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Day 3 - Mammoth About a half inch of surprise snow overnight and lifts that spin at 830 and I was up and out early. Cold and up top it was hyper windy but super sun kept it from being uncomfortable. Mammoth is obviously gigantic with almost 30 lifts and 200 trails, like Sunday river it's mostly pods of 2k vert or so. As a big fan of weird lifts they have some great ones, 3 older fix grips, a two part gondy that you load in the lodge like a train station and my favorite chair 23, where it's so windy they built a hut to off load with directional tunnels depending on how you wish to unload. Where taos jams more steep on steep, Mammoth rolls over though it does have endless steeps and tech skiing. Personally I think CA skiing absolutely murders in the terrain, particularly playground terrain that is super playful tech but not actively trying to kill you at any moment and Mammoth has endless amounts of that. I went up 9 first to get the bit o fresh in the dragons back zone 2 which was good until you hit the wind scour and then it got spicy af. The groomers were perfection with low crowds and superb views. The gondy to the summit was on wind hold but I noticed they groomed a run down cornice bowl that looked like Kitzbuel. Chair 23 was absolutely rocking, the wind up top was blue like but I wanted to ski dropout chutes which are kinda famous that held decent chalky turns and the cornice groomer to st Anton. It was one of the best groomed runs ever, the steepness was perfect and it's the fastest I've gone on skis in forever. It was so good I ran it three times in a row at hyper speed Chair after chair, run after run of just perfect sunny groomers. Lower mtn I foolishly tried off trail and found deadly punch through crust that tried to send me to the shadow realm but everything else was mint and my God the scale of the place. You could ski here for a month and not get all the steeps lines. Reds Lake run, solitude, white bark bowl there were so many runs where you can absolutely fly but my favorite run in the whole place was rooster tail to dry creek. It was a steepish bowl of chalk to a choke with a monster rock wall backdrop. The line was perfect chocolate chip and once charted you could air between and over and come out the other side 1000% club super sex. The sheer amount of terrain and the amount of fun and creativity you can have is absurd. I don't know what it is but CA kills fun flowy super fast terrain and I did my best to ski as many and as much of the place as possible but I just scratched the surface. I don't think PASR does alot of golden state skiing but Mammoth is up there with the super resorts like Vail, Snowmass, etc etc where the scale alone is impressive.

Day 1 ---- Taos I don't remember when I first heard about Taos but it has always held a shangri-la like reputation so when I was going to roughly be in the area it was saddle up buckaroo. I found a cool place to stay that is basically an rv park where they've setup 60's airstreams and such, update the interior kinda plus it has next level views. I highly recommend it if you're in the area and dig that kinda thing. I woke up early and hit up Leonels for tamales, NM knows what's good but I thought they were delicious and was in the lot by 815. There were negative people around and I was getting all the good omens. The moon could just be seen right over Al's, not a cloud in the sky and two gigantic Crows were dicking around by the ski racks. It was in the 20s last night so shit was firm to start but the groomers had super nice grip and I ran the sunny blues off lifts 4 and 8. Shakalaka or whatever was just perfect set it and forget it super high speed with barely another soul on the trails. Around 10 or so I wanted to up the wager and went up Kachina. I had my eyes set on k3 but stayed up on the ridge too long and ended up in cabin chute which held surprisingly soft super nice steep jump turns with a slush bump apron. I ran main st which was better bumps but not as interesting and then k3 which held super nice buttery bumps. NM had told me about a secret dope bathroom and with the tamales in the chamber I checked it out and followed some patrolers into Hondos for lunch. I had the green chili burger and mussels both were dope and a much needed respite after 12k shenanigans. After lunch I tried to find some lines on west basin I had seen from lift 8. Like an old man getting into the bathtub kinda speed I walked and traversed my way out there twice, both times not to end up where I wanted but took two nice ramps of taters on a plate as consulation. I don't know what the names are, it may be called thunderbird but it's tight entrance called to me from the lift but I couldn't find it. By now my legs where telling me to fuck off hard just about every 10 turns so I ran Hunziker which was absolutely perfect spring super fast falling down the hill carving. I thought it appropriate to end the day on Al's and by the end it was a bit rough but you gotta pour one out for your homies. I cannot say enough good things about today, some places you ski and it's like a religious experience. Alta/Bird, JH, etc, you'll remember the way the turns made you feel your whole life. In my opinion Taos absolutely has to be on that list. Better groomers than DV no lie, I ran so many I don't know the name of with perfect snow almost alone and the steeps absolutely kick your ass. Sitting up top Kachina, behind you massive faces and ramps absolutely sparkling packed full of snow, looking out you can see as far as CO and it's like your on the top of the world. I could have sat there forever, I was fucking Ghandi on Valium.

