feedback from a BC local...

[EOS_400D]

hey guys, just thought i'd drop by and give some outsider feedback.

 

first of all, who better to understand the idea of working with crappy conditions than someone dealing with bear's status right now? haha. i know you guys have had some warm weather just like the rest of us.

 

with that said, what i saw yesterday (saturday) was pretty bad.. even for warm preseason-like conditions. what it showed was not lack of winter, but lack of effort. trail coverage was horrible. there were 30-40" high piles of snow on both sides of all the trails (which had been turned into death bumps/ruts by little kids), while the middle of the trails was this minefield of bumps and ruts. other spots had 6" deep or less puddles of brown soup with rocks coming through. can snow not be pushed from the sides to cover the middle?

 

what could be considered the terrain park was rediculous. one shoulder high jump that was beyond neglected, and 2 rails? so the big parks aren't up and running yet, ok.. but maybe try putting in a few more features? maybe try maintaining the few that you have available? what i assume was park 'crue' was standing next to one flat box the whole time i was there, yet landings were badly rutted and lips were choppy and soft. basically, when it comes down to it, rakes/shovels aren't canes to hold yourself up on.. they're tools to work with to make features for customers to use.

 

IMHO, there is no excuse for a mountain of Blue's potential to ignore simple maintenance issues and let their conditions go to crap as they seemed to on saturday. Bear put forth 10 times the effort and it showed. Blue has been hyped as having the best conditions so far and best terrain setup and all sorts of stuff. everyone knew that bear had little or no snow, but they did all that they could and it was damn good.

 

$42.00 (for only 12:30-5pm) to ski that junk yesterday.. insane.

Edited December 31, 2006 by EOS_400D

[AtomicSkier]

hey guys, just thought i'd drop by and give some outsider feedback.

 

first of all, who better to understand the idea of working with crappy conditions than someone dealing with bear's status right now? haha. i know you guys have had some warm weather just like the rest of us.

 

with that said, what i saw yesterday (saturday) was pretty bad.. even for warm preseason-like conditions. what it showed was not lack of winter, but lack of effort. trail coverage was horrible. there were 30-40" high piles of snow on both sides of all the trails (which had been turned into death bumps/ruts by little kids), while the middle of the trails was this minefield of bumps and ruts. other spots had 6" deep or less puddles of brown soup with rocks coming through. can snow not be pushed from the sides to cover the middle?

 

what could be considered the terrain park was rediculous. one shoulder high jump that was beyond neglected, and 2 rails? so the big parks aren't up and running yet, ok.. but maybe try putting in a few more features? maybe try maintaining the few that you have available? what i assume was park 'crue' was standing next to one flat box the whole time i was there, yet landings were badly rutted and lips were choppy and soft. basically, when it comes down to it, rakes/shovels aren't canes to hold yourself up on.. they're tools to work with to make features for customers to use.

 

IMHO, there is no excuse for a mountain of Blue's potential to ignore simple maintenance issues and let their conditions go to crap as they seemed to on saturday. Bear put forth 10 times the effort and it showed. Blue has been hyped as having the best conditions so far and best terrain setup and all sorts of stuff. everyone knew that bear had little or no snow, but they did all that they could and it was damn good.

 

$42.00 (for only 12:30-5pm) to ski that junk yesterday.. insane.

 

You're nuts for skiing at Blue, or any mountain right now without a season pass, simply not worth it.

 

Out of curiosity, what time of day were you there? By your description, it had to be mid day.

[skifreak]

Well at the bottom of his post he said he skied the afternoon session from 12:30-5. I agree though, I wouldn't be skiing anywhere right now where I have to buy a lift ticket.

[EOS_400D]

the only reason i decided to make the trip is because everyone's been saying how blue's doing so well right now. i went there expecting much more. the website said they had 14+ trils open and 4 lifts or whatever. i figured the conditions would be a little spring-like, but not like it was mid april.

[toast21602]

stop complaining. gosh. are you skiing right now? yes. is Bear Creek open? no. you take what you can get.

[snorovr]

Not your lucky day yesterday, then again it wasn't anyones. Things were much better today. The new snow really helped everything. Park Crue built a new small jump and made two nice lips on the larger hit. Given the fact that the "shoulder high" jump was made just to have some backup snow to push around in case things got super bad in the park, and has actually been fun on a few days, I'm not too upset with it.

