Leaderboard

After a late departure but early arrival on Saturday, we all got settled into a well-apportioned house in Cottonwood Heights and prepared to hit the slopes. The weather has been very dry out here the past couple of weeks, but the mountains still have a ton of snow from earlier in the season. The forecast originally had some snow overnight Saturday into Sunday, but then shifted to fall during the day Sunday. Being the weekend, we decided our best bet, with the promised snow, would be to hit Solitude Instead of anything in LCC. Arose to a dusting of snow at the house and it still snowing while loading the cars. Outta the house & 7:30 and already there was a conga line headed to LCC coming up against us. Into BCC we fought up to only a few cars, mainly going slow because of the falling snow. Parked in the Moonbeam base instead of up in the village which turned out perfect since we got baller front-row parking. Took the express quad out and cruised some 3-4” of wonderful perder down to the Eagle express. Took a lap in the Eagle just to get loose and then headed out in the Powderhorn. From that point on, the day was a blur. A number of laps on the Apex to the Summit. Off the Summit we made our way down through Headwall Forest that had very nice snow and well spaced trees. By lunchtime anywhere between 8-10” had fallen and continued to snow. Afternoon was spent lapping the Honeycomb Canyon area where you could traverse across and drop in at your heart’s content. Skied till about 2:30 which was plenty, as the legs were pretty wobbly by then. Having many cooks on the trip makes for delicious home-made dinners. On tap tonight was salad, tomato mozzarella salad appetizers, pasta w/ sausage and bread. It’s good we got some snow today because the rest of the week looks bluebird but cold. With the snow yesterday and bluebird today, we’re planning on hitting Snowbird tomorrow. Heading up BCC Prime parking Honeycomb Canyon Still snowing Mealtime Nice digs

Saw ticket on Liftopia for 30 bucks, so I bought it. My usual day trips have been to hunter, so i figured whats an extra 20 minutes. It was completely worth it, and If I’m riding the Catskills in the future, I’m going here. The Catskills always seemed to have winter, even when the poconos did not. There wasn’t any snow on the ride up, except for higher elevations in the Catskills. I’m always wowed by the view of the Catskills when they first come into sight on the thruway. There only a coating of snow on the ground as i got near Belleayre, but cover looked good up high. After Belleayre, its super rural and i barely saw any cars on the road. As i got closer to Plattekill, there was more and more snow on the ground. When you get to the mountain, you realize its pretty much the perfect place to have a ski area, geographically speaking. In terms of getting customers there, thats a challenge. But it’s sheltered front he wind, and holds snow super well. It looked a bit smaller than the 1000ft vert, but the ski tracks app supports the 1k, and the lack of runout is amazing. to me it felt the perfect size. Conditions were great. The main face trails were half groomed with fresh snow on the sides. There was plenty of untracked pow on the intermediate trails as I don’t think the locals give them much traffic. Blockbuster was my favorite trail of the day. The expert trails from afar may look boring and straight, but the terrain is very interesting. I could easily spend an entire day here and not get bored. The lifts don’t even feel that slow as the ride time isn’t too long since its steeper. If anyone is going to the Catskills, I recommend passing all the other hills and check this place out. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Woke up early as hell again this morning and managed to get one ski rough cut out of the blank. Held the two skis base to base and the rocker camber rocker profile looks great! Hand flexing also felt great! Hopefully I’ll get them finished up tonight in time to stick in a ski bag for a Wednesday evening flight. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Had a nice first day in New Mexico. Saw a beautiful sunrise then went for a nice run/hike/scramble and then hit Marble Brewery and La Cumbre. Will head up to Taos Ski Valley in my pimped out rental Suburban tomorrow. Will try not to break any levers in the car like I did in Jackson. View from my moms backyard of sunrise did not suck at all.

typical

Your lens is covered in grease. Clean that shit.

just say the word i'm ready to go.

33 degrees in the morning, 45 when I got home around noon. Quad only running and only a short line getting on all morning. Challenge was good although the first drop developed ball bearings pretty fast and the last drop had tennis balls from the beginning. Nightmare was good and saw a lot of traffic. Razors was open but was literally a sheet of ice (with warning signs up top). Saw a couple of people try it, wipe out and finally stop sliding dozens of yards down the slope. Good thing the fences were still up. Think it was softening up as I was leaving. You can see the icy sheen on the slope. Finished off running the blues a few times. Fluffy and nice and carveable. Main Street bumps were getting a workout. Tut’s connector was getting a little soft, but no headwind going across.