Sorry after I left june I went Vegas, Phoenix, Newark, its like I'm on the run from the mob and need some time to cloister and chill. Day 4 - June June is the sister hill to Mammoth where the later is gigantic and mostly newish June is smaller and old. Mammoth has some bro brah too where June is hyper chill. I rolled up a little before 8 mad at myself for not getting out of bed. June is two blue mtns stacked on top of eachother. The lower is all ungroomed blacks that with the freeze thaw are not skiable until the afternoon and are served by a awesome ancient double chair with a custom Jerry rigged safety bar. Because of this nobody skis the bottom mountain so I didn't think it strange I saw absolutely no one out. When I reach mid mtn, all the lifts are running, workers are out but I see no other customers. Fuck man did I get on the lift early or something ? J6 is running so I get on but even from the lift I can't see anyone, not a single other person. Wtf is going on where is everyone ??? I go Silverado a long blue that looks down on lake June which is absolutely perfect cord top to bottom and I still don't see anyone even down at the mid base. I take another faster even more perfect groomer down Bodie and I almost can't believe that I have still yet to see another single customer on the trails, lifts, base area like did I take peyote last night wtf is going on ? It's not until my 4th run I see another person coming up the lift and I'm 1000% serious I think I was the only one there for like the first half hour. Now it's starting to click no one is home and I can do whatever the fuck I want and j7 just opened. J7 hosts the good shit in the upper mtn and they've groomed a wicked steep groomer into deer bowl. All the way up I can see not a single person and decide I'm going to set the afterburner to 1000. From the top of the lift I do 5 massive arcs down the hill at absolutely maximum speed, I lied when I said Mammoth is fast I'm doing 10mph faster as a 1000 vert goes by in seconds. Matterhorn and Schatzi is exactly the same how fucking fast can you go taking up the entire trail jumping off anything because I'm still skiing alone. I've skied like 1000+ days at alot of hills and normally when I say it's empty it's relative to a normal day but I've never seen something like this, ever and not even close. I'm farming cord as I'm crossing only my tracks and while I can now see two groups out from the lift there's maybe 10 people out total on the entire upper mtn. All morning run after run after run I had the whole trail to myself, free to paint without rules I went ape just doing full width full speed arcs under perfect blue skies and sun, Sierra's hulking steep faces lurking in the background, June lake below it was absolutely perfect. It wasn't t-ride/Silverton or other trips where it snowed everyday but top 50 day ever skiing for sure. People did show up but I'd say at max maybe 200 people at most around 1pm. I rode the lift with someone only twice and only because I wanted to talk to this dude that ripped about where the fuck everyone was. Apparently it's almost always low crowds so Iow they don't have enough loot to replace j1 which while super cool is also super slow. After lunch I alternated between empty groomers and working lines up on the upper face. It's a moderate pitch of trees and rocks and while fun the snow never really got right off trail. The groomers though continued to deliver empty perfection. It was a super cool day and one of my favorite groomer days ever. I have written alot of words but if you read anything GO TO JUNE MTN !! PS. In keeping with tradition I saw these, fruit booting with snow board boots interesting.

Sometimes I don't want to go to the store which is less than 4 actual minutes down the road but then today I did 600 miles and since last Friday something like 3k. I got up as early as I could muster after 3 days of maximum shenanigans, its a bachelor party so to the grave but I highly recommend the boulders golf course and cake on the strip in Scottsdale. You make your own fun but some of the rowdiest shit in my life. I'm just getting to Mammoth, I scored a sweet ski in/out condo but I'm posting because my path took me about 30mins from death valley and I almost didn't make the detour. I've been lucky enough to go alot of places and drive alot of cool drives but Holy fucking shit death valley was absolutely stunning. Massive vistas in an almost alien landscape it was maybe the best drive I've ever been on. If your nearby don't miss it, it's as close as you can get to being on mars and except for the main area I saw almost no one for 50 miles.

