Schif

I'll definitely consider it. I did get a new tailgating tent a few weeks ago that I haven't had the chance to try out yet.

That is a pretty serious list. That's the kind of stuff that would rival a Penn State Tailgate.

Thanks for all the well wishes guys. The update is that it's Tuesday and my arm is feeling better already. I'm down to just Tylenol to manage the pain, and I'm already starting to get some movement back. My shoulder still has a bump on it, and I'm still taking it really easy, but now I'm confident I won't need an amputation. I'm going to call the Orthopedist today and set up an appointment for early next week to see what's shaking. I've been on the phone a few times with my med school friends, and they seem to think it's a fairly easy injury to bounce back from, and actually told me there was no excuse to not go to the Scranton St. Patrick's Day Parade on Saturday. I'm still citing my "really bad shoulder" to people who want me to go though. Sorry, but paying $5 for a warm can of Bud Light in a sea of drunk assholes who smell like vomit and are covered in springtime mud isn't my idea of a good time. I skipped the parade the past 2 years to have some slope brews at Montage and actually watch from the top of Upper Fast Track the wildness going on in the city below. Pretty spectacular view from up there actually and I recommend it.

Spandex race suits were out in force on Saturday at Montage. People get really into NASTAR I guess.

Looks awesome out there man, sounds like an epic trip.

That's what I"m hoping for, we will see. Maybe worst case scenario, I can be a parking lot pimp at closing day and not even get on the snow at all.

Hey All, It's Monday, and I'm back from an awesome Saturday Session at the wonderful Montage Mountain Resort. I pulled into the lot at 8:40 and booted up, my friend pulled in right next to me at 8:45. We got geared up and headed down to the lodge to get him a ticket. We ran into 2 other guys that my pal was meeting up with and we started cruising the upper part of the mountain. 2 of the guys I was with used to work there, so we ended up meeting up with the head of the park crew, and lapping both the Spike (bigger) and Whistler (smaller) parks for a while. Features were prime, really smooth poppy jumps, and a nice array of boxes and rails to mess around on. After an hour or so, we did a few top to bottom runs on Long Haul, which was prime time for cracking a few beverages on. Snow was fantastic, super smooth groomed, and mid morning it was perfect, it softened up into a really great carveable surface. Boomer and Lightning were flat again, so a few big arc turns was all you needed to tear White Lightning up, I felt like I had conquered a beast after that. It started warming up a lot, (I only needed my shell all day over an under armour turtleneck and t-shirt), and the snow started to get sticky in spots. around 1 or so my pal got hungry so we stopped in the lodge and he grabbed a burger and we chilled on the deck outside while he ate it. Here comes the beginning of the end folks. We decided to head back up the mountain, and go back to the park on Whistler, it really was prime today and we were having a blast in there .We hit it about 4 times, then decided on the lift ride, that we would do it one more time, and then cruise down Ratter to Cannonball, and up Phoebe Snow to the waiting cars. I hit all the jumps, they were getting a little slow, so the air wasn't great, but it's all good. 3rd to last feature in the park was a very simple flat box that I had slid about 9 times already that day, but on the 10th of course I lost it at the end trying to spin off, and landed directly on my left shoulder. No biggie I thought, not much pain, but when I tried to push myself back up to my feet my left arm was pretty much dead. I pushed myself up and rode down with my left arm dangling by my side, and instantly decided it was time for my first trip to Ski Patrol in my 15 year career. Unfortunately since I was at the Iron Horse lift, I had to walk uphill to the Fist Aid building, but realistically I could have been stuck a lift ride away so it's all good. I could feel my arm now, and unfortunately I realized something was pretty messed up with my shoulder, especially when the patrollers got my jacket off and could see pretty easily through the under armour that my shoulders were not the same shape anymore. It hurt too much to move my arm up, so I didn't take a sling, and my buddy pulled the car around and we headed off to the hospital. Now my pal doesn't handle situations like this well, and as I found out in the past few weeks he actually has been drinking a lot, so I shouldn't have been surprised when he cracked a beer in the car, but I was a tad shocked when he stopped at the bottom of the access road to buy two 24 oz cans of stella. Guess a brew to calm the old nerves is more important than a busted shoulder. Anyway, we got there, he insisted he comes back into the ER with me, and we chill and make wisecracks about the lack of hot nurses and such, while I get evaluated. X-rays show a sprain/separation of the AC joint, which holds the clavicle to the scapula. No surgery needed, but I'm in a sling for 4 to 6 weeks, and some minor PT. Good Bye Sweet Ski Season, you shall be missed. Here is a fun picture we made the nurse take, for anyone who started reading and skimmed to the bottom, I'm sure you'll be going back up to see what happened now hahaha

