SallyCat

You're on. I don't think anyone knows what I look like, and Blue is hella crowded. Plus, being a middle-aged lady is sort of fun in that mostly nobody notices you. It's like you turn 45 and suddenly enter Stealth Mode.

I think it's hilarious that this site has more drama than the women's ski forum I follow! Also, I'm just trying to get up to 100 posts without actually meeting anybody from this site in person. I should just avoid the lower lot when Blue opens and offer a six-pack to the first person who can identify me in person. Like tag, only with beer, so better.

Sweet, I wish I could jump the falls like that. On the bike or on skis, I want to jump high but then I get skeered and end up barely clearing a credit card. Exhibit A, here's me at "maximum send" not even coming close to clearing a tabletop.

They had it up year before last right at the top of the summit. I know because I could barely ski at the time but thought "What an awesome idea, I'm doing it!" To which my friends replied "Shhhhh. No."

I'm new here, but is reviving a seven-year-old thread some sort of PASR record!? Also, why didn't they have an airbag last year?

I genuinely just didn't read the date, because I'm an idiot.

Man, I bought the Volkl RTM 84s last year and can't get enough of them. They're tweaking the design a bit for this year, and I bet you could find last year's on sale for a decent price. Sorry can't help with actual skis, but I love the RTMs so much, had to put in a plug for them.

Blue Mountain Racing had a big gear sale thingy at the shop at Blue today. Made the season feel closer to see all the company rep's trucks all lined up and lots of people in and out of the shop.

Central VT, near White River Junction. Plus extended family all over the place from Rutland to Tunbridge to Norwich. Hire a contractor in central VT and there's at least a 30% chance it's my cousin or brother.

Again, I was only referring to two years ago when the weather sucked, and only to groomers. I skied at Okemo, Mt. Snow, Killington, and some smaller hills (Suicide Six, Sunapee, Ragged Mtn) that year, and they all sucked; everyplace in the East sucked that year. I was just giving props to Blue for doing a good job in a bad year year, not bashing VT skiing. Vermont has been my second home for twenty years; I'd pick skiing there over anyplace in PA given the choice. I just think that in that particular year, the more snowmaking-dependent Poconos may have had an edge in terms of skiable groomers.

Yeah, I was just referring to the groomers, and just about the snow two years ago. There was not a ton of difference other than VT is bigger and less crowded, except that it's always nicer to be in Vermont. But when the weather sucked two years ago, VT sucked as much as PA and there was nowhere to go up there, either. I'm working hard on groomers so I can get good enough to do more interesting stuff, but for now, It's me and the intermediate masses scraping up the trails.

They have a good shop, too; their bootfitter saved my season last year helping me get my stupid circus-clown-feet to work with my boots. I think I won some secret retail "Most Annoying Customer"award for needing so much picky help, because they were definitely sick of me by March.

I've been hella impressed by Blue's snowmaking. two years ago when the whole east coast had a crappy winter, I was back and forth between a bunch of places in Vermont and Blue. I think Blue had the better snow by far than anyplace I went in VT. Last year they cranked out a serious base for that big March snowstorm; I couldn't believe they were spending what must have been a TON of money running the guns that late in the season. I've been scheming to get a job in Vermont for a couple of years now, just to be closer to family and more outdoor stuff. But as long as I'm working a M-F job, I think that I'd do way less skiing in VT than I do now in PA because there's very little night skiing up there. I'm only 30 minutes from Blue. If I leave work right after my last class, I can get almost five hours of skiing in on a weeknight. Can't do that in New England. Maybe when I get good enough to ski trees and such, I'll get restless here, but until then I'll keep shredding with the middle-schoolers on weeknights, getting the whole six-pack chair to myself because the kids refuse to ride with an old narc.

Projected opening dates. Not sure where they get the data--from the resorts themselves or speculation based on past opening dates? Not sure I would burn a MAX Pass day at K until after Thanksgiving unless there's early snow. Killington: 10/28 Camelback: 12/14 Blue: 12/13 Big Boulder 11/24 http://www.onthesnow.com/united-states/projected-openings.html?&ud=1&o=proj_open

If you're worried that Tarpon offended my delicate, feminine, southern sensibilities then you've never seen me make a12-pack of Bud Light disappear and then knock a child out of the way to catch some Mardi Gras beads. #nointerceptions

I'm so confused. Now I actually want to grade student essays instead of goofing around on ski forums...

I evacuated to Houston and stayed with friends; my house was fine, but my job washed away. Someday in person you can ask me the story about evacuating in an old Honda Civic with no a/c and two cats. But moving up here led me back to skiing. Can't wait for the season!

I understood that post as hyperbolic venting, not an actual call for the death of everyone in Texas and Florida? It does happen to be true that at the local, state, and national levels, TX and FL's politicians have impeded climate science, stripped funding for emergency services, and underfunded their own transportation infrastructure. And the poster is also correct that representatives from TX and FL voted against a Hurricane Sandy relief package. So the post seemed to be more about frustration with the actions of political leaders than malice. Not that it gives me any moral authority to speak on hurricane effects, but I'm a Katrina refugee and I've heard my city and its residents described in shocking, heartbreakingly cruel and vindictive ways. The original post on this topic seemed to me to be a sort of angry, satirical rant against the political leadership of both states, not an actual wish for its martyrdom.

$200 plus shipping. Located in Bethlehem, PA for pickup. Here's the listing pasted from Pugski: Skis have not been heavily used; I purchased them new in the summer of 2016 and used them a bit last spring at Killington. They have been mounted twice (because of a shop owner who bullied me into a forward mount on account of my lady parts and how they supposedly affect gravity or some shit like that. Then I had to correct the mount because, as I predicted with my lady brain, it sucked); they are currently mounted for a 305 BSL. The bases have a medium-course grind (put in with a SkiVisions tool & medium stone) because I primarily used them in soft spring snow. I think the straight, medium grind is pretty good, but then I never work on my skis without a beer nearby. Your assessment of the base quality may differ from mine. The bindings were bought new with the skis and are in excellent shape except for some paint that's chipped off (see pics). I don't know why the dang paint chipped, but it started coming off almost immediately. I don't stomp on my bindings or let them bang around in the car, so I'm confident that the paint chipping is just a cosmetic defect. In short, these have "had some work done" as they say in Hollywood. We're not talking Joan Rivers levels of work, but they've been on the shop table probably more than they've been on the snow. They've got many good days ahead of them, though, and are perhaps best suited to the discerning buyer who doesn't obsessively purchase expensive ski gear to distract from the yawning abyss of purposeless existence or the knowledge of one's own impending mortality. They would also be excellent for the skier fond of the Japanese art of wabi-sabi who embraces life's material imperfections because he or she knows that "we are all transient beings on this planet—that our bodies, as well as the material world around us, are in the process of returning to dust" and thus that we should find beauty in what may appear at first glance to be ugly.

Well then, you are a gentleman and a scholar; may you find someone worthy of your decency and good character.

You should register for my online class. Most of my students' profile pics would be better suited to whatever the smuttier version of Tindr is.

Totally kidding, I'm looking forward to meeting everyone. Yeah, I worked a cross-country race all day today, but i teach online college classes so I had to jump online for a couple of hours. Online teaching is the side-hustle that pays for my gear and lift tickets, but it has me on the computer way too much. Hence my self-distracting forum tendencies.

I feel like a very old anthropologist reading this thread. This site has made it into the elite roster of "places I check when I have work to do but I don't want to do it and it's not winter so I can't ski yet." I'm actually afraid that if I met any of you in person, it would ruin the fun of me playing the role of "elderly troll." :-)