C1erArt

Hit the slopes right at eight and skied to 1030 when it started the crowd up. Personally I liked Challenge - they evened out the crossover a little bit so you could maintain some speed right to the challenge trail and it was pretty deserted. But Rivershot and Floyd’s were in good shape also. It was a real pretty scene, with sunshine coming through the trees behind me, but I just missed it by a few seconds when the clouds came in. The clouds cleared up, and it was sunny by the time I left. Nice skiing in the sunshine for a change. Rumor has it they found a crack in a chair on the Thunderbolt lift, and upon inspection they found a bunch of more chairs cracked. They may be looking at replacing all the chairs.

As well as the vacation home owners both at Jack Frost, big boulder, and in the area in general. and they did put a lot of effort into one park, there are some huge jumps with mountains of snow there Plus, a lot of the people on buses from New York City that get there later in the season never make it over to the eastern end of the mountain. Or at least they shouldn’t.

Waiting for a certain someone to step up and ask about Floyd’s but it looks like he dropped the ball. Floyd was in pretty good shape, good to have two runs on East Mountain open.

I think teaching the groomer crew how to groom snow would do it. Although, it’s probably they just don’t spend enough time grooming the larger mountain.

It was open for a couple of weeks in December, before the east mountain lift and river shot was open.

Out for a couple of hours before the rain. Actually had some sun first thing, then the clouds rolled in and it got foggy around 1130. They have the connector from East Mountain to challenge open, and without a headwind it was a lot easier skiing over today. All the slopes were in OK sugar snow shape, but there are some brown spots starting to show. The top started getting a little soft mid morning. Very quiet today, the biggest group was the Tuesday ladies class. Stopped on the way back and got my fresh roasted coffee beans and some supermarket sushi.

When I was working in Butte, we would fly out of Bozeman every Thursday night and go downtown for the street fair during the summer. Restaurants would be packed.

Some scary stories about the people who snow plow that road. We were at Ouray last year doing some keeping on the old mining roads.

Tried hitting it a couple of times last week but chickened out, hope the coverage increases soon.

I like to do nice GS carved turns on the flats using the speed built up off the head walls also. At its best, challenge glade is by far the best section of Jack Frost IMHO. You can ski among the trees from the edge of the trail pretty far back to the right, all the way down to the right of the race shack and out just before the east mountain lift. And about halfway down, there is a crossover going under the east mountain chair and out onto the run out from Rivershot, but that needs a couple of feet of snow. There is an old pipeline cleared path a ways in to the right that doesn’t need as much cover to make it runnable, but it is kind of narrow. Some people were on it last week, but I suspect the few inches of snow we had just hid the rocks. But if there is enough snow, the whole area from the trail edge to that path and beyond is skiable. Between the bumps on the head walls and weaving in and out of the trees on the flats you can get the adrenaline going pretty good.

Really no off trail stuff now. There used to be a lot of blow over from the challenge guns onto challenge glade, but the past couple years that hasn’t happened (there is almost no base on the trails now and they are not wasting the snow guns). I did see a blue coat run elevator glade last week, he sideslipped down the front lip next to the tower (where all the rocks are under the snow) did two huge jump turns and skied out among the trees. Looked pretty good doing it. Mad tree glade and risk it were non starters all year. And little cliff huck was bulldozed out. I did see a few people run elevator last year but it was just off the lip, down and parallel to the trail and then out on the trail lower down, not skiing straight down to the bottom and out the runout to Floyd’s. Last year was the first year since the good old days that I didn’t ski the complete length of challenge glade. Just wasn’t enough coverage all the way down. A few sections you could go in, ski a little bit and then out. But I didn’t ski a whole lot because I was working out west during the week. And if the race team was on challenge, then challenge glade it was closed also. And this year there are some trees down due to the ice storm we had a couple of weeks ago. But the old pipeline path deeper in the glade might be a possibility if we get more snow. I’m pretty careful about not messing up my bases and edges.

The last drop is pretty narrow though, I try to hit it right at opening and ski it until it starts to crowd up. Going over the lip of the last drop is blind, and if you have to stop and check for fallen or traversing skiers – what’s the point? I’m starting to prefer Challenge, it’s wider and easier to get a good rhythm in your turns. Plus, the East mountain lift is 90 seconds longer than the challenge lift, and you have all that flat runout at the bottom of East mountain.

Was out yesterday, skiing river shot, challenge, thunderbolt, and exhibition. Started out on my Rossi 9s’ on River Shot and switched mid day to my experience 88s to get some more speed and bigger turns on the other slopes. With the A lift still not running to the top of Challenge, and with a strong headwind when coming down the connector from East mountain lift, I did a lot of tucking and skating yesterday. To add insult to injury, they don’t have the crossover from the connector trail to challenge open, so you have to go almost to the lift to get on the trail. On the plus side, challenge and exhibition were still fairly pristine and empty when I left around 1 PM. Getting close on Floyds, hope the warm weather this weekend doesn’t set them back to far. I think Vail is keeping them on a pretty short leash. . First picture is the top of Floyd’s.

Took the wrong turn coming out of the development this morning, and wound up at the wrong mountain. Also liked Paradise and Dreamweaver, but Challenge was also real nice first thing in the morning. Hit Lazy Mile and Main Street a couple of times. Left about 11:30. These days I’m wearing a helmet with black front and green back, bright green gaiter, and my Leki poles. If you see me, say hi. I have four more discounted tickets, so I’ll be back a few more weekdays.

Nice day today. A couple of inches fresh snow, and the sun peaked through a couple of times. Conditions were pretty good all over the mountain. Quad lift still down. They groomed out the whales on Floyd’s, but still need more snow at the intersection of Solitude, Lightning and the top of Floyds. Taken from near the top of where Elevator would be.