were the best 3 I saw this year, except that Line turned out to be complete crap in terms of quality this year. HOpefully better next year.