C1erArt

Got a little too enthusiastic in Challenge glade today. Time for some ptexing.

Nice snowfall overnight. First few freshy runs were great. Got cut up pretty fast, but still nice. Challenge glade hid some rocks so some work on my bases and edges tonight. Great day overall. SkiDan in the house. Bottom of Challenge on the first run.

Went down Exhibition on the way back to the lodge - surprise -bumps!

A couple of pics of e mtn. Time to fall into the zone with Blackmores Night.

West mountain great, east mountain just as good. Floyd's is like butter the whole length and width for the first time this year. Fresh snow in elevator so much a little slab broke off (avalanches in the Poconos?). A lot of snow blown last night and a lot of hard great work by the groomers. Back to carving tracks. Top GPS speed says 68, going fast but not that fast. Must have missed some data points. Close to 50 though.

30 degrees just a little wind and bluebird sky. Conditions smooth and carveable. Big improvement from yesterday. Blew snow on Challenge and left it fluffy. Glade is in great shape if you don't go too far in. First tracks, fan gun snow on the trees.

Blew snow the whole length of the glade. First tracks this morning. Great! Will have to touch up my edges tonight but it is worth it Blew snow the whole length of the glade. First tracks this morning. Great! Will have to touch up my edges tonight but it is worth it

Hit the slopes about 1 PM and skied for a couple of hours. 32 degrees and very cloudy to start, but the sun came out for the last couple of hours. The slopes got an inch of snow from flurries, but underneath was northeastern hardpack. Fortunately I touched up my edges before leaving home. Slopes were in good condition, but just the trailside edge of challenge glade was skiable. Floyds and River Shot were in good shape too, but a little bouncy on the knees if I got going too fast. Elevator glade looked skiable, but the fresh snow on top might have been deceiving. Exhibition was probably in the best shape of the trails. Even got over to Lehigh for a quick run. A quick shot of Lightning on east mountain just as the sun was starting to show through the clouds.

Wasn't horrible. A little icy and crunchy. Worst thing was the heavy overcast and flat light. Floyd's was ok, but right side still a little rough. Nothing slushy. Elevator looks rough and the far right of Challenge glade pretty bare. Top speed a little slow at 43 using Skitracks. Race on Challenge, and a lot of race program kids around on the other slopes, but otherwise pretty quiet. Lodge pretty quiet too. Some divots cut in the slopes by the groomers, but overall they did a great job. Tons of blue coats around. Shot of the top of Rivershot.

While we are sitting out the rain, thought I would weigh in on how great it was yesterday. Got there at opening with a light snow, a couple of inches of powder on the trails. They freshly groomed half of T-bolt and Challenge and left the rest puffy. Lapped those two pretty much all day - went over to e-mtn for a run down Rivershot, and did Exhibition a couple of times. Pretty quiet, although there was a line at the ticket booth when I left at noon. E-glade looked pretty nice from the chair lift, and Challenge glade was in very good shape. Firm 'blown' snow made carving between the trees a joy, and the bumps were just starting to develop. Still a couple inches of fresh snow on top, and the granite crocuses were few and avoidable. Hope the rain and warm temps don't mess up Floyds, but don't have much hope for the glades. A shot of lower Challenge glade - the far side beyond the tracks was great:

Nice day at JF - weird temperatures. About 8 degrees at home (near that other ski mountain I won't name), half hour north at JF it was 15 in the parking lot at top. It warmed up to 35 when I left at 10:30, but was a lot colder at the bottom of the slope near the creek. Skied Challenge while the race team was setting up the practice course, then over to east mountain for a run down Rivershot and Floyds, nothing too exciting. Trails are still pretty narrow with snow missing on Rivershot left and Floyds right. Would also be nice to fill out the right side of T-Bolt a little. A photo of the sun coming thru the trees on east mountain (some nice ice rime on the trees, but the photo didn't pick it up): Then over to T-Bolt and Exhibition for a bunch of fast runs. Glades too scratchy to try. Some bumps on upper Rivershot right and Challenge right, otherwise everything groomed with cord in the early morning. Bluebird sunny on the mountain, but clouded up on the ride home. Looks like the ice storm in Philadelphia kept a lot of people home - the lodge was very quiet just before lunch - most people were out on the slopes.

