Matt

+1 ... mountain and road, however i never really stopped riding during the winter.

I would check out either clipless pedals (once you go clipless, you never go back) and/or new wheels. ...you're not the only one who's looking into bicycle related stuff right now. prices are cheap right now. I'm probably going to purchase a new road bicycle next week sometime.

the proper ski technique to initiate a turn is to roll your ankles, then your knees over, then hips. i have a tendency of doing the opposite, hips knees ankles. it's a tough habit to break. oh, and the 1 ski drill helps with your overall balance as well...

it helps with learning how to roll your ankles.

holy amazing that's alot of pictures. great job!

It's probably Mixilplix. Definitely wasn't me.

That was my fault. I meant Pocono Raceway. The Near East dumps you into Pocono Raceway.

Howdy y'all... Yesterday I decided to switch it up and ski Camelback. I needed a vacation day away from Blue. I've skied the 20/21 days for this season there (now 20/22). So here it goes ... I left my house around 5:45am with a light snow already on the ground, went to pick my friend up in Elverson then make the trek up. The roads weren't that bad actually until half way up Route 33, then it started to get interesting, nothing that special though. Eventually arrived around 8am and there was already a good 20 person line for lift tickets. Got suited up and headed down to the Stevenson Quad. (For those who don't know, Season Pass holders get first dibs at 7:30 for a hour then the general public gets it at 8:30). I had to wait 5 minutes for them to get the "call" to let us go up. Eventually they did and we went up. Did the first run down Nile Mile, which good, but wasn't that good. It had good fluff on the top, but below it wasn't very well groomed snow. Proceeded into Cliffhanger, which was super nice and I laid it all out on my edges. I love that feeling). Aftewards, proceeded down to the Marc Anthony, then to the Near East. The Near East is now probably my favorite trail in the poconos. It's super wide, and just the right pitch. After exhausting all the trails on that side, proceeded to the other side. The Sullivan Quad was a mess with the lines, so me and my buddy went into the singles line and went up quickly. Then did all the trails on the other side. The black diamonds they had on that side were perfect. Plenty of fluff to have some fun in. Marjie's Delight was where it was at though. Skiers left had the fluff, the bumps, and it all. I skied that trail numerous times. Left around 12:30. The roads coming back weren't bad at all. Some snow on the road from Tannersville to half way down Route 33, then wet roads all the way home. Marjie's Delight gets the "trail of the day" award for this post and the Near East coming in a close second. That is all.

i'll be there.

huh? just like GSS said, the whole mountain is open. razors is only 3/4 of the width and they'll take care of that when the weather allows. the only thing that they still working on is the halfpipe, and that'll be open this weekend. i was there monday night and they had two groomers on it the whole night moving snow around. it should be open by this weekend.

hey snydershredder ... grammar, punctuation, and spell check do wonders (and people take you more seriously as well).

one of the best amateur films i've ever seen. hands down.

I was there friday and saturday, and I didn't think it was bad at all. I enjoyed skiing the mini-mogals all day. I didn't go thru the park at all, so I can't comment on that.

Same as Phillycore, I left my house around 8am and pulled in around 9:30 and got prepped for the day. Unlike some people here, I actually saw the guns running and got excited. I did my first run down the outer run, I don't know it's name. It's the one next to Boulder Park. Proceeded back down, and I guess BB had some bad planning because they didn't open up that lift until 10:30 or something. The Lift Attendants blabbed something about the groomers being on the trail, but that was obviously wrong. I primarily skied Boulder park. Skied for about 2 hours until I jammed my thumb and it wrecked the mood for the day and skied one more run. My thumb was in too much pain. If my GPS was correct, I skied roughly 2,800-3,100ft of Vertical. I brought along my bike computer for the day. It is GPS based, so it'll do elevation, mapping, speed, and also has a heart rate monitor. Linkie-> http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7187205 Overall, for being the first day of the season ... I would say it was pretty good, I definetly need to update my iPod with the ski mix I created last season. The current mix isn't cutting it. I'll be back up tomorrow at 10am sharp.

speaking of snow ... 2-3inches left over night in the Downingtown / Chester Springs area. Woke up to a nice little surprise. Too bad I don't have my snow tires on yet or this would have been fun to drive in.