Belle was fun today, looked like winter as soon as you turned off 28. As soon as the sun came out it was def spring. Cream cheese bumps du jour !

Hello trip report slacker here. Drove up to The Loaf Sunday, made it here in 10 hours- not bad. Spent Monday am lapping the new expansion - West Mountain. Sweet wide Blue Groomers with some woop-de-doos. Made me think of J law, you could get some nice air. Back over lapped the Superquad a bit and Timberline lift a bit. Then over to Kingpine. Today pretty much the same, just skipped West Mountain. Probably craziest trail we did was Ripsaw. Rocks, grass, frozen bumps. I’ll post the video- doesn’t do it justice. Calling for Nor’easter tomorrow, bring it on. IMG_0311.mov

Yes sir. Mid day peanut butter whiskey break. Still snowing, fresh lines and no lift lines all day baby. GH010039_1712240103532.MP4

Awesome time with my teens. Skied about 30k of vert today including moguls, trees, steeps. Stayed at the Christy Lodge in Avon. Got some HH jackets at an end of season sale. Boarding the red eye in an hour.

I got up there today super good groomers but no upper mtn though I might have been late. It was a super cool spot and apparently the air port is there but I never heard it. The brewery is open again Thurs to Sat and they built some kind of stage thing for music and what not. I got the best nap with the door open and a super view out of the door. Day 2 - Snowbowl I had to rally straight from the bowl to the party so sorry for the delay but I got moderate wastey pants in the craziest house I've ever seen. I left Taos at 4am to get to the bowl around 11, mostly because I planned this trip totally ass backwards but I was stoked to ride as I've heard so much about it. First thing I went for the bowl as you can see it from the lot and it calls to come ride. Sadly it was closed, not sure if I was too late but it looked like super sweet terrain and a reason to come back. The promenance of the hill is redic and the views are high class particularly for its size. I went white lightening or whatever the one is off the catwalk first about a half a dozen times. The sun side was super soft perfect but the shade was super slick which made for a dope challenge. Groomers were most excellent, super soft with relatively low crowds. I ran Sundance to logjam like 1000 times, its just a perfect hoot of a trail to put the hammer down. I ran super groomer after super groomer in the sun with mostly no crowds. Two days in a row of superb skiing, I'm on to some other stuff for a few days but I want to keep this train going. The question is back to taos or over to mammoth and June ? Thoughts?

Awesome trip with a great crew, and it went by way too fast. I’ll remember the day we had at the bush for a long time. I love spring skiing just as much as about anything and we sure skied our asses off! Agree with Law that there was no place better to be than with a good group of guys post skiing stoke, drinking a heady topper while the sun is about to set over the mountain. pics of various places:

Saturday, sugarbush. Sometime in the middle of the night @Johnny Law showed up. He headed to the resort a little earlier than us, as we were thinking 10:30 to let some stuff soften up. Firm-ish conditions up top, with softer stuff towards the bottom. The sun started doing its thing and softening stuff up that was in the sun, shady stuff was just a little pokey, but getting there. 1 pm we met up with jeffs buddy nick for some nice laps at castlerock. Terrain at CR was a little limited, selective at times, but still went. Big fun bumps with a good collection of rocks mixed in. Finished off the day with a few runs off heavens gate, ran till just after 3pm or so. sugarbush rocks, sugarbush skied well, and has real nice coverage. That was a pretty energetic day, as even @NMSKI said he was pretty much drained.