 

I've been just as depressed as everyone else with the conditions, and it is just showing how much of a difference 10 or 15 miles makes. Bear is closed, Blue is hurtin, and Boulder and Frost have the best snow around, but are by no means well off.

 

The fact that Blue gets a ton of traffic in a normal season makes the park hard to maintain in the first place, and when you put near average holiday crowds onto 10% of your normal open terrain, I'm having trouble wondering what you were expecting. I've never seen the traffic in Bear's parks that I see in Blue's parks on a regular basis, and I ride both regularly. We were given Come Around as an early season park, which is the first season we've been able to put features out for opening day. Do I need to compare the width of Come Around to the width of the terrain that Bear has to work with in terms of putting features out? I wasn't at Bear on opening day, but from pictures I saw there was much more space to work with. Keep in mind that we still have to deal with customers who want to just ski down the trail, and you saw how little base there is. As I'm sure you know undreds of people an hour power wedging down Lazy doesn't help anyone with keeping snow on the trail.

 

They've been trucking snow from bottom to top just to keep the place open... Lack of effort?

 

I'm not tryin to argue with ya, but I don't think you're giving people who deserve it enough credit. Its just one of those what are they supposed to do situations. I think they'd love to run the groomers at 3pm which it definitely needs, but to do that would be impossible crowd wise. There are 2 or 3 major trails open, and there is just not enough room to shut another trail down during the day with how many people are there.

[Matt]

I was there yestarday and today. I paid $34 for an all day pass.

 

The conditions were descent for when I was there, but I was there AT 7:30am. I had to wait to get in because they didn't open yet.

 

If Blue wasn't 1 hr 30mins from my house vs. BC's 45 minute drive I would buy a pass to Blue 'cause Blue is more advanced mountain and they aren't all gung-hoe'd crazy about the park like Bear Creek is...

[Ski]

"i figured the conditions would be a little spring-like"

 

 

Hahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahaha...

 

Priceless, dude.

[Matt]

If I had a bear creek pass I'd be paying for lift tickets at Blue or JF/BB because I'm die-hard..I need to be skiing..and"wasting" 40 bucks on skiing to me seems better than doing something else.

"

 

That's what i'm doing, I have a off-peak pass at Bear. But I've paid for 3 lift tickets are Blue so far. I haven't regretted a cent i've paid for those tix. The days that I've been there all have been 7 or even 8 on a scale of 1-10.

 

As long as there is snow (not ice), i'm not that picky at all.

 

The worst day of skiing, is FAR BETTER than the best day of school (or work)

[bigdaddyk]

hey guys, just thought i'd drop by and give some outsider feedback.

 

first of all, who better to understand the idea of working with crappy conditions than someone dealing with bear's status right now? haha. i know you guys have had some warm weather just like the rest of us.

 

with that said, what i saw yesterday (saturday) was pretty bad.. even for warm preseason-like conditions. what it showed was not lack of winter, but lack of effort. trail coverage was horrible. there were 30-40" high piles of snow on both sides of all the trails (which had been turned into death bumps/ruts by little kids), while the middle of the trails was this minefield of bumps and ruts. other spots had 6" deep or less puddles of brown soup with rocks coming through. can snow not be pushed from the sides to cover the middle?

 

what could be considered the terrain park was rediculous. one shoulder high jump that was beyond neglected, and 2 rails? so the big parks aren't up and running yet, ok.. but maybe try putting in a few more features? maybe try maintaining the few that you have available? what i assume was park 'crue' was standing next to one flat box the whole time i was there, yet landings were badly rutted and lips were choppy and soft. basically, when it comes down to it, rakes/shovels aren't canes to hold yourself up on.. they're tools to work with to make features for customers to use.

 

IMHO, there is no excuse for a mountain of Blue's potential to ignore simple maintenance issues and let their conditions go to crap as they seemed to on saturday. Bear put forth 10 times the effort and it showed. Blue has been hyped as having the best conditions so far and best terrain setup and all sorts of stuff. everyone knew that bear had little or no snow, but they did all that they could and it was damn good.

 

$42.00 (for only 12:30-5pm) to ski that junk yesterday.. insane.

 

Before giving up on other resorts, why don't you try JF. They have had really, really good snow and coverage. I'm sure after the rain, it might go down a little, but it would still probably be worth it. It seems like just after the resorts get a couple good nights of snowmaking, it rains...then they have to do it all over again. The pattern looks like it is going to stay the same into next weekend .

