PeterC0523

Yep, worst conditions ever. At one point, we skied several runs without seeing anyone else on the mountain. Employees at the base lodge said that they only saw 10 people in the lodge all day. Only saving grace is that there were no lift lines (or anybody else on the mountain), and we went with a couple good friends and had good company during the trip.

That's good advice, never thought about trending the annual Jan thaw like that. We'll have to keep that in mind for next season. Our early Jan trip to Vail last season was even mediocre. Not terrible conditions like this Okemo trip, but no fresh snow at all.

Just to update everyone on how it went this weekend... Friday was AWFUL! We had freezing rain for the whole day, the entire mountain was literally a sheet of ice. It got so bad that the liftees were dressed up like crab fishermen from The Deadliest Catch (in the yellow rubber suits), and were harnessed to the lift lines with larger rubber hammers pounding off ice!! At one point there was thunder and lightning, so they had to shut down the lifts for a while. Definitely the worst conditions I've ever skied in. Saturday and Sunday were ok thanks to their grooming crew. Variable granular conditions on top of ice and hardpack. Some of the runs weren't too bad with loose granular once the sun came out. And with our luck, Okemo got ~6 inches of new snow the day after we leave.

That's a good point. Lots of good runs may compensate for crappy conditions. I'll be sure to bring my hood.

We have a long weekend booked at Okemo, skiing this Fri Jan 11 - Sun Jan 13. Forecast looks like temps will return to normal by then, but it might rain there on Fri. Think it's worth the trip or should we bail? If we cancelled our reservations, we'd lose the deposit (~$220) between 4 of us. I wonder how the warm spell left the mountain and how much damage the rain will cause. Damnit! Wish the cold weather came a few days earlier, then the rain would be snow!!

We ended up going today and had a good time. Wasn't a whole lot open and it was hard pack conditions in the morning, but once things warmed up the runs were a lot nicer. There wasn't much of a lift line, so we got a lot of runs in. Spent most of the day on the three double diamonds, White Lightning was a lot of fun.

Ok, thanks for the info. Will there be NASTAR tomorrow? If so, which run are they closing off for that?

Think sno will be worth a 2 hour drive tomorrow? We were planning on visiting sno for the first time tomorrow, but according to their site only ~70% of the mountain is open (including bunny slopes). Maybe we should just stay local tomorrow and hit up Blue... ??

Use the normal as the "cleaning wax"... hot wax as you normally would, but scrape while it's still warm. And follow with the cold as the "final wax" and leave it for an hour or so before scraping, overnight ideally.

I use either OBJ warm or normal as the "cleaning" wax. Then I follow with either cold or normal, depending on how long I want it to last, as the final wax. The normal will last ~3-4 days excluding any slushy conditions. The cold wax lasts longer and doesn't seem to ride any slower in normal/warm conditions. IMHO, the only downfall of the OBJ cold wax is that it's a little more difficult to scrape once you let it completely cool. The only waxes you need to fully clean and wax is the OBJ normal and cold. If you want to mix, I'd definitely recommend putting the cold wax along your edges, cuz the wax there will wear significantly faster than anywhere else.

What, use base cleaner to get it out? We tried the "cleaning" wax technique at first. but it didn't even come close to getting all that red/orange crap out.

Like skitzo said, leaves a trail of green in very wet conditions. Made our bases look like crap, so we wanted to get it out. I had to use multiple coats of base cleaner to get all the color out from a white base. And I hate using base cleaner, dries out your base and strips all the wax! Normally I just hot wax with a softer wax, then scrape before letting it cool to much to clean my base.

Check out this thread for some more info on diamox and adjusting to altitude. http://www.paskiandride.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=2733 One of the general stores at Lionshead in Vail also sells this stuff called Altitude Adjustment. It's an herbal mix that will supposedly help you adjust quicker. I tried it the 2nd day I was there and I did feel less shortness of breath. It could have also been the additional day that my body had to adjust. But anyway, here's the link for more info on that stuff. http://www.altitude-adjustment.com/

You have to ski Vail's Back Bowls, they are absolutely amazing! And try the Buffalo Stew at "Buffalo's", it's a restaurant at the top between the Front Side and the Back Bowls.