Snow on lazy, paradise, and upper main was awesome. Can that become the new norm, please? Also, wtf is up with the lifts. 6 was busted on saturday, and intermittent yesterday. VIP line gate for the quad seemed to let anyone through, not just passholders, and the VIP line for the 6 seemed like it wasn't scanning at all, causing people to break through to the left, which it looked like everyone and their mom caught on to that shortcut thus rendering the VIP line useless. Why can't we have nice things?

It’s at yeast as funny as anything I’ve seen here in the past week

Headwall and Evergreen were my favs at Solitude. I also remember Parachute being really gnarly.

Yummy. I think Toast said he would bake some bread as well. Boy, is that a funny sentence.

Sunday March 22nd is the day. Clear your calendars. Get a babysitter. Put the do not disturb sign on your hotel house door. Whatever it takes to get there. Most importantly, we need champagne, beer, and whatever Walt tells us to buy. Walt - are we doing a pre-ski hot breakfast?

I didn’t eat any of them but I heard they were better than good. also, biscuits and gravy is probably my favorite breakfast. still trying to come up with the wow factor for this year

What do you mean? I ate 4 of BenM's candy canes. They were grate!

Drone photos of the parking lot festivities would be neat to see. It gets pretty expansive with everyone there. You're in for a treat @Benm!

Deal.

Now we just need 220 more people....

happy to play with epoxy for the next pair!

I'll go with you, I want to check out Hunter. We can split a hot cocoa just like old times sake.

'Dough!

Nice, lots of fun stuff in Honeycomb

RIP.

Hunter is worse. You’re there.

I'll bring my guitar (seriously). We'll be a duet I'll contribute whatever is needed (beer, champagne etc.). A stop at the bakery for an acronym cookie cake may be in order as well.

If you’re in a 27.5 boot you’re more than welcome to a few runs on them when I’m at Blue. Popped them out of the press, took a bit of work to free them from the bottom mold but I got it. Bases look messy from all the excess epoxy but that will clean up. Put them in the smallest room in the house with a space heater again to continue setting the epoxy. I’m hoping to have them cut out and finished tomorrow night! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This place doesnt suck. Fun day. More later.

Hey All, I’m back from a fun night session at Blue mountain the true mountain. I arrived at the lower lot around 630PM. In the house were Atomic Jeff, Eaf and the Dude4Bides..I thought PARidge was gonna be there but didn’t see him. The temperature was in the low to mid 50s. First run was razors which was semi spring snow and one slow spot leading into homestretch. Nightmare dreamweaver was nice soft spring snow..sort of smooth..skied that mostly with a few forays onto paradise which was smoother and a bit less technical than Nightweaver..skied until 815 and then hungout in the lot for almost an hour. All in all a very pleasant night session and barely any people.

If you guys make this happen I'll bring my DJI Phantom 3 and attach my GoPro for flyover footage.

There a spartan fireworks 5 mins from my house. Real deal stuff, not wimpy bottle rockets. might not ever be allowed back at blue however

fireworks would be fun, not probably not with drunk people in Blue's parking lot 😂 Barb probably doesn't want naan of that.

What did the signs actually say? "icy as fuck" ? "barely skiable" "dangerous slope. shouldnt be open" ? Did they groom it?

Supervisor supplies the beer.

or a tombstone sponsor.

They need fencing or rope from the gate though. You could go through the normal line then sneak up the right side into the VIP line with little effort. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

what i don't get is knowing that there were issues Saturday and the potential for Sunday, yet no back up plan to at least run Burma to dissipate the lift lines there?

There’s no benefit to the VIP line for the quad as it just dumps people into the main line.

I'll be there. I make chocolate peanut butter chip cookies that are pretty awesome. I'll make those and whatever else people need. I can bring my stove if necessary. I can probably do smoked pulled chicken and it can just be reheated on the flat top or whatever.

When most people ski at other places I'm jelly...every other TR from Dan's Greek Peak day to the Steamboat and Jackson TRs always have me jonesing for a trip. For some reason however ski2lives have the opposite affect. When going to the skillz I will forever ski Belleayre over hunter solely because of ski2.

I had one of these at Blue yesterday, with the most awesome people south of where ever the fuck it is that you skied. I win asshole.

Silly question. of course we are. Breakfast is awesome. Walt, i will take care of eggs, pork roll, and my favorite breakfast meat, scrapple.