[Boyer]

as an ex-park crew member, long time BC CREW! mutha fucka member, dont expect to come out and have perfect conditions in 50 degree weaTHER. park crew did what they could... at least blue was open

[Papasteeze]

Blue has been hyped as having the best conditions so far and best terrain setup and all sorts of stuff. everyone knew that bear had little or no snow, but they did all that they could and it was damn good.

 

Hang around here at PASR if you want the straight scoop, there are plenty of people I have talked to that are saying that JFBB has better snow than anywhere all the way up to NH!!

 

 

You're nuts for skiing at Blue, or any mountain right now without a season pass, simply not worth it.

 

Is that your version of crowd control? LOL!

 

 

the only reason i decided to make the trip is because everyone's been saying how blue's doing so well right now.

 

anybody in the know.... knows that JFBB are in the best shape. especially if you are into park... all the skilled BC Crew have been at bb loving it!

[snorovr]

especially if you are into park...

 

 

Ya I've been up a few nights to ski park and its been fun. However, I enjoy more than just the park aspect of skiing, and would rather have a run that lasts more than 10 seconds when I wanna open it up and make some turns. It's what keeps me coming back to Blue every year. The fact that at some point this year we will have a slammin' park only makes that better.

[Cadillac]

hey EOS_400D

 

Then go to Doe Mtn. I mean Bear Creek Oh wait their closed!

 

Due to the warm weather, Bear Creek's slopes are closed until snowmaking weather returns. Guest Services will be open from 9am-5pm each day. The Grille will be operating daily on the normal winter schedule.

 

Sunday Update: We were unable to make snow last night because the humidity was at 67%. We will fire up the guns tonight if conditions allow

 

Doe can put all the effort they want into it. You need to spend money on equiupment to make snow. First day I was back Skiing at Blue, snow was being made at 33 degrees!

[AtomicSkier]

anybody in the know.... knows that JFBB are in the best shape. especially if you are into park... all the skilled BC Crew have been at bb loving it!

 

[EOS_400D]

every day that bear was open we were able to maintain each and every lip and landing all day long. it was a hell of a lot of work but every member of park crew was out there working their asses off. the groomers kept things even and level. we did it with mere inches of snow.. why is it that Blue can't seem to do the same?

 

and grilledsteeze.. so you would pay 40+ bucks a shot every time you wanted to ski? great.. good for you. i'm glad you're all die hard. to me, that's just plain stupidity. i mean come on, like any of you would willingly pay $42 to ski saturday's conditions again? like i said, if you would it's just stupidity. you might as well flush money down the toilet. the least they could do is offer half price tickets or something. midseason prices for what i skied on yesterday is rediculous.

[Stevo]

I think that this weekend the park was maintained very well. Park crue was out there both days pretty much all day making sure it wasn't shitty. For the snow that they have to work with, i think they're doing great. As far as midday grooming goes- they could park the groomer between come around and main street, closing the park once and a while. But even so, the good shit sits on top of the icy shit, and it just gets kicked aside until all that's left is icy snow. If you're not liking blue, you don't have to go there. You're arguing like you want your money back or something- what were you expecting with this weather? It's been shitty for everyone, and i think blue's doing a pretty good job.

[bigdaddyk]

Hang around here at PASR if you want the straight scoop, there are plenty of people I have talked to that are saying that JFBB has better snow than anywhere all the way up to NH!!

 

I talked to a few people at JF on Sunday and they were all really impressed with how good the conditions and snow are at JF. The thing I don't get is all of the people bitching about the conditions at CB. They could drive only 15 minutes more, and get a lot better conditons and more open terrain...not that I mind the crowds going to CB....it keeps the conditions better for me

[First Grade Teacher]

every day that bear was open

 

I think that was a total of 4 days so far. Cut me a break. You must be smoking something! Stay at BC.

 

[Park Crue]

.

 

what could be considered the terrain park was rediculous. one shoulder high jump that was beyond neglected, and 2 rails? so the big parks aren't up and running yet, ok.. but maybe try putting in a few more features? maybe try maintaining the few that you have available? what i assume was park 'crue' was standing next to one flat box the whole time i was there, yet landings were badly rutted and lips were choppy and soft. basically, when it comes down to it, rakes/shovels aren't canes to hold yourself up on.. they're tools to work with to make features for customers to use.