Hey All, I’m back from another spring session at Blue mountain the true mountain. I arrived at the lower lot around 820am and it was in the upper 30s with moderate winds. It felt darn chilly initially. In the house were Mixilplix, PARidge, MBike Mike, Slim, Airhead, Indiggio, Tarpenhead, Schifdawg, Nancy, Wally, Harold, Kumar, Bethlehem ford guy, Jimmy and many others. Razors was a little firm initially but pretty smooth and I got several nice runs in it without many people, one run in nightmare dreamweaver which has excellent coverage after pushing out the jumps. I did one run on Burma mid session and decent and the last corner, I pushed a little hard with my poles and one of my poles snapped…they don’t owe me anything as they’re over 10 years old. Riding the quad I was looking for the best pole to grab for the rest of the session and found a similar length atomic pile on the ground next to the race shack. The rest of the session I skied only razors and it got progressively softer and very pleasant. I skied until 1120, I didn’t hang around for any beer…I didn’t sleep much last night and sweat a lot today and more in the mood for water and Gatorade. A few rumors are circulating that Blue is going to reopen Friday and Saturday again. I don’t know about that with rain and warmish weather in the forecast but you never know. All in all fun skiing and definitely bonus skiing. Last picture showing they’re open this Friday 12-8 but might not have edited it from yesterday.

Those of us with IKON passes drove up just past Elk mountain and skied Stratton today. Cloudy, kinda foggy, actually really foggy at times, but no dampness. Some very sticky snow in spots, otherwise if you stayed on the traveled path pretty nice soft spring like snow. 1 photo. killington tomorrow.

The Commute to France Friday: 2:30pm ET we drove from Philly to Newark. The flight took off around 7pm. Saturday: Arrived at the airbnb around 6pm france time (about 1pm ET). The group stopped at a grocery store and bought an absurd amount of food. We also spotted this vending machine of cheese in Moutiers, France. We hit lots of traffic so we had to take some side roads to avoid the traffic. We later learned that there's a ton of Saturday traffic because more rentals go from Sat-Sat. Thought the humor of PASR might like this destination sign. The Airbnb The house was lovely but had European quirks. • Pro: It was the penthouse with a gorg view, walking distance to the town & slopes, and also on a bus route • Con: a weird bathtub/shower situation, slopped roofs that made some of the rooms feel small We went to dinner for pizza and wine. We headed to bed with the goal to be on the snow as early as possible.

I had looked earlier in the week and saw some snow, but it looked like it was mostly northern VT I was planning to just go to Blue on Sunday, but made a late switch Saturday night and never looked back at the weather.

damn that stuffed cabbage looks good. utilize the iron and hairdryer

My weekend turned into a bit of a landmine that blew up in my face so I could only ride with the crew on Saturday but it was just perfect. It started firm af but as the sun came out the super soft started coming through. We went in search of the steep bumps and the bush delivered with super soft blasters. NM put the pedal to 150 and was channeling his inner plake at ludicrous speed. Under sunny skies and warm temps we ran castle Rock, heavens gate and north links until they closed. Celebrations for such a day were in order and Lawsons Castlerock and headys went down easy, for at least a moment I'd wager there was no better place to be.

Razors got really nice after it softened up a little.

Hey All, I’m back from another fun day at Blue mountain the true mountain. I arrived at the lower lot at 818am and it was around 30 degrees out under mostly sunny skys. In the house were Atomic Jeff, JFDan, BenM, Indiggio, Slim, PARidge, Mute, Boo Bear, Becky Boo, Johnny Law, Harold, Oz, Rodney, Dirtwolf and many others. My expectations were extremely low with 2” of rain yesterday and overnight lows well below freezing. I was pleasantly surprised with Razors being super smooth and pleasant almost packed powder. I skied that ten runs in a row and conditions stayed the same and all but 2-3 runs there were only a few people on the trail. I didn’t ski nightmare dreamweaver as I really don’t enjoy that run when there are features. No real liftlines today with only the quad running. I ended the session with a run down burma which has nice coverage still and even took a schuss down Yeti. Fun parking lot with some beers and sunshine. While today seemed like closing day just like last Saturday, Blue has not made any closing day announcement and many think they’ll reopen for Friday and Saturday. JADIP

Time to head back home, still snowing here and theyre claiming total 14" so far. Today was another one for the books, this Ikon pass has paid for itself already with these 2 spring access late season ikonic powder trips.