Moved picture of Tbolt from above.

Great day, each slope was more fun than the last: fast and well groomed Exhibition, Tbolt and Floyds, softer Challenge and fluffy Rivershot. A rare moment of sunshine at the top of Challenge before the snow closed in: Middle headwall of Rivershot: Hope they get the right side of Floyds in shape soon, and widen the lower part of T-Bolt.

Floyd's pretty nice. Below is Tbolt

Very quiet. Hard base with a couple inches untracked powder on top. Heading over to Floyds in a few minutes. Snowing and 22.

I email the photos on my iPhone to my Photobucket account. That way I can select a smaller picture size. I go to my Photobucket account, open the picture. click the info icon and copy the IMG tag into the buffer. I then paste that right into the text of the message. All done from the iPhone on the chairlift.

Great conditions. Sunny and about 40. Slopes are firm and very fast. Glades are pretty well filled in, even the lower section of t-bolt glade. A few rocks to avoid. A shot of the top of elevator glade with Floyd's in the distance. Plenty of snow in ungroomed whales up top but a little sparse lower down. Might be enough to open this weekend.

Out for a couple of hours this afternoon. In the mid 20s and mostly sunny. Blowing snow on Thunderbolt (had a groomer on it - looks almost ready to go) and on Exhibition (half the slope is pretty well covered). and blowing snow on Exhibition (half the slope is pretty well covered). Challenge was in great shape - nice and fast and smoother than Saturday. Happyland is almost top to bottom (at least on the side closest to the slope). Should be in great shape this weekend.

Nice early start to the season. Around 30 and cloudy, a few snow flakes around. Some ice in the trees, but the roads were OK. Challenge, Demattes and One Park open on the eastern half. Snow is packed powder in good shape. Pretty quiet on the slopes and the lodge, mostly red coats and blue coats. Race kids haven't started up yet. Some action on Challenge:

Going to give it a shot Saturday morning.

Also looks like the proposed private Alpine motor raceway located a couple miles east of Blue Mountain Ski area will be bought out and added to the PA state game lands in that area with the help of the Nature Conservancy. http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130418/NEWS/304180323&cid=sitesearch

Under East Mtn lift yesterday. Should be part of everyone's ski lessons - white is good, brown is bad. Hope they were rental skis.

Last day of the season unless they stay open for next weekend. Mid 40s, mostly cloudy, not much wind. A good number of people out, but no lift lines. Never made it over to East Mtn, but said goodby to Challenge glade and spent most of my time on Exhibition bumps. Broke out my old PEs last night, put a structure on the bases with a Ski Vision base flattener tool, and used some new Swix yellow wax (35-50 deg). Worked pretty well - only the slightest bit of grabbyness when going over some gray slushy spots. A lot better than yesterday when I had Dominator Graphite on. No brown spots on any if the trails yet. Sun came out just as they closed the trails.

Was out for a couple of hours in the afternoon. High 30s and mostly overcast. Still a lot of coverage on the slopes, although pretty soft and a little slow. Tbolt lift was not running so had to skate from the top of east mountain to the Exhibition lift. A fair number of people out. Run of the day were the bumps on Exhibition - nice and soft. Still some snow in the Challenge glade too. At least 3 more days left to the season.

Ride Delaware ?, on 18 Mar 2013 - 18:39, said: Occasionally we have to leave our little mountain and see what the the real world is like before scurrying back with our tails tucked between our legs. Saddleback had 4 foot of snow in the past several weeks - everything was open with a nice layer of the white stuff. Took several hard looks at Dark Wizard glade, but chickened out and kept going past to Tight Line - only because we are skiing with our 9 year old downeaster niece (thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it).