I saw a porcupine under the lift at Montage yesterday.

Not pulling any punches there.

99 percent of the population couldn't ski 10 feet with their full concentration, and you can do it black out drunk. Gotta love being in an elite group

I saw on the camelback website that they are doing pond skimming on the 22nd and it's free. That might be a good day to head out there for me.

Gotta love their alien pass deal, but I'm surprised its starting so early.

I went up this morning to one of the only mountains around where I knew I wouldn't run into any PASRs in the parking lot. Since it's Montage I didn't feel any need to be up at the crack of dawn so I rolled into the lot leisurely around 10am.Temps were around 25 in the about half full lot, but I managed to snag a spot about 6 rows back from the Phoebe Snow unloading area. The snow was fantastic today, perfectly groomed "packed powder" or whatever the kids are calling it nowadays. Edgeable, smooth, and fast. No slick spots to be found all day. All the bumps had been mowed down on Smoke, Boomer and White Lightning, leaving smooth fresh surfaces to tear up. They made snow the past two nights, and it led to some fantastic conditions. White Lightning was dare I say it, very manageable. It's still steep as hell, but wasn't nearly as technical as usual, it was more of a bomb the hell out of it, carve some big turns and hold on to your hat. There was an ASRA race on Switch today, and I rode the lift with a British chap who lives in Jersey and travels all around for races, I knew he was serious because he had one of those little single bar facemasks on his helmet like a field goal kicker. The top of the mountain was just as good as the bottom, and I even ventured over to the lodge area and hit up Mainline and Easy Street for some good turns, at one point as I passed the lodge, I counted 3 people basking in the sun and apparently asleep in the Adirondack chairs on the deck by the fire pits, really taking in that "I'm on vacation" kind of attitude. After Easy Street, I cut across the top of the bunny slope, much to the chagrin of people jealous of someone on that trail that knew how to work a snowboard properly, and cruised down Cannonball for a sweet top to bottom run. A few more laps on the Northface, and I took off around 2 with temps around 34. There was still tons of great snow and moderate crowds at best, so I realistically could have stayed there all day, but I had some stuff to take care of so I left. As I'm driving down Montage Mountain road I get a call from my mom saying she was at the Shoppes at Montage just down the hill (It's very visible from the trails), and so I met her there, cruised around a shoe store wearing snowpants, and then I took her to lunch at Panera Bread. I'm hoping to convince some fair weather skiers to come out with me tomorrow, and then I'll have another report to write.

Binghamton typically travels south to Elk, but that's not a very big market.

They have a pretty cool set up in the conference room of the lodge now with these airboards lined up against the glass wall, and a video of guys using them playing on the back wall. Is it dumb? yeah, but if it makes them a few bucks with next to no investment then who cares. My guess is that whenever there is going to be some extreme and totally wicked air boarding, ski patrol will close off one of the beginner trails for a few minutes to accommodate the most extreme preteens in all of central jersey. For the rest of the time, we won't even notice it. The long and short of it to me is that it's a lot better than a mountain coaster.

