1/29. Happy Chinese New Year

[C1erArt]

Another nice sunny warmish day. Some nice runs to start off with, and then by 10:15 the corrals were full beyond the gates. A lot of city kids with the day off. Hope they had enough lefties to start the Challenge sixpac. 
 

Freefall, Sidewinder, Switch and Main were all in good shape. Razors was good until kids started traversing the slope to avoid the race bumps. Still blowing the cookie factory on Challenge. Windy up top and on the lift, but unlike yesterday, the wind wasn’t too bad on the slopes, and what there was was blowing down the slopes. 

Edited January 29 by C1erArt

[C1erArt]

So I talked to a guy in the line who attended the snowmaking tour last Sunday at the festival. He said the snowmaker were very aware that not letting the snowmaking whales sit for a few days to dewater allows the groomers to generate icey cookies and marbles, but they just can’t afford to let the slopes sit that long, particularly at the start of the season. 

[indiggio]

It boggles the mind that other slopes can just blow small whales and leave them alone (not push them totally flat) so that they don't create marbles/cookies.
Pretty much every slope I went to up in New Hampshire last week does this and the snow was excellent.
The belief that ski trails need to be flat as glass is incomprehensible.  It's skiing!  Undulations are part of the fun, just look at Coming Soon's ditch.

Edited January 29 by indiggio

[RidgeRacer]

What do they care. They’re selling lift tickets and season passes regardless. Our gripes are irrelevant. Especially when they know that’s ours asses will all be buying passes again in march.

[indiggio]

7 hours ago, RidgeRacer said:

What do they care. They’re selling lift tickets and season passes regardless. Our gripes are irrelevant. Especially when they know that’s ours asses will all be buying passes again in march.

Yup, we say that too.  It's not the quality, but quantity.  Gotta get all the slopes open, regardless of how shitty the conditions.

Edited Thursday at 10:30 AM by indiggio

[C1erArt]

Thursday morning before tomorrow’s rain. Still blowing Challenge, Razors was closed; Lights were on (nobody home) and a couple were out so they might be fixing them. Lots of marbles, cookies and icy spots.  Main was Ok, Freefall, Sidewinder and Switch weren’t too bad. Upper Midway was marble city. Best snow was on NM/DW, but all the features made it tough to ski with other people on it. 

They might be packing Challenge with snow so they can push it down to Coming Home at the end of the season like they did last year. Got to take the latest closing prize away from Boulder. I seem to recall last day of last year there was just a narrow path down coming home.

The merge into the bottom of Lazy Mile from Sidewinder was like a pinball machine with people turning into it at speed from both directions (lower Sidewinder closed for grooming) and the trail down to the patrol shack had a lot of ice and snow snakes.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 06:09 PM by C1erArt

[Johnny Law]

I just never have good luck on a Friday though its probably all my fault. It wasn't bad but compared to previous and with a wicked fog it wasn't nearly as pleasant.

Grip was as expected mostly excellent but there are a few icy spots coming through that could put you in the woods. Rotd was whatever you could see on. 

The new blown is a slop fest, falls had alot of horizontal speed bump type shit early and it wasn't very crowded in the drizzle.