Mount Snow

[method9455]

Heading up in 5 hours, (damn it I should sleep I'm violating the less sleep than time driving rule), will arrive for first chair, ride till close, check in. I'll post some TRs along the way. I have a camera, a laptop, and should have internet WiFi up there, so there should be a play by play. Too excited to sleep, even if they are only 1/3 open.

[method9455]

Hey, I'm back, it was a great trip and I'll post a TR later.

 

I wanted to post a summary of the park at Mount Snow because I know some people are heading up tomorrow and are looking for a park to use. Not sure how Stratton or Okemo are right now.

 

The setup:

 

Un Blanco Gulch is open, but NOT the full trail, there is no snow up top and there is an entrance halfway down, it enters from skiers right on the way down

 

First feature, a mini kinked wall ride on the right hand side. It is basically 4 feet by 4 feet a little bit less than vertical, then another 4 x 4 foot platform at like a 45 degree angle so you can rock in and out. BUT, it is on skiers right, at the entrance. When you enter the park you come basically next to it and drop into the park on its transition. The only way to hit the wallride is to drop in fast, and ski up hill above the entrance as far as you can (which as the snow is melting, is getting lower and lower everyday). Taking a straight line from the highest bit of snow for the wall with speed wax gets you kink, but no more. I saw maybe 1 or 2 people try it other than me, I think everyone else knew it was too high to use.

 

The next feature was a hip on the skiers right, on top of the hip was a picnic table. About 80% of the people were using the picnic table, which had a good setup and landing. The hip itself was kind of small, maybe like 20 feet long. Had ok kick but the ramp was shared with the picnic table so it wasn't nearly the kick you usually get out of a hip. That feature was kind of fun.

 

A battleship box, really fun, good setup.

 

There were 2 rails after that, double barrel about 12-15 feet long, easy. Small ramps. They were too close to the hip and to each other. If you hit it the picnic table you could slow down and do both, but if you hit the hip you had too much speed and had to do the second one only.

 

A small step down jump, smaller than any at JF or BB, like 2 foot drop and 6 foot gap. Lots of people trying to learn spins on them.

 

A tiny rainbow rail, 2 feet high, 8 feet long.

 

A flat rail, 20 feet, double barrel.

 

A propane tank setup on the side, kind of like the log at the Freedom Park at Big Boulder.

 

A flat down rail that was setup kind of bad, the only feature I didn't hit in the park because it just looked sketchy.

 

A table top with a wierd pipe bonk. Looked ok, some people were bonking I was just going over the top and using it as a jump.

 

A step down jump that was like 3 feet step down, 10 foot gap. It was really close to the table but doable if you are comfortable, a big landing so you could launch it nicely, but since it was the only nice feature in the park, lots of bomb holes in the landing from too many people.

 

I saw park crew once, cleaning the ramp on the last jump.

 

Overall, not nearly as good as JFBB's park. I didn't have any urge to ride it since there were trails to be ridden and if I wanted park I wouldn't have driven up 4 hours for that one. A little overcrowded feature wise, they are too close together and I don't like that, and too many people because there is very little setup. Park crew was only visible once, but the maintenance wasn't an issue except the last jump, which is what they were working on.

 

There was also a like mini intro park deal with a few rollers and four of 5 boxes, I didn't bother with that one, it was in their tubing park so it wasn't ride through and wasn't worth the hike over.