We got 6 runs in when everything but the beginner lift went on wind hold☹️. But it was ok because the higher lifts were getting a little scary. Only lift open was a surface lift that laps the one area, but you had to be up there already. We lapped the baby lift a bit, then got off it and hiked up and over to get some untouched. Totally worth it. I may have a new hobby

Ski Day 3 - sunshine ☀️ - Tuesday @Schif and I skied with each other for most of day 1 and 2. So by day 3, we tried to do a group ski for a bit. here is the ski day 3 video recap. The sun was shining! You could actually see the mountains. It was so refreshing to not be in a snow globe. you could see a ton of fresh slides across the mountain too. We tried to go to Val Thorens with the group but mostly stayed in Meribel-Mottaret. There were powder stashes just off piste and it was lovely. The groomed parts eventually became quite scrappy in Meribel-Mottaret, so we broke off into a smaller group and went to Val Thorens. These are the runs we * think * we did. 1. Tougnete 1 2. Combes 3. ROC de tougne 4. ROC de Tougne 5. Chatelet x 2 6. Mont Vallon 7. Combes 1 8. ROC de tougne The group wanted to stop for hot chocolate and meet up with the full group. We wanted to keep skiing. So we stopped briefly and then broke away from the group but took Amy with us. We headed over to Val Thorens and it was lovely. We wish we could have gotten there earlier. I think we did these lifts while at VT. 1. Granges 2. Roc 1 3. Brueyeres 1 4. VT3 plein sud 5. VT15 6. VT4 7. Plan des mains 8. Pas du lac 1 to 2 to folie douche We went to Folie Douche around 4pm for the final hour and it was amazing. note: after I posted this I noticed the shirtless guy and the couple making out. It’s basically the Jersey Shore. 😂 Again - crushed a pitcher with Mike, had champagne sprayed on us, danced on tables, people were shirtless or bra only, and you know - typical Sweet Madness stuff. Since Folie closes at 5pm, we skied to Rond Point. But since it was a sunny gorgeous day - there was quite the line. We listened to the music and wish we had some backpack beers to jam out. It was S’s birthday so we all went out to dinner at La Galette (restaurant-lagalette-meribel.com). We ate fondue and raclette. It was delicious. we went to another bar for 1 drink and were up quite late. We check out of the Airbnb the next day - so we had a bunch of bags to pack. We skiied 1 more day and switched to a hotel the next day

Day 2 - Cloudy with a chance of Apres - Monday Here's a quick video recap of ski day 2 in The 3 Vallees. It was still raining when @Schifand I woke up. The clouds were thick and visibility was low in the morning. The day started with breakfast of eggs and sausage with the gang at the chalet. Given Schif's wrist and the weather, we got on the chair around 10am instead of 9am — hoping the clouds would pass. But it didn’t. The visibility was crazy low. I’ve never skied in worse conditions. Since we could only see about 10 feet in front of us, the slower wet snow, and the wrist, we weren't going very fast on Monday. Our goal was to go to Val Thorens and get up high where there would be snow. We found snow but couldn’t go off-piste much because of the visibility. The videos and pictures I took were during some of best moments of visibility. When we could go slightly off trail, the snow was wonnnnnderful. To start, we took these 7 lifts 1. Tougnete 1, gondola 2. Granges 3. Bruyères 1, gondola 4. Bruyères 1, gondola 5. VT27 6. VT35 7. VT33 - Cime Caron, tram We skied over to Cime Caron and found a tram that took us to one of the highest points at 3200 meters (about 10,400 feet). It's the purple star that I marked on the map below. For comparison, the BASE of Loveland Ski Resort is at 10,500 feet. So for the most part, elevation sickness really wasn't a problem during the trip since the french alps are quite lower (in comparison to the US west). BUT - Being at the top of the tram with full-on white-out conditions, it was a bit trippy in a vertigo sense. At the top of Cime Caron, it looked like hamster tunnel. We couldn’t see a damn thing. On a clear day, you can see into Italy and Mount Blanc - I suppose. We skied down and holy cow. It was a group effort. Wind was howling. Visibility was awful. No more than 5-6 feet. Everyone was in it together and the cluster of random people helped each other. People stayed in small pods. A solo skier asked if she could ski with us. It was quite the experience but we made it down. It wasn’t that steep or challenging, just truly couldn’t see anything. The run was either a red or black. Here is a video of Mike heading towards Cime Caron after that wild run. The line of snow / mountain / ski was just all white especially at the top. We took VT31 (a small gondola) and then we took Plein Sud ... only to find Folie Douce - Val Thorens. Since Mike didn’t party yesterday, we stopped for some fist pumping. Bonus: mike was instructed to elevate his arm. Fist pumping is essentially elevating it.. right? Folie Douce is a bit of a chain. I believe there are 7 across Europe. https://www.lafoliedouce.com/en/ After the pitcher of beer, we headed back to Meribel to apres with the gang. But the gang went in early because of the awful weather. One thing about 3 Valleys is there’s a ton of variations in lifts and gondolas. We took VT4 which is a double cable gondola that runs 3 gondolas together. It's in the video above (^^) We could probably write an entire post about the lifts we experienced. On the way back we took: 8. VT4 thé three gondola 9. Plan des mains 10. Pas du lac 1 to 2 We stopped at Round Point which was so fun. They have a giant umbrella that goes up and down, which was super helpful with the weather. They had a live British band. We danced to the hits of Queen with a ton of brits. Crushed a pitcher of beer - again. And had a great time despite the conditions and injury. Mike was holding off on getting the Rx but by this point - he was in pain and the swelling was getting worse. So we stopped at Le Pharmacie for meds. Note: Turns out the green cross in France is the pharmacy and not @GrilledSteezeSandwich favorite establishment. We had dinner with the gang in the chalet. I think it was some rice and chicken combo that A made. And B made a homemade carrot cake that was banging for dessert. We ended the night playing a tortilla slap game and spent the rest of the night bullshitting with each other.