I may have to break my Keto diet for that

Sounds Grate..I might sing grandma got runover by a reindeer or Gin and Juice on Matt edge karaoke machine...I can bring some salsa and maybe a lunchables for Salty with the skittles

Another fine weekend at the place with the most vertical on the EC south of VT

Have a great trip!

Obligatory sunset pic from the quad. Great night so far.

Great day. I will say we are all getting really good at skating from one broken lift to another.

Great morning. The lifts are annoying. @PSUFly has a nice grill setup and made some great sammies.

I have wanted to check out GP for a while now, saving a day off for a pow day at Blue seems futile at this point, so i figured i would take the day off, since it will only become harder as March rolls on. Been watching the weather all week, rain then snow. They reported 1" of snow yesterday. Knowing today wasnt going to be epic or ikonic, i stuck to my guns and headed off to check it out. After reading last nights report from Blue, i kinda figured Blue wasnt going to be superb by any stretch, so i figured i wasnt going to miss anything at Blue. On the snow just after opening, which is 9:30. Huge crowd. like 10 people. So i started out on this lift, its a quad, they call it something "express", but it is really lacking in the express part. Nice grooming, and some ungroomed stuff over to the left that looks like it has a little more than 1" on top. Turns out there is a nice coating of snow on top of some midly crusty stuff. Fun to ski, dont make tons of hard turns and it skis well. I rode this lift for a little while trying to figure this place out. Over my left shoulder, i see more trails off in the distance, a chair lift, but i cant tell if that area is really open, or how to get there. My first attempt landed me right back at the express. this was that ungroomed area i saw from the lift. Just kind of ignore that fact its a little crusty underneath, and it was fun to ski. Anyways, back on the Express again, this is all the way to lookers right. Again, ungroomed on top of some firm stuff. Fun. Super crowded trail though, as you can see. So, some guy was actually to my right skiing this trail as i made my way down. We ended up on the express together, with another guy. So i'm in between these two, i need some info on this place from someone local. i know the guy to my left just skied down whatever trail that i was on, the guy to my right has a face mask on, and is skiing RTM's. Figuring he knows the best spots for Cocoa, i turn to the guy on my left and ask him how i get over to the other side. he said he was going that way, and just to follow him. Off the lift, and down some trail, he stops about halfway. Says, you can keep going down this trail and make a left, and it will take you to that other lift, or you can ski this glade, and join up with the trail below. I told him i wanted to ski this glade, and he said, "good. so do i." Turns out you can judge a book by its cover. We headed off down here. Disappointing sideways picture, but the glade was fun. I took this picture later, after i split up from this guy, rather than tell him....."wait, i need to take a pic for PASR," and have to go through explaining all of that. This was taken looking up from where we started skiing that glade. I couldnt figure out how to get to the top of this to ski the whole thing. So, after that, we got on the next lift, and he told me where this and that would go, and from the top of this lift you could go to (i think) East Mountain, if its open. It was, and he said, i will show you where another nice glade is. So down a little we head into another nice glade, and ski that about halfway down to the lift, then onto some ungroomed trail with some variable snow, then onto a little cut over, since the cover on that particular trail was getting a little thin and weird. Back up that lift, rinse and repeat, and then i split off to go back to the base, which is kind of a ways off to grab a beer. This is where picture time ends. i went back out, started back at the express, then worked left again, just having a good old time. I did pass by what i can only assume is the oil rig lift, but no pic. Called it quits about 2:30. Great day. What a great day. There were some areas of lake ice on the trails, oddly enough, they were just small patches surrounded by really nice well groomed snow. They do a nice job grooming here. There were a bunch of trails closed for snowmaking, and maybe one that looked a little dicey in the ice department. Come to think of it, i bet that closed trail would have lead me to the very top of the first glade i skied. No crowds to speak of at all. I think there are a ton more glades here than i skied. Coverage in the glades was good, not JH good, but lets face it, its the east coast. The firm layer under the good snow was actually probably a good thing, my skis came away unscathed. I am amazed at how much snow they actually get right in that area. you dont have to drive to far to find pavement. Theres nothing crazy steep here, but the conditions and trees well made up for that. Super fun place. I think its an hour north of Elk. I like Elk, i was there once a few years back, but drive by Elk, and go here. Totally worth it. Its all fixed grip lifts, so its a GSS free zone, and if you like to complain about Blues parking lot, go to Elk. Its 2 hrs 10 mins from my house in the poconos, so its a super easy drive, and i will keep this place on my radar.