.

 

Yo BC local. I am sorry you did not have a great experience at Blue.

The warm weather and and high traffic makes it very difficult to keep lips and landings perfect. Park Crue was there and did a wonderful job to keep the features rideable, considering the weather, and , just as relevant, the insane traffic. When the Crue finish grooming a lip or a landing, they do lean on their rakes and watch people ride the feature, and maybe even test it out themselves.

Whats to hate? I did a count on the flat box when I was filming on Saturday, and at one time, there were 2 kids a minute hitting it.

I know some of the kids at BC, [Justin Mullen, Boyer ] and we at Blue give you guys props for stepping up the park. This weather is killing us all slowly, so lets all just get along. I hope you come back to Blue when the conditions are better. We would like you to take home some good memories.

[Cadillac]

every day that bear was open we were able to maintain each and every lip and landing all day long. it was a hell of a lot of work but every member of park crew was out there working their asses off. the groomers kept things even and level. we did it with mere inches of snow.. why is it that Blue can't seem to do the same?

 

and grilledsteeze.. so you would pay 40+ bucks a shot every time you wanted to ski? great.. good for you. i'm glad you're all die hard. to me, that's just plain stupidity. i mean come on, like any of you would willingly pay $42 to ski saturday's conditions again? like i said, if you would it's just stupidity. you might as well flush money down the toilet. the least they could do is offer half price tickets or something. midseason prices for what i skied on yesterday is rediculous.

 

 

It's easy to maintain when there is nobody there riding it!

[Ski]

Hey, TP4!

 

Home? Ready for school?

[Ski]

read my trip report!

as for school...f*ck

 

Missed it...I'll go check it out for sure!

[nick malozzi]

hey guys, just thought i'd drop by and give some outsider feedback.

 

first of all, who better to understand the idea of working with crappy conditions than someone dealing with bear's status right now? haha. i know you guys have had some warm weather just like the rest of us.

 

with that said, what i saw yesterday (saturday) was pretty bad.. even for warm preseason-like conditions. what it showed was not lack of winter, but lack of effort. trail coverage was horrible. there were 30-40" high piles of snow on both sides of all the trails (which had been turned into death bumps/ruts by little kids), while the middle of the trails was this minefield of bumps and ruts. other spots had 6" deep or less puddles of brown soup with rocks coming through. can snow not be pushed from the sides to cover the middle?

 

what could be considered the terrain park was rediculous. one shoulder high jump that was beyond neglected, and 2 rails? so the big parks aren't up and running yet, ok.. but maybe try putting in a few more features? maybe try maintaining the few that you have available? what i assume was park 'crue' was standing next to one flat box the whole time i was there, yet landings were badly rutted and lips were choppy and soft. basically, when it comes down to it, rakes/shovels aren't canes to hold yourself up on.. they're tools to work with to make features for customers to use.

 

IMHO, there is no excuse for a mountain of Blue's potential to ignore simple maintenance issues and let their conditions go to crap as they seemed to on saturday. Bear put forth 10 times the effort and it showed. Blue has been hyped as having the best conditions so far and best terrain setup and all sorts of stuff. everyone knew that bear had little or no snow, but they did all that they could and it was damn good.

 

$42.00 (for only 12:30-5pm) to ski that junk yesterday.. insane.

[nick]

haha maybe its just that you guys are trying to be loyal or something but go ride BB and then go ride at Blue and tell me blues park dosent blow right now. Yeah i know at least they have a park and yeah i know at least their open.. blah blah blah. ok bears closed. next point.... I was there last wed and i was truly dissapointed with the set up in their park. I realize their doing the best they can with what they have but i def think they could have done better. First off the whole park should have been moved somewhere else, come around is a terrible spot for a park on the top half of the trail you have to start 5 feet in front of that big butter box and the jump so you dont over shoot them and then on the bottom its hard to get speed. I also thought park crue could have done alot better job. I was there riding almost all day and they went through once i think, and on top of that it took them 20 minutes to fix one thing-wayyyyy to long. and then when they were done the landings were still all bombed out and the lips were stilled messed up. BB park crew it seems is constantly working they walk down the trail fixing the stuff and when they get to the bottom they go back up and start over. Im sorry i really dont mean to be dissing on blues park but i was expecting sooo much more from people talking on here and its a good thing i sold my ticket for 15 bucks on the way out or ide have been really pissed.