Today was a total mind fuck from the get go. 31’ in the lot on March 24, a 9am open, gates open early, then not opening at all, then opening late, some screaming going on at the lift at the open, absolutely unexpected wonderful conditions after an absolute deluge the day before to full-on Spring conditions and unexpected bump line, digging @momskeeztoo outta the woods and getting her skis back on and late day parking lot session with a low-level eagles passover all made for a spectacular late season day and possibly another one next weekend. Fingers crossed for some more fun.

This morning was super fun...Blue pulled off some kinda black magic today...Mostly unrestricted runs down Razors..NM/DW was really nice too..Was a great way to spend Sunday morning...

Blue confirmed on fb open this fri and sat

Gore-juice day

Today is going to be a good day. 22 runs on hard pack to start, sleet that changed over to snow around 2pm yesterday. Today 8"+ being reported from the lower elevations and more up high. 13 miles away from Stratton and on my way. This might get Ikonic 😇

If it's over (which I think it is) today was an absolutely incredible way to end the season. Full speed laps on a flat NMDW and Razors with great coverage and decent snow. All things considered Blue worked magic the latter half of March when things were looking dire. Mad props to blue

Beautiful but windy day at Blue...Things looked in great shape...First couple of runs down Razors was just unadulterated smoothness....Got slightly more spicy as the afternoon progressed...NM/DW is clean all the way down....Super fun early but it seemed to be the trail most people wanted to be on...They have a some of decent snow piles off to the side which I assume is for tomorrow....Some small scrapey spots here and there/small bumps but nothing to stop you from doing what you want....Coverage was most excellent for this time of year....The run out from DM/DW and home stretch where the only thin spots I noticed....Super fun time at Blue this afternoon...

Only pic I took today...my daughter was pretty excited she got a basket full of marshmallows but I was hoping for some free stuff from Blue

Today was so much fun. Lapped razors basically and it held nicely...at least for that little over an hour I was there. Major props to blue. I don't think anyone expected how good today would actually be after yesterdays rain

Conditions were way better than expected for today after yesterday’s storm. Managed every run plus NM/DW twice with the fam before the Easter Egg hunt up top. Didn’t see anyone in the lot since we arrived late and left early for the top lot. Enjo had the beta for VIP lot(second row) being free and also skipping the stupid line for egg hunt registration(see photo). Line initially was from the top lodge entrance to the first row parked cars, but no one was using the second table to sign in. Hanging out on the veranda for a bit with @enjoralasand @PSUFrankensteinwas a great way to finish the season. Kudos to Blue for blowing snow this week ps random photo of @Boo Bear watching the egg hunt

