Schif

That's rough news man, Heal up soon!

I love Elk, but when it comes to costs,

I was up at Montage on Tuesday. Wasted 99.8% of my night trying to teach my lady friend how to ride, then I cruised the North Face for a bit while she pouted in the Lodge. Bunny slope was in great shape, and the lift was running superbly for all 66 vertical feet, snow was machine made packed powder, and the top 40 from the past decade was blasting from the Bose sound system. All the double diamonds on the north face had bumps, and some solid snow in them too. I didn't go on Lightning, but the bumps looked really big from the bottom.

I'll be down that way tomorrow. I'll have to see what my friday looks like

Just saw in an email that starting tomorrow and for the rest of the season, they are having "Throwback tuesday" where tickets are $19.84 and rentals are $5

Roads in the general area of Montage are OK this morning and the threat of ice will go down as the day goes on. Not that it matters to me since I'm typing this from my office.

If it was, were you going to go catch it?

Conditions were good today, lift lines were short when they existed at all, and the mountain was a good time all around. White Lightning was groomed so no bumps and lots of speed. Upper part of the mountain was socked in some fog for a while, but it's all good. Snow was smooth all around. Run of the day for me was Spike to Rattler to Cannonball. Smooth and fast. The only place that had a lift line over 3 minutes was the North Face which took about 4 minutes to get on a chair. Everything except Upper Runaway, Upper Fast Track and Lower Fast track were open. I got there a few minutes before 8 and got a parking spot just feet away from the top of Phoebe Snow. Temps were high 30s with high humidity.

I'm on my way up now. I'll report back.

Long Haul gets a lot of criticism for not running a lot, but at the end of the day the people that want to use it do, and the ones that don't use the other lifts. Long Haul is the farthest lift away from the lodge and until all of the trails over there are open, it doesn't make any sense to run a lift to nowhere. Last year I timed a ride on long haul to be right around 11 minutes. Not exactly a fast ride, but you get a solid 1000' feet of vert for that, no lines to get on it, plenty of time to drink a good beer, uncrowded trails and glades and almost 800' of tree skiing from there (1000' if you're willing to hike a bit). At the end of the day it services 3 top to bottom trails, or some more if you're willing to cruise in and out and across a bunch of others. I learned to absolutely love long haul last year. It's an experience. At montage you don't have to rush around to get your runs in before the place tracks out and gets too crazy. A nice relaxed day riding the long haul is fantastic. You hardly see any other people, it's quiet, it's relaxing, it's what skiing is supposed to be about.

According to my brother who works there, they had a pretty massive snowmaking water line blowout and only got around to fixing it a few weeks ago.

Epic looking day Barb, very jealous here on the East Coast.

I only went to Cback once last year, but for having between 34 and 49 named trails, the place skis very small to me. I was there on a very uncrowded day with no real lift lines, and it got boring after only a few hours. Also, does anyone know if they still do that thing where if you dress up like santa you can ski for free on Christmas Eve? I'm the proud owner of a Santa Suit recently (the reason why is a post all it's own) and if that is still a thing, it might be worth a trip.

Looks like you guys had a full on parking lot party going there. I might have to swing on down to blue this weekend.

Website says they opened with Whistler, Boomer, and the bunny slope

I saw a boat in Trenton NJ today that was named "Summer of George"

That's a sweet link, thanks. I might actually do that too as I've been wanting to switch over to skiing for a while now

I'm alright, injury is all but gone now, real busy with work lately, lots of traveling for that, and for fun too. Hopefully I see all of you guys at Blue soon, this season is getting off to a really slow start for me so far but hopefully I'll get in the swing soon and start traveling more this year.

Best Anti-Injury Advice I could give to anyone is to never ever call last run. "Come on man, one last lap through the park then we can do rattler to cannonball and ride up to the car" sent me directly to the hospital last season.

Eagle Rock blew a snowmaking water main last year and according to my brother who is the golf course superintendent there, they just started fixing it a week or so ago.

Lots of Snow in Wilkes-Barre today!

Long Haul is the best for great top to bottom tree skiing and slowly sipping a bottle of beer.

Long Haul was running all the time last year.

I miss the good old days of Sno Mountain. Sara, I totally remember the days when I went to get a lift ticket and they gave me a wristband with a cartoon moose on it. Those were the days. RIP the moose, you are sorely missed by the PASR community. For a while we actually were beating Blue Mt. the True Mt. in the costumed mascot department, that felt good to have a leg up on those snooty blue mountain regulars. The super pipe was cool too. I rode it once and cried tears of joy when I got back to the ground without 33 broken bones. While short, that thing was legit. Very well built but for someone like me it was overwhelming. Pretty cool that the remnants of it were still visible from I-81 in June though. When the season really gets cranking, Sara should get together with some of us for some turns and the beers that inevitably follow. Perhaps that will mellow some of the hostility?

Can't go wrong with a WalMart chick. I hear the ones at Target are too high maintenance.