That John Deere Tractor was running on Diesel backup power for a while on Saturday. I don't care if it runs on 2 mules attached to a pulley, as long as that things spins, I'll be snagging some awesome runs.

The fact that every mountain around here needs a summer operation should be an indicator that skiing alone isn't paying the bills anymore.

I saw the video, but I don't have any idea what it could be. I think the end was just a cool time lapse look at the lift. That side of the mountain couldn't support a high speed because it doesn't service enough terrain. Not to mention you would have to be able to ski a black diamond to get to it, which would either limit the people using it, or even worse, encourage people to go down a trail that they can't handle.

I second that

Great morning with you guys out there. Ridge Racer hit all the important parts, great snow, sunnier than I expected in the beginning and fantastic snow. It was a little chilly, 11 when I got there at 9:20 and 22 when we left around 1:00, but not terrible. If the snow wasn't as crusty I think we would have spent the entire day in the trees, but what was skiable was pretty great anyway. Parking lot beers were had before we took off, and it was nice to enjoy them uninterrupted by security guards. There was a guy in a yellow vest in the parking lot, but he only seemed interested in keeping Priuses from parking along the handicapped driveway. In other Montage news for the day, they had a rail jam on the brand new rail garden they built 2 days ago in front of the lodge, and when we ran over to the lodge for a quick bathroom break I noticed they set up a tent outside and were selling hot toddies, Irish coffees, and had a shot ski ready for any group of brave souls who were interested in that. As usual, the parking lot was packed, but there didn't seem to be any congestion on the trails and there were next to no lift lines. Life is good at Mount Tage.

Men's Slopestyle is pretty sick tonight. I had a rare day in the park this morning, and now this is the icing on the cake. I wish the rail section of the course was a little more interesting though.

Went up for opening today, around 830 and had a spectacular day as usual. The weather was cold, but the sun felt good on my face and legs. Snow was squeaky as I walked across the base area after waiting for my friend to get a ticket, and was pretty fast as we took our first run down cannonball. The Alpine Tracker app clocked me in a 48.1 mph on that run and the rest of the day was pretty similar. Great groomed conditions all over the mountain. I tried to go in the woods off of upper Fast Track and at first I felt like I needed an Navy Ice Breaker ship to get me out of the predicament I was stuck in, i.e. crust on the dust, but in a secondary and tertiary and quaternary run, I had a lot of fun in the woods. There were a lot of tracks already through the trees, including a wide swath scratched out which actually made the woods very rideable. the only issue is that you couldn't really go off the beaten path, but I still had a great time in there. Lots of top to bottom runs like that today. Lots of fun cutovers from trail to trail were the same way, lending for much more tree riding than I initially thought. Everywhere else it was all perfect edgeable and fast cord with the exception of Boomer which was half bumped and White Lightning which had been mowed down within the past 3 days and is starting to bump back up now, but they are a lot smaller than usual. I grabbed a few parking lot beers, one in the Lodge, and one in the car on the way home and had a fantastic Saturday.

The course wasn't the reason he backed out. It's a fairly similar set up from the X games a few weeks ago. He's a business and wants some gold medals, not wasting time on something he can't win. Not cool man. If you qualify, then do it, if you're not interested, don't even try out. Also, this might be a weird observation, but it's something I just don't get, I noticed this at the X-games a few weeks ago, and again tonight. What's with these people wearing a hat, then putting their goggles on, then putting their helmet on. Or just having a helmet and no hat, but the goggles still underneath. I can't think of any people that I know who do this, maybe I'm doing it wrong with just a helmet and goggles outside in the strap, but I doubt it.

10 inches in my driveway when I shoveled at 7 this morning. I just walked in the door so it looks like I missed the good stuff today. Hopefully the good stuff wasn't found today and will be available for me tonight or tomorrow.

Saw this pretty cool aerial shot of the Northface on Montage's facebook this morning, figured I would share it with y'all.