Thanks for the kind words and beta on snowbowl, I really like the exploration part of skiing and seeing new hills or places I don't remember. This country is super safe and has endless incredible shit so might as well see it. Skiing i feel like why the hell do I want to know where I am and where I'm going all the time? Snowbowl was super surprising and with the upper bowl is a big sleeper. Idaho/Montucky are up for next season but I keep saying that about revelstoke and then something happens so who knows. Just me for the skiing, my brother citing extreme business could only make the bachelor party. Skiing at June was the only time it was a bit weird, like summer school or something where it felt odd no one was there but I make friends fast. A Japanese lady at Mammoth was my favorite, I think she was literally insane. She was lost at cloud 9 lift and absolutely interrogating the lifties about getting to eagle and I made the mistake of saying I could take her. 10 mins later she's still talking to me about her crystals and shakras and how the eclipse is the start of a new celestial era and all that jazz.

Some more footy from the storm. Stratton has some really really good tree riding when it's fresh. Snapinsta.app_video_10000000_392424296985773_7249342533102599535_n.mp4

Today I got to see what the cool kids in Marble do when they go backcountry skiing. I met a local the other day mid 70’s. We agreed to meet today at the winter closure gate at Lead King Basin. Our objective was to ski Sheep Mountain elevation 11,575’. I thought we were hiking up with skis on packs until we hit snow, then skinning. Nope. He picked me up in his side by side. We rode up about a mile to where he had his snowmobile parked. Then we switched vehicles. I sat in front and away we went. I actually have never been on a snowmobile before and it took a minute to get used to it. The snow was rutted and spring conditions and there were so many little roller coaster like up and downs. I was really trying my best not to smack his chin with my helmet from all the jerky stop and go motions. We came to a creek crossing and he got stuck on the uphill. So he instructed me to throttle it while standing next to it and he would pull from the front. That worked after a few tries. We exited the main jeep road and got into Sheep mountain road which is very tight and rough. He said there were 19 switchbacks. At switchback 13 he warmed me it would start to get rough. I was thinking “tougher than it’s been already” as we were skirting steep drop offs and almost riding sideways. He wasn’t wrong. We ran into another guy whose machine died. We helped him move it onto what little space there was without rolling down the hillside so we could get by. When we reached the top there were views from every direction. He gave me a very thorough explanation of what peaks were, ski lines, avalanche paths etc. The pictures don’t do it justice. It was so warm today. I asked him if we could go down the gentlest way possible and he said “I won’t do that but come this way.” I knew I was in trouble. The first headwall was really steep for me. Here is a picture from the bottom and my pathetic tracks of side slipping hoping not to fall Yeah, I can hear you all laughing but it was steep for me. We ended up not doing the whole 2000’ vertical and traversed to the snowmobile track and skinned back up. Ha wanted to hang out a bit since it was such a beautiful day. We snacked and chatted for a good hour in the sunshine. he left his snowmobile above the creek and after a sketchy crossing on slippery rocks with ski boots, carrying our skis, we skied the rest of the road to the side by side. Even though I didn’t ski the whole mountain, it was a stellar day!

And we had over a foot of powder in places! I’ve only ever skied true powder once in my life. Definitely a learning curve. Lucky my son was there to haul my ass up!

View from condo when I woke up this morning

Sunday, a little Magic. Still love this place, but really want to hit it with more open. above freezing overnight, so, some firm stuff with a little Blue Mountain type cookies, which softened up pretty fast. Very similar to last year as to what was open. A few groomed runs, and some fun spicy snow, grass, rocks with a few drainage pipe crossings mixed in. Got warm real quick, and that made the run outs real slow, and pretty grabby by 1 pm. Got to ride the black lift. Had a nice burger at the BLT. On the road now.

Bumps were firm early so a bunch of high speed runs on razors was nice. The wind tamed down considerably from yesterday. Things softened up and the bumps got deeper than I liked . Upper razors bumps were oddly spaced and pretty icy. The crew was working on a second line when I had to bail around noon. Such a nice day and I wish I could have stayed till the end. I went with my Retro attire today, 42 year old Descante pants and CB powder shirt. Got some compliments from the “old guys “ lol.

