Awesome weekend.

[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.

Edited March 11, 2013 by Schif