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Today was a legendary day at Camelback, the greatest ski resort in northeastern Pennsylvania, maybe even the best in eastern Pennsylvania. I am still recovering from the amazing awesomeness experienced at this local hill station. In da house were myself and many other radical fans of the famous camel mascot. I arrived at 800 sharp under cloudy skys and immediately met a boomer in guest services who was passionately expressing his distaste over Camelback staff due to confusion over his ski locker debacle situation. Due to many complications involving a ski locker, he said, and I quote, "I am never skiing Camelback again". I could not believe these words as Camelback is totally radical. After receiving my "Peak-2-Peak Pass" (TM) which is basically my Blue Mountain pass blessed with Camelback access, I drove my Subaru to the gaper land parking lot where they were blowing lots and lots of perder. I witnessed some dude with RTMs, and they appeared to be 170 length. That was sick. Next I booted up and sipped some coffee and craved some Yoo Hoo. Then I walked to the gaper lift which was running again after a brief shut down. it must have been tired from it being early on Sunday morning. Exhilarated to ride this lift, I walked past the frozen ice pond which was formerly 8 inches of standing cold water according to some super fan of Camelback on the face books. I was distraught that I didn't get to wade through 8 inches of water and then get to experience drying my socks off at the blow dryer in the restaurant while high fiving a real life camel. Next I rode the gaper lift and had the time of my life. There was some perder blowing but it was only slightly in my face, unlike Blue Mountain the True Mountain where they actively blow cold Perder at your face on 66.6666% of high speed lifts. That was rad. Thankfully I wore my Face Mask (tm) so the Perder only stung a little. Next I skied down a massive slope, like 10 feet of actual vertical drop, to transfer to the Big Black Bear Six high speed lift. It was a glorious ride to the top of the mountain, probably up to 1700 feet or maybe even 1700.1 feet of elevation gain. I peered into the vast horizon to the north where I would be able to gaze upon the majestic Catskills of New York state, but sadly the snow cloud from all the Perder being blown on Nile Mile for two or maybe now three weeks had accumulated into a massive snow cloud that obstructed my view. Nonetheless, the first ride down the Camelback mountain was radical. I skied past the grassy slopes of Marjorie's Delight, The Rocket, Big Pocono, and Uncle Bill's Way, and noted the greenness of the grass which gave me the urge to frolic in those meadowlands, with nary a snow gun in sight. Skiing on grass is totally radical. I skied down Upper Cleopatra and into Honeymoon and that was a life changing experience. I was high from the exhilaration ski experience down the slope and craved to split a hot cocoa and maybe a quarter piece of sugar cookie with Ski2Live, but he was nowhere to be seen as he was probably still mentally recovering from that amazing day when I lapped Honeymoon 49 times and recorded the experience with my GoPro camera, and then high fived a Camel and split a hot cocoa with Ski2Live. That was rad. The runs down King Tuts, ASP, and Humpty Dumpty were out of this world. So much fun, so much pitch and so much Perder. Lots and lots of snow coverage to guide my ski edges down as they were pulled by the intense force of gravity while riding the snow flake molecules which covered the luscious leas of the steep, steep pitched mountainside. Tears of joy flowed from my eyes as I sped probably around 170 km per hours according to my official Jitterbug speed reader calculation device, and whizzed past the knolls of the barren slopes nearby. The flat run out after the steep slopes gave my body a well deserved rest after skiing with intensity down the expert Black Diamond slope of Asp and the Super Expert Double Black Diamond The Hump ski hill slope, which should probably be a Quadruple Black Diamond. Fellow passionate Camelback fans hooted and hollered and cheered at the current status of the mountain, with a mind blowing 15 trails open I think I counted. Afterwards I made my way to the parking lot to recover and drank some cold coffee and a stale sugar cookie that a smuggled in past security. JADIP WTGAI CamelbackRulez.

