Blue 12/28

[mbike-ski]

Again didn't catch any pasr/mtb folks, i think toast blew by me on lower tp though. crunchy cord and ruts were the features of the day, snow was LOUD! it was softening up a bit when i left at 9:30. best snow was on main street again today - big ole turns at speed made the merge roulette a blast, didn't even ski challenge as the upper section looked like sh!t from the chair. might take a run back up later as the bumps look like they'll be juicy when they soften up. get out there its a beautiful day!

[toast21602]

yeah it could have been me. i was there from opening until about 9:30 as well. mainstreet and lazy were both pretty nice today. challenge was a mess up top but fast as hell and made it fun getting some air off of falls.

[Justo8484]

what the hell have they been doing with challenge that has made it so ultra shitty this year? i havent been to blue since challenge opened, so i havent skied it, but from what i've heard, its like a block of swiss cheese? how can they possibly groom something that terribly and be ok with the end result?

[Justin]

what the hell have they been doing with challenge that has made it so ultra shitty this year? i havent been to blue since challenge opened, so i havent skied it, but from what i've heard, its like a block of swiss cheese? how can they possibly groom something that terribly and be ok with the end result?

From the looks of it, they haven't been grooming it at all, or at least the top section of it. Mad death cookies and chunks missing both days I've skied it. I'm sure many more will get hurt on it.

[toast21602]

From the looks of it, they haven't been grooming it at all, or at least the top section of it. Mad death cookies and chunks missing both days I've skied it. I'm sure many more will get hurt on it.

 

no they groom it.... just not very well at all.

[AtomicSkier]

blue's groomers need to lay down the crack pipe.

[Justin]

Maybe they leave it the way it is because they think it's ungroomed, "off-piste" challenging terrain. It is a double black diamond after all. You need to do some serious checking yourself before you wreck yourself.

[Stevo]

i went up for like an hour and a half today. I just wasn't feeling anything at all. Icy as usual. Add to it that i don't have my bindings dialed in- i just wanted to get out of there

[toast21602]

i went up for like an hour and a half today. I just wasn't feeling anything at all. Icy as usual. Add to it that i don't have my bindings dialed in- i just wanted to get out of there

 

it really wasn't icy... it was firm. if you had any edge on your skis/board you wouldnt have any trouble with it. thats why i left my park skis on the rack.

[toast21602]

Wow just wow are there alot of people at Blue..

 

http://www.skibluemt.com/SkiBlue/the-mount...ntain-cams.aspx

 

have fun! it wasnt crowded this morning

[Justo8484]

blue's groomers need to lay down the crack pipe.

 

have they not been grooming the top due to thin cover and soft snow? that combo kinda leads to them digging up the snow pretty bad on the steeper pitch of the first headwall. while i agree that they need to lay off the rocks and maybe flush the zinc out of their system, a winch cat would do wonders for the place, particularly challenge, razors, and sidewinder...

[method9455]

Boulder was shitty this morning too until about 10:30 11 and of course there I only had my park board so it was rough. The freeze/thaw cycle is brutal this week but once it softens blue is probably fine.

[Rodeo Steve]

Boulder was shitty this morning too until about 10:30 11 and of course there I only had my park board so it was rough. The freeze/thaw cycle is brutal this week but once it softens blue is probably fine.

 

??? Boulder was amazing all day.

[Justo8484]

??? Boulder was amazing all day.

boulder was on point when i got there at 7pm. i am 100% positive i could not have said that about blue if i got there the same time tonight. first hit on boulder park is probably the best jump i've hit in PA, ever. i havent hit the bottom two yet though, but they look pretty nice.

[toast21602]

blue mountain thread....

