stever2003

well that's no explanation. What was it then?

It's true, they do have to pay more since they have more facilities running during the day than at night. The weather is gonna remain cold for a few days. They already have their base down and can wait a few hours until this evening before blowing again.

that's some bullshit.

Put your season pass away for the morning, purchase a lift ticket, poach the race trail.

I'm not as upset as this guys is. I was just waiting for all the Blues and Blacks to open. I don't really ski any green trails unless it's something like Paradise at Blue Mt.

Ya, why didn't they open those new trails? Wasn't there yet, waiting for them to be 100% before I check it out. I suppose all but the two new trails should suffice. EDIT: Are the Glades they show on the trail map open?

Ya, chippy pretty much nailed it. I was there today with a group I help run at Drexel. I was joined today by Ryan, Jaffe (who drove up since he didnt get on the trip), Mike, who's an instructor at Blue, and Lenny, a person from our trip who I met in line for the Quad. Since I didn't have to pay to go I got the snowboard rental and snowboarded for my 3rd time ever. We did 2.5 runs down Easy Out/Vista, then headed down Burma rd and over to the six-pack. We went down Paradise about 4 times, it was good stuff. Mike got free rentals so he got a board and rode with us (his 2nd time on a board) until he had to go teach lessons, and it was also Ry's second time riding. We all did pretty well, and I'm looking forward to riding again. I got to the point where I could get down Paradise without falling. I must say, my biggest concern was getting blindsided by other skiers/riders. On two of my turns I had people come too close to me (one nearly touched me) and since I'm not skilled yet as a rider I wasn't comfortable. After snowboarding for about 3 hours, we headed in for lunch at the Summit Lodge. Ry and I got the chili in the bread bowl, it was DELICIOIUS. I can't wait to go to Blue again so I can get more of that chili...the breadbowl was great too. I also got the Sam Adam's happy hour special, which was from 12-2. It was Winter Lager and was normal price ($6), but cuz of the happy hour I got to keep the pint glass, so I wasn't too unwilling to pay for it. After lunch I switched back to my skis for the afternoon. Hit up challenge, switchback, lazy, main street, paradise, then razors, challenge again, paradise, and razors again. I was really disappointed that switchback was so icy. Lazy wasn't spectacular either. Challenge was typical, crusty in the middle, a little bit of pow on the side...it was enough to turn on. I was having trouble getting rhythm in Barny's Bumps since they were groomed out last night, and my hurt knee was giving me a little bit of trouble. Otherwise, Main Street, Paradise, and Razor's Edge were gorgeous, nice snow on all of them. For the last run of the evening Jaffe challenged me to a speed race down Razor's...his mistake. I had him beat from the start. Ry started us off, and we skated on the flat part for the first 40 feet until the headwall began...I continued to push myself down the headwall until I reached good speed. Entered a full tuck as soon as it flattened out a little. We finished at the blue line used by the racers earlier....I won by about 5 seconds. That was a lot of fun, but I don't like to fly down those hills every time as I worry that something bad could happen sooner or later. The light was good enough but not great, and I had trouble making out the features of the snow for a very short span in the middle of Razor's. Today was a great day for me for both skiing and riding, and I can't wait to make it up to Blue again. I think next time I come up will be an upcoming Thursday or Sunday Night so I can do NASTAR for the first time. P.S. I did purchase a helmet this morning, got the Giro G9. It's a decent helmet and I'm glad I made the investment. Since I've had two ski trips that I didn't have to pay for this season (Killington and today) it's helped me make some necessary equipment upgrades/additions.

Thanks guys. I'm gonna get the G9...Blue Mt has it on hold for me, i'm gonna pick it up in the morning.

I went to Buckman's today to look at helmets. I don't have a lot of money and I'm not looking for an audio helmet, so I was looking for something that was a quality product but reasonable. The guy said I should look at the Giro G9, and I was surprised to see that it was $100. Looking online at other helmets I saw some for as low as $60. Would somebody please tell me what is the difference between a $60 helmet and a $100 helmet? I may just get the Giro G9, it seemed like a good product for $100. I would just rather not spend $100 at this time (next year maybe). Does anybody have any objections to this helmet specifically?

well put.

ya, they do. i LOVE that they have all-the-time pricing for college students. More mountains should adopt that (i'm still pissed at blue for taking it away). Is the Long Haul lift going to be open this year? I thought I read from someone on here that it was gonna be open every day. I liked Sno from what I saw last year. I'll be up at least once this year, probably in late February and in March. I wish it was a little closer .

that's the first thing i noticed. pretty ironic. eh, i'm kinda with chippy and dan. even the pizza wedge doesnt remove all the snow, i think it would be fair to say it displaces a bit of it but since each ski is travelling at a small angle to the direction of motion rather than perpendicular, the effect isn't as drastic as with a snowboard. I often get mad when i see snowboarders scraping everything away. I don't like to apply this generalization to the more experienced snowboarders, however, because they seem to be able to maneuver most of the time without scraping snow away. Obviously good skiers and boarders can stop/slow themselves without doing the wedge or scraping down 100 yards of mountain, so beginners are to blame. in conclusion, the guys in that video are noobs. you just gotta man up and go straight...dig in an edge or something. nobody can yell at you when you're not making turns. (all of this is extremely hypocritical, which i did intentionally as a joke since i'll be snowboarding for my third time ever this saturday at blue)

this beer cart is a sweet idea...i've never seen it before....i also don't frequent the valley lodge so i'm not surprised.

oh god, there was this poor girl in jeans and a black denim jacket at JF on friday. she was alone, about 17yo, i'm pretty sure she'd never been on skis, and she was getting down the bunny slopes at a rate of about 20 feet/hour. she looked miserable, and my sister gave her gloves since she had none. i saw her with some friends later, i'm pretty sure