Ski season up here took its time arriving then dumped four feet on us all at once and it was so much snow you couldn't move the first day. For a few days all the backcountry rock stars from up around Stowe were down here in little ol' Brownsville because Ascutney got hammer-slammered with powder in a storm that didn't go much further north than White River Junction. You never saw so many Sprinter vans and Labrador retrievers in our parking lot. Then two weeks later it rained and washed ALL of that snow away and that's how Vermont winter rolls. Then February arrived and kept giving and giving and it was amazing. Nobody could stand the Epic-Pass lines at Okemo (even weekdays were nuts) so we did lots of AT skiing on Ascutney. I work 24-hour shifts and have way more days off than my friends, so I taught myself to snowboard. Got some snowshoes and earned my turns and bruised my tailbone. I can ride a T-bar on the board no problem but still can't figure out how to get off a chairlift without it looking like a disaster from an I Love Lucy episode. I'm drinking coffee this morning and waiting for the New Yorkers to go home so I can get in some springy-soft runs at Okemo this afternoon. Here are some random pics from this season: One day it was all glare ice on Ascutney after some rain, and we were all bummed not to be able to ski. Then around 3pm the guy who runs the groomer decided to make some passes, so we followed him around for a little sunset touring and fresh corduroy: N The community T-bar runs until 4pm weekends then it clears out fast. I had a firepit and a whole powdery mountain to myself lots of evenings. Skinning up near the top of Ascutney is great fun and the snow was unbelievable last month: I retired from teaching and work as an EMT for a fire department, so I drive a fire engine now. This is so much more fun than grading papers and I have five days off every week!

This is actually pretty funny, and pretty much backs up my thinking that the Vail EC resorts wont be getting the full "vail treatment:" They plan on spending 215 million in 2020 on some western resorts, and then at the very bottom says they plan on spending 15 million on improving "guest experience" at the 17 resorts they just acquired from Peak. Shows you exactly where those resorts rank on the Vail ruler. 15 mil over 17 resorts is some card scanners, new deep fryers and a hot dogger. https://snowbrains.com/vail-resorts-capital-plan-2020/?fbclid=IwAR04NDqTn0X7Obp1NVhOcffEqN6jAjd8SBMnfMZ5ZNxX31KDL_Fbap-OfzM

Just passing this along in case any of you are thinking of being EPIC with skitoolive. I didnt buy any, so dont blame me if its not EPIC. https://ufcwlocal152.org/news/introducing-jack-frost-big-boulder-ski-resort-discounted-tickets/?fbclid=IwAR1ybgPcByMvBzD7Cu468vYRlmlWNhPz7K4hkEBSsGe-xhohA6S5MlDfQ5o#.XerbuDlxMug.facebook

Hey All, I'm back from a fun session at Blue mountain the true mountain. At 730AM it was around 2 degrees with 15-20mph winds actually warmer than expected. There were a lot of PASRs in the house including Atomic Jeff, Shadows, Enjorales, JFDan, Root, Ryan, Toast, Matt Edge, Johnny Law, Justo, the real KT, T maki, skier112, Indiggio, mbikeMike, Mrs Snowbunski and many others. As always the gates opened before the liftees got ok but first chair was had. I had a very nice first run on Razors before it was closed to the race team was between hardpack and aoftpack not bad challenge was good for run number two followed by nightmare to dreamweaver which was even better. Run number four usually would be sidewinder which was closed with five groomers grooming out the new blown snow compete with a winch cat Swithback was pretty good and I skied that three times total. It as a bit of a wind tunnel so I tucked the top half befor the two big turns. I didnt ski lazy mile because I heard it wasn't that good then back to nightmare dreamweaver and another challenge run which was still pretty nice and then we waited 2-3 minutes at the rope drop for sidewinder and high tailed it down and it was like Toasts favorite Katie perry song hot and cold. Some good areas and some bad. I skied another sidewinder run with matt edge behind shadows and hit the fresh manmade pow under the lift on the left side near the bottom. My feet ended up frozen everything else was ok and it took some effort to get boots off. I had some beers in the lot and thought about going back out with a few PASRs but my boots were solid as a rock and I got some really nice cord and empty runs today and will be back tomorrow. The ambient temperature will be colder initially but less wind

Opening day is finally here! The earliest in Blue Mountain history. The groomers are finishing up, the lot is still empty, the beer is cold, and employees are scrambling like they didn’t know the place was opening today. You my boy, Blue! Feels good to be back.