Schif

3-9-13 and 3-10-13 With this kind of weather, everyone was all atwitter about the upcoming weekend and the Scranton parade. I had two options, either go downtown, push through crowds of filthy revelers in the morning, not actually see the parade and pay $5 for a can of Coors light from a trough, or I could head up to the big mountain that overlooks that mess. Clearly I took the latter. I lazed about in the morning, which is not ever a big deal at Sno Mountain, and cruised into the lot around 10am. I booted up beneath beautiful blue skies and right next to the bottle of Bell's Pale ale. I loaded up my pockets with some Budweiser and cruised on off and headed up the Iron Horse lift. The snow was beautiful. Soft, smooth, hardly rutted up and no slick spots to speak of. The M.O. of the day was big slashes and buttering around under blue skies. After a few top to bottom runs I went back to the car and dropped my lightweight jacket and helmet, in favor of an Adidas soccer jacket and a pair of sunglasses. At this point I took in a few glasses of Rare Vos by Ommegang, and continued to enjoy the fact that I wasn't jockeying for position at a dirty bar. I put some cans of Blue Point Toasted Lager in my pockets and headed down Cannonball. The headwalls were just perfect for jumping and one of the highlights of the day was launching the second one along with a few ski patrolers, and unlike Blue where they clip your ticket, they gave me props and followed suit. More cruisers, more rippers on the northface, and the snow was still holding up pefectly. By 2:30 or so there were some brown spots poking through in heavily traveled connectors, but other than that the snow was awesome. I took a break at this point and cruised into the lodge. The end is near, as they only have a few domestic brews left, most of the tap handles are gone. I ordered a buffalo chicken paninni and a side of fries for $12. Not a bad deal, and the sandwich was actually very good, super fresh bleu cheese and nice sauce. Back at it for another 7 runs after that, as I was getting a tad tired. Mostly top to bottoms and enjoying basking in the sun up top. I got home about 7pm after dropping my friend off, and immediately took a nap, while realizing I got sunburned. Sunday was a super lazy day for me. Rolled out of bed and went to Church, and only got up to the mountain at 1. Again, it's Sno mountain so that's not a problem. Soft snow, not quite as warm thanks to some clouds but still an awesome day. I actually spent a lot of time lapping the park. The jumps were in great shape and were really fun to hit, even for someone who doesn't do it much. Beers for the day included a bomber of Stone Arrogant Bastard, Stella Artois, and Labatt Blue. Lunch was a run down to the Shoppes at Montage for a burrito at Panchero's. Snow was just as good as Saturday, the connector from Phoebe Snow to Cannonball was a little brown, but not too bad. Overall it was easily the most fun weekend of the year, and I was on the mountain for back to back nearly 7 hour sessions. Epic weekend. Though some spots were getting thin, it was not nearly bad enough to warrant closing any trails yet. Good times to be had by all.

Just another wonderful day of clouds, clouds and more clouds here in the Wyoming Valley

Since 10 dollar tuesday is such a big deal there, they are bringing it back tomorrow and Friday too.

I got up there around 6:30 last night and conditions were a scraped off sugar in sections, and fast hardpack in others. I was even able to find a few spots of fresh corduroy on some of the blues. The lot was around 3/4 full, but the crowds and lines thinned out around 8 and it was a pretty good session after that

Winter Continues in full force. I'm pretty cold here in the office today. Unfortunately everyone else in the world is looking towards spring.

Eh, if it preserves the base I'm ok with it. Plus I've got one of those rare job type things, so they are only really closed when I'm busy anyway.

Sno just started their late season schedule this week. Closed during the day during the week, except for 10 dollar Tuesdays which is 9 to 9.

That is some epic stoke

It would be pretty awesome to help create a new trail, and I'm pretty good with a wood chipper if I do say so myself. However I don't think there is enough tea in china to even cover the first month's premium for the insurance that would cover a bunch of random people running all over a mountain with chainsaws.

Great report, and it's awesome that you guys had a great time!

We didn't really get any rain to speak of yesterday so It should be in good shape still. I wish I had seen this earlier I might have headed up for a while today, but I was just feeling lazy and watched golf all day.

I've been wanting to do this for a while now, just never took the plunge. Here is a question for the ski guys here, my brother got a sweet pair of Rossignol skis a few years ago, and has since stopped skiing. His feet are about 2 or 3 sizes smaller than mine, so I can't just pop into his boots and go like I would like to. Are bindings easily adjusted to fit a bigger boot if I got a pair, or are these skis just not going to ever work for me?

Heading up to Sno now, I'll probably take tomorrow off.

The guys from here I've met are definitely a good time, and when I've gotten out to mountains with them they've been some pretty epic days. It kind of sucks though that everyone is pretty centrally located down around the LV and I miss out on a lot of the Blue Mountain Shenanigans. Maybe I'll have to scoot down there on a weekend morning sometime. What about PASR days? are those just kind of on the backburner?

Just looks like another hassle to deal with when I pull off trail to take a little break.

It would be easy for SAR to make the distinction, and equally easy for that kind of thing to not hold up in court unfortunately. An extra quarter on a lift ticket wouldn't be the end of the world, but on principle it annoys me that I would have to pay for some guy in jeans from Passaic NJ to get out of a situation he shouldn't have been in. However I can also say that I wouldn't be all that upset if I paid half a buck or something to help out some guy who took all the right precautions, and the situation turned on him. Double edged sword there. I think there should be a little study done to determine where and how often per year these rescues take place, and determine roughly how much money would be spent each year on those rescues. Then each mountain could put a surcharge, maybe $1-2 on season passes, and $.25 on daily tickets until that amount is collected and then put it in the bank. Pay out of the fund for rescues until it gets low, and then start surcharging again to fill the account. Then there isn't a tax on every single person to use the mountain all year, but the money would still be available if need be.

Anyone want to carpool to a zoo to see pandas?

The word on the mountain is that the two companies bidding on the place are camelback and Mohegan sun

Who doesn't love pandas? Most dangerous game you know. Don't you mean man? Man is the most dangerous game? You've never been between a momma panda and her cubs then. Gotta love those gray market safaris. On another note, everyone chillax. Grilled steeze is dumb, but that's half the fun, and I'm not really missing too much of Doug lyfe anyway thanks to my facebook feed exploding from Mr. Steeze Sandwich every day. Let's just all have fun and have more PASR days, drink a bunch of beer on the lifts together, read highly detailed trip reports about Haunted Houses and ski so fast that our hair almost catches on fire.

Awesome report. Looks like an epic trip.

Its definitely this Tuesday Too as per their Facebook. Its great out here now. Not a cloud in the sky and the snow is in good shape still for a holiday

I don't think I'll be up there tonight (roped into some sort of valentines day dinner thing) but for anyone interested, they are doing the torchlight parade tomorrow night, so I'll head up then.

Wow, I guess drinking in public is more pervasive than I thought. I like to fill my pockets with beers and have a good time on the lifts, but I don't usually pull them out if other people are on the lift.

I would feel so weird having a buzz going and being surrounded by kids playing on slides. They should have an adults only lazy river where you can take drinks with lids on the tubes. I would post up there all summer.

Can you really get drunk at a waterpark? I would feel like that's pretty well frowned upon.