Schif

With how much you love trains I'm surprised you don't come to Montage more often to enjoy their railroad inspired trail and lift names.

Scranton is called the Electric City, the national park is called Steamtown

Guess I'll throw my stuff in the car and wait for boulder's opening day announcement. I can hit walmart and be at boulder in less than 40 minutes from the office.

Woah! Lots going on in the Montage Forum and I'm busy not paying attention to the internets. Welcome Sara, as of now you and I are the only people on this board that actually spend a decent amount of time at Montage. I'm glad they tested the guns, and yes it wold be nice to blow tons of snow and get wild, but Montage is still, pardon the pun, gun shy about pushing for super early openings. I'm sure they see the 50 degrees on the weekend and rain as a liability and just aren't willing to throw away money. Sure these things kind of suck for us, but at the end of the day it makes financial sense to be tight with the purse strings the first few years, especially considering the infrastructure improvements from last year that cost more than a few bucks. I love that mountain more than I love my own house, and I would love to grab some turns up there next week, but I would prefer resort wide solvency to an extra 5 days in November on the snow. Also I agree that some of the lifties are out of their minds. From the one that tries to do handstands on ski poles with his feet up near the bullwheel to the one that is 7 sizes too big for his Montage issued jacket so it can't zip, they are a wacky bunch and I'm sure more than a few are working there as a means to hide from someone or something.

Hang a hard right at the top of the White Lightning headwall. Any more info will come after I see a cold six pack at the top of Phoebe Snow.

No problem. I hope you guys make your way back up this way this season. I don't remember if I took you guys from the top of white lightning to the bottom of smoke in the woods, but that is a route that I hope all the PASR's get a chance to hit at some point.

I wound up going up and over a deck one year. Good times back there.

The Tree skiing on the North Face was out of this world last year

I wonder what brand of socks Robert2 recommends when it's time to dress like an astronaut

Ruffed Grouses are masters when it comes to locating happy hours (similar to homing pigeons finding their homes)*, so I'm sure they would figure out the best times to get past the automatic sliding doors and into Blue's Bar. *Pigeons Quarterly, August 14, 2012

I would have to agree with Jeff on this one. I used to be a first chair to last chair kind of guy, especially on trips to VT, but pushing for extra runs after exhausting yourself and in poor conditions seems like a bad time to me now. I mean at a certain point you're just out there for the sake of being out there. If my legs are shot or the mountain is skied off I typically just hit a few cruisers to relax then take it to the bar. I've never had a barstool or dance floor injury, but I've had a late in the day/bad snow injury.

It certainly looks like they did

Updated to reflect the latest census

Well this plays into the post I was going to make tomorrow actually. I was up looking at a job in Henryville PA, which is where alpine mountain is, and I drove by and walked around to take a look at the place. I've got a bunch of pictures to upload, but in short, the lodge looks like it's almost finished with a nice looking renovation, there is a skating rink in the parking lot, and there are a lot of chairs taken off of the lifts and arranged in a Stonehenge like pattern all over the base area.

Elk is a fun mountain. Worth going to for the long runs and relatively uncrowded trails. It's in the middle of nowhere, so you get some nice views from the top, and the slow lifts give you plenty of time to drink a beer on the lift. They're not fans of it at all, but there is some fantastic tree skiing if you go for it.

I've seen this trend too. I used to have a pretty large pool of friends to call up to go to the mountain, or in the summer to go golfing. Both of those groups have dwindled to maybe one or two.

I guess that would explain all the kids I see cruising around town on scooters. Weird how things change like that. I can't imagine being a kid and using a scooter as my get around town vehicle. It was all bikes all the time. I can't even imagine seeing a front yard full of ditched scooters, we probably would have made fun of those kids.

I'm not surprised at all that most countries aren't interested in this. Between the IOC, and the fact that 90% of these facilities are useless after the events are over, it doesn't make any sense to build them in the first place. If everyone could get on the same page and realize that the opulence and insane infrastructure isn't worth it, then maybe the games would scale back into something a little more desirable for host countries. The concept of building an Olympic Village in somewhere where there was once nothing sounds like an economic boon at first, but the sad reality of the last few olympics is that it's simply not true. If you look at Vancouver, they did it right. Used existing facilities, and built only a few extras. Currently it seems like almost everything they did for the games has been re-purposed and is in use.

The people who are tripping here for the weekend probably aren't concerned about vert as much as we are. 1000 feet can ski like 2,500 if you don't know what you're doing.

Everyone needs to chill out with the pumpkins. I still want to swing another beach trip.

That drink also brings a measurable amount of girls wearing uggs and screaming about pumpkin patches and how much they love sweatshirts.

Root wins best desk for today

I think toast and I have the same pen. It's a quality writing piece, y'all should be jealous.

We went up and over Exeter mountain, which is about 3 minutes from my house, but once you park the car on the street it's a world away. Very steep trail going up to the place where we built a campsite so everything you want comes up on your back and there is no going back for more supplies.