Traded a day at Blue for this

Day 1 - Afternoon Session - Part 2 “This is about to get good …” - @GrilledSteezeSandwich But seriously anything would have been better than the mishaps of the morning of day 1. @Schif goes to the airbnb to rest his broken wrist and I went to try to find the group. I take the Saulire gondola up and ski the main front face of Meribel trying to locate the group. I took the Adret lift about 3-5 times because I only kind of had phone service, so it was a bit challenging to coordinate. After a few runs, I found them at Monche Bar (https://www.meribel.net/en/apidae/le-monchu-meribel/). They stopped for shots, espresso martinis, and champagne - so I joined them for a shot and champagne. We took one lift together then we heard the sounds of Folie Douche in Meribel so we made our way over around 4pm. At Folie, we had apérol spritz and pitchers of beer. We danced on tables and sang our hearts out for about an hour. In the gang was Amy who I brought to Jeff's preseason party maybe 2 (?) years ago, B&S who lives in London, L&D who lives in Philly near us (maybe we'll bring them to blue sometime), and S who lives in Atlanta. It was a fun group. Folie Douche closes at 5pm so we shut it down. Then skiied over to Round Point which was wild. There was a line to get in so instead, we headed back to the house. Just as we got in, it started to rain and continued throughout the night. We were reading that it was snowing at higher elevations, so fingers crossed. We ate tacos with the gang at the house. Played some games. And went to bed hoping tomorrow would be even better.

Just a pic of my dog living his best life.

Lacking in the trip report for sure. Friday, killington. Very firm to start. Cloudy. No crowds. Ski on every lift like skiitoolive. We ended up on some trail, which should have been called “certain death” as it was the slickest, and most un-skiable trail i have been on in a while. People were eating shit on it hard and ending up in the grass. Skiing the frozen junky bumps on the side was better than doing the power slide in the grass. sun poked out just enough to soften some stuff up. Not entire runs, but parts of runs. Killington has good coverage.

And the clock strikes 5…guess that’s it for PA… I’m still pumped over the black atomic ski pole..and the one run on Raisins ledge I skied with one pole felt weird. With early bird season passes still for sale at Blue for a few more days, this was a heck of a move for Blue to sell more season passes and also get some of the camelback people to see the light…what’s this light all y’all are talking about..the light is Blue….

Looooooking mighty fine in them there pants son! Ain’t no way I could fit in my pants from that era! Funniest thing was I rode the lift with a rando who was very interested and asked if I was skiing with and knew the guy in the retro Descente pants 😬 great ski day skiing tele in the am then swapped out the heels to run some bumps but outta synch with everyone so kinda weird ending to the season, did some grillage with the bfg crew and peaced out, later gator!

As some of you already know, I made the bittersweet decision to sell my place in Crested Butte for a variety of reasons. I am glad I got to introduce so many PASR’s to the awesome mountain and town. When I went to get what little personal stuff I had there it was a very slow walk out the front door with a little lump in my throat. 7 years of good memories for sure. So since I am now 100% invested in my current location, I decided to buy this little UTV. The lead king loop is 4 miles from my front door. I am not a “jeeper” but there are amazing trailheads down the road. If you can cut off a 6-8 mile hike, you start out in some really awesome spots. And yes, my Jeep could make it, but my jeep skills are lacking. This machine is smaller and easier to navigate.

Today was exponentially better than i thought it was gonna be. I almost had myself talked into not going hearing the wind overnight thinking it would be a hill full of ice. i cant figure blue mountain out at all. The one day they knew it was gonna be max occupancy, they run one lift. Then they blow a whole bunch of snow 2 days before it monsoons, at the end of the season, and then they announce another weekend. I hope they wont make the lift mistake again, but i certainly do enjoy the extended season.

Day 53. Another storm. Nice, silky conditions.

You would think a brewery in Orefield would be empty but the place is packed every weekend. They don't just allow dogs, they're encouraged. My daughter kept asking me to go get more beer so we could pet some dogs