I would be in.

Haha, I just caught that.

Express lift line for Season pass holders? I like the idea.

I'm totally ready for the season. I just purchased my winter tires for my car this morning. Should be here hopefully before the end-of-the-week. Then i'll be throwing them on shortly for some opening Vermont trips.

haha, I immediately thought the same thing.

I'll be there on Saturday; however I'm going non-gaper.

What's happening - Today I decided to switch it up and rock the Sno Mountain. For some reason I always think Sno is a haul from West Chester; but it's only an extra 20 minutes longer than if I drove to Blue. My Nuvi (the GPS computer) told me it was a 1hr 50min drive. The drive started as rain until half way between the Mahoning Valley and the Pocono Exits, the snow changed over to rain. The snow really didn't stick on the roads except for very small bit of road way on the turnpike. After all that fun, I strolled in around 8:05am. I suited up in the lodge and got out by 8:09am. Shortly after getting started, I caught up with SnoSkier for the rest of the day. The snow that fell left a very nice 1-2in coating on top of everything. It made for pretty damn good conditions, and tack on the fact that no one really showed up until 11'ish ... there was still untracked spots on the trails until 11'ish. The one thing I really like about Sno is the variety of the more advanced terrain when compared to Blue. Sno's trails turn, wind around, and are kind of wooded in. I tried to do the Superpipe, damn that thing is tall. I pretty much skied everything on the bottom half (or from what I believe is the "NorthFace", I'm not too proficient with Sno's trail names yet) and most of the runs on the top. From all the trail names I remember, White Lighting had some of the best conditions on it. All "fluffed" up and just enough bumps to give it "attitude". I kept my eye out for the PASR Sno forum regulars; but couldn't find any. Overall, today was an awesome day. I definitely liked how empty it was there today (when compared to Blue's mid-day clusterf**k) and how's only an extra 20 minutes when compared to the Blue drive; I'm definitely going to be there more next year and maybe still once more pending on when they are closing up for the season. Anyways ... that's my report. Enjoy.

Hi'ya ... my 3/15 trip report. After a whopping 3 hours of sleep after being out in West Chester for the night, I woke up at 5:45am to drive up to Blue. I got there at 7:20 to the lower lot and to my surprise, no PASRs. I suited up and got 1st chair down in Valley. Did my first run down Razor's Edge. It was awesome. Soft snow, yet it wasn't chopped up yet. Perfect, perfect, perfect. I proceeded to do Challenge, Main Street, and Switchback ... all in amazing conditions. I skied those 3 trails rotating until 9am when I started my lookout for Gaper PASR's. I went to the top, no pasrs, I went to the bottom, no pasrs. Checked my blackberry to see if today was the correct day and time, and still no PASRs. Eventually at 9:20 at the top of the 6'pack I found them. I skied with the gang for a few runs, then they went back to the parking lot and I kept on skiing. I skied with a bunch of people today. Some of my ski patrol friends, some friends back from Collegiate racing, and others. I started the day off with a hoodie, but got too warm for that ... so I switched to the vest. All in all, this is what I love spring skiing for. Warm days, soft snow, relax people (oh, and no one from PA shows up too). It's great. Left around 3pm and I'm now currently exhausted and heading back up to Sno Mountain tomorrow morning for opening. It's depressing that next Saturday will be Blue's last day, but there are still other places to ski.

Howdy - I'm heading up to Sno tomorrow for opening til either noon'ish or 2pm. Any other PASRs gonna be there? I'm gonna be rocking either my Blue Spyder Jacket or my WCU ski team jacket, it's gonna be a game-time decision on which one i'm gonna be wearing.