C1erArt

For GSS, Floyds is in great shape but coming in to it Solitude has a trail wide jump that was a little unexpected. River shot is a little choppy without that nice double drop that gave it a little interest last year. Floyds is the run of the day, 53.8 ( but I think Skitracks is reading high on the new phone

First day on skis. Kind of warm and quiet on the slopes. Lots of snow slopes are fairly wide unlike last year when they started off narrow and the edges were never filled in. Nice day, legs are noodles though

Topo map shows 410 for the Challenge lift and 530 for East Mtn. Agrees pretty much with Ski Tracks on my phone. In any case, a lot more vertical than I'm doing now. Got the NBC Sports Live Extra app and Apple TV watching other people ski.

Owned by Peak Resorts? Same as JF/BB.

You found out my hidden phobia. If God had wanted us to go up a mountain at more than 4 miles an hour, he would have given us jet packs. Just the flat sections of the glades near the trail had snow.

No, I was waiting for JF to close first so I could get Blue's 'other ski area' deal.

Floyds was about 45 mph on Saturday with the headwind, but up to 54 on Sunday. Looks like I missed on on my free Blue Mtn end of season days.

BB will be open next week, and JF might be open next weekend, but pretty quiet this weekend. Still loads of snow - no brown spots at all. Nothing bumped up even at the end of the day. Snow remaining in the glades softened up enough to allow some edging, but Exhibition bumps looked pretty solid. Got there around 1 and it was 32 and warming. No wind which was nice after the headwind Sat morning, bluebird skies. Snow was soft but not slushy - firmer on E. Mtn. Last run on Rivershot (I think Rivershot was the run of the day): One of the best days of the year. My wife and I did the tour of E Mtn, Challenge, TBolt and then Exhibition. But all to soon the red ropes came up:

Getting in some end of season runs. Was out Monday - snow was very soft but never got slushy. Pretty much the only day of spring skiing this year. Also out late on Friday. Slopes were pretty frozen, but had some ruts from earlier in the morning when it must have been warmer. Today was pretty cold, 18 degrees on the bank thermometer. Strong headwind kept the speeds down, but wasn't as bad over on E Mtn. Slept in and got there about 9 - only about 20 cars in the lot. Filled up a little later. First runs on E. Mtn were pretty lonely. One big group of season pass holders and a few other groups on the slopes. Did a bunch of runs on T Bolt since run was pretty much shut down this week without the T Bolt chair running. Should be there tomorrow - they say they will be closed next week but maybe open next weekend. Still a ton of snow, and no brown spots, but the school spring sports season siphoned off the skiing families. Lehigh dam inflow at 650 cfs, pool is up to 1340 from 1300 on its way to 1365. Out flow is 425 - runnable if you are desperate. Water temperature 37 degrees though.

Should be a nice day, hopefully sunnier than today.

--In the house were Johnny Style, Root, Nastar Glenn, MBike Mike, PARidgeRider, JFBBDan, AtomicJeff, TheDude4Bides, Phillycore, Indiggio, Justo, Toast, Doug, chick Doug knows and I'm sure a few others I've forgotten. Hey - give some of those guys back. How was Dreamweaver?

Floyds was nice, but it was so soft you couldn't build up much speed.

Been pretty quiet here, I may be the last man standing at Frost. Was out Monday, very soft but not slushy - spent a lot of time of Exhibition bumps trying to stretch my skills a little. Wednesday was frozen again, with a pretty strong head wind. Anything not groomed was solid. Today things were more like spring skiing, although I got pretty cold on the mountain. Very quiet at 8 AM, but things picked up quite a bit before I left at 11:30. No lift lines anywhere, but they were selling tickets. T Bolt, Challenge and E Mtn were groomed but very soft, and got rutted up after a little bit. Went back to Exhibition - the left side was all left ungroomed, so did a half dozen runs or so there. With the frozen conditions, the bumps were a little under utilized this year. Cloudy, snow showers and never got above 34 or so.

Jack Frost closing Floyds (and by default all of East Mountain since Rivershot can't take the traffic by itself) every weekend has me reconsidering getting a season pass next year.

Any word on using season passes from other areas, or is their Mercury Rising promotion going to replace it?

The kids are working in DC, so rather than head up to New England for our family get-together, we tried this area. Was raining when we drove up Wednesday, snowed all Thursday (about 10"), and was bluebird clear Friday, Sat and Sunday. A nice area with a lot of snow, the front side has about 1000' drop, Top of the Mountain (far right looking down the hill - like Jack Frost it is an upside down mountain - starting at the top) area has some nice blacks. Over on the left side are more greens and blues). Silver Creek area (which is set off from the other areas) has night skiing and a fair amout of parks - kids skied that one night. The real prize was the Western Territory runs - nice 1500 vertical blacks with a double black at the botton half of Shays - half groomed and the left side a little soft and bumped up from the recent snow. I spent most of Friday there - with the high speed lift I got in 25,000' vertical in less than 5 hours (with some of that on the front side). This week is spring break, so a lot of college kids came in this weekend, Saturday was a zoo on the front side, but WT was still nice - lift lines not too bad, and mostly serious skiers and boarders. The row of hotels and condos at the top of the mountain was pretty packed, but we had a house just down from the top road which was pretty quiet, and had a shuttle to the areas. Definitely would go again, especially since we picked up season passes for next year (including last week) for $225, less than what we would have paid for day passes. Also a link to a boring GoPro of Shay's run (long runout between the upper black and lower double black). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDXq1F_GdU4&index=3&list=PLaSIOfaw0ggrK6F2cJeFj5X1o1_ilHtYA Took about 4 hours to get down there on 81, then 3 hours on the back roads of WV. Hadn't been down there since boating the area in the 80s. Reminded me of that old whitewater book:

I noticed that too - we have been buying the family pass which saved about $100 between my wife and I.

If I was able to only ski on weekdays, Blue would be pretty attractive, but I just can't hack it on weekends, even first thing in the morning. Plus when we were there when our son was racing, it was full of death cookies and ball bearings. Skied it in March last year on the 'any mountain season pass' plan on a weekday, and had a nice time - liked Dreamweaver a lot, and was almost able to work myself up to where I could ski Razers without skidding, but then it got too crowded to try it. Also not thrilled about all the twisty intersecting trails, I like to turn when I want to, not when the trail forces everyone to. The view from the top of Blue would be pretty nice too if not for the legacy of industry in the area.

Skipped Sunday, and hit JF this morning. More than made up for Saturday - Rivershot is pretty nice when you don't have to worry about coming over the headwall and running someone over. Enough cover under the E Mtn chairlift to run it all the way down, and even from the top of the lift down to Lightning. About 9 degrees, sunny and a little windy on Challenge, but not on E Mtn. Was a little worried they would skip grooming Sunday night, but everything was in great shape. Nice thing about frozen cord is that it lets you know when you are skidding your turns. Been having some problems with my Square Jellyfish bluetooth volume control I have velcroed to my glove - the cold weather is making it unreliable connecting to my iPhone. Stuck a toe warmer pad on it and it worked a lot better. Also tried the Navionics ski app rather than Ski Tracks. Gave very consistent readings in the mid 40s, and its nice because you can see where on the run you hit top speed. 15 runs, 8000 vertical in 2 hrs 20 minutes.

Got there a little late, because I forgot my poles and had to go back (too involved with putting cold weather wax on last night), top lot was Subarus only, but weather was nice, about 8 degrees, overcast and wind blowing down the hill. I headed right over to east mountain, which was fortunate because I only got a couple of runs in on Floyds before they closed it for the racer kids: And the red coats were running a couple of sleds down Rivershot (can't complain about them too much since they gave me a free ride off of Floyds 5 or 6 years back). Unfortunately, with how narrow Rivershot is, if you have to stop to be sure the headwall is clear, what's the point? Skied Challenge and Tbolt and a little of the glade until about 10 when the little kids came over, then without east mountain to escape to, that was pretty much the end of the day. Tbolt headwalls were groomed to give a little more air than I expected a couple of times. Looks like another year with a narrow slope at the bottom. One thing that was nice about JF was the wide slopes, but they aren't bothering to fill them in anymore, making it harder to avoid slower skiers. They did groom the right 'fan' of the first headwall on Rivershot - was pretty scratchy Friday before last, but once they closed Floyds, there was nowhere to go at the bottom. Working from home next week, so hope to get out for a couple of hours a few days. Last two weeks was out at a company that made hip and knee replacement and trauma hardware (plates, pins and screws), so I got to see what's in my knee without an x-ray.

Up for a couple of hours. Trails were in great shape, hard packed and very fast. Glades were pretty deadly though - looks like they got some rain at the end of the storm Monday (trees were glazed) and there was a pretty good crust except where the groomer went. Some tracks off-piste, but no one was making any turns: Have to wait for them boarders to pack things down. Floyds was in good shape, but a little bumpy from the groomer, and coming over the top the slope was in total shadow when I got there around 2, so it was pretty much skiing blind. A lot of people hitting the bumps on Exhibition. Left side of T-Bolt slope still not filled in.

Closing Floyds every weekend would be the pits for the rest of us.

Was up with the wife Sunday afternoon for a couple of hours - Floyds was reopened. Looking at PARACING.ORG, that was the last race at Jack Frost. Interesting that they switched from Challenge to Floyds - makes it a lot more interesting for the racers. But is was surprising nice, especially after radio station day on Friday. Challenge and TBolt were still fairly flat, and Floyds was nice. Still hope they fill in to the left of the lower tower on TBolt - makes it a lot easier to stay out of the way of the rentals and kiddies.

My daughter tore her ACL playing soccer. It didn't hurt, she just heard a pop and when she tried to keep running on it it was unstable (the knee didn't 'lock' when extended). We found out afterwards that girls are 8x more likely than boys to tear their ACL playing soccer. She wasn't in any pain, and waited several months before getting it operated on. Unlike my tibia plateau fracture - that hurt right from the start.

Seems to be - they appear to be bandaging her near the elevator jump off (from her facebook page):