[stever2003]

Got back from Blue a lil while ago. We arrived there around 6pm, first took the 6 pack all night plus 2 quads, and the main street double to get back to the lodge around closing time. It was really nice at first...the snow was kinda wet but not too heavy, it was easy to carve in. We started down Burma and then did a few runs on Paradise and Lazy since we had one of our friends who doesn't ski often with us...he fared well on snowblades. Then Ry and I hit Challenge twice and we actually thought it was the best run on the mountain. I told him about Atomic Jeff hurting himself and mentioned the watermelon sized divots that you guys reported, but we didn't see anything like that. The only thing dangerous I found going down Challenge tonight was my poor form as a result of my knee still hurting from my meniscus problem or whatever I've got (plus I haven't had a chance to fix up my edges, I had some trouble digging into the snow...I believe this also contributed to my poor form). I kept an eye out for potholes on the first run down Challenge, but after that I didn't think we'd find any problems.

 

Rain started around 8:30ish...Wasn't too hard at first. It softened up the snow, and the next 1 or 2 times I went down Challenge I could actually dig into the snow a little. Did another run down Burma since I didn't wanna make my snowblading friend make that trip alone. After a few runs, the rain really picked up and by that time it had been soaking into my clothes for a while. Ry and I stayed out till close, squeezed in a few more runs, but we both agreed after a last run down Lazy that the snow was getting pretty heavy and it was time to call it a night. All in all it was a decent night. We'd been tracking the weather and knew it was gonna rain later in the evening so at least it didn't catch us by surprise.

 

 

One note about the drive home...from being cold and wet I got pretty tired, I started to fall asleep at the wheel on the drive down the turnpike. I pulled over after a short while, and I asked my friend john to take over since he was the only one of three of us in the car who took the whole week off from work, got more than 4-6 hours of sleep last night, and slept till noon. Ryan and I both went into work today, and Ry only had 4 hours and preferred that john drive. John wouldn't take the wheel for me, saying that I shouldn't have driven if I was gonna get too tired, and he insisted that I continue driving myself even though I was falling asleep because it was my fault. What a fucking idiot.

[Papasteeze]

didn't even ski challenge as the upper section looked like sh!t

 

 

challenge was a mess up top

 

 

been doing with challenge that has made it so ultra shitty

 

 

Mad death cookies and chunks missing both days I've skied it.

 

 

blue's groomers need to lay down the crack pipe.

 

 

i just wanted to get out of there

 

 

more likely just crapping grooming

 

 

have they not been grooming the top due to thin cover and soft snow?

 

Thanks for the trip report.

[stever2003]

Thanks for the trip report.

Hey, I know what they said, but I know what I saw. I went down Challenge 4 times. I had no problems with it, and I can't agree with what most of those guys said. Notice that most of their posts are from before the early afternoon...I was there from 6-10...maybe conditions improved.

 

Doug, on Wednesday you said to post a TR from my trip to BB. Wed was my first time at BB in about 5-6 years. After skiing places like Blue/Elk/Sno, I really forgot how small it is. I stuck with my one friend who needed help with his skiing since I wanted to get him ready for our trip to Killington next week...so I was on the bunny hills all night. But I stole off to do a speed run or two down draufganger and another trail, and they were over in about 30 seconds. I was so disappointed...I'm glad the ticket was only $10 or I would have felt pretty ripped off. I'll still maintain that it's not a bad place to learn to ski, and I respect what they're trying to do with the terrain park. However, I can barely consider it a real mountain for skiing. I was so disappointed I didn't even feel like posting anything about it when I got home. I know that the limitations of skiing at BB are well known, but I completely forgot how severe it was. I hope I don't need to return there any time soon. I don't think I'll even feel like making the trip up even if the tickets were free, unless I were gonna be teaching somebody how to ski. (I know this is the Blue forum but I'm just responding to something that originated in the Blue forum, so don't give me shit for it).

[stever2003]

Oh, and I was extremely disappointed by the utter lack of snow on Switchback and Razors. Sidewinder didn't look like it had much either....who the hell said they were gonna open it tomorrow? There's not even snow to build a wall around the stairway into the park. I know the weather hasn't been GREAT, but I feel like Blue dropped the ball here.

Edited December 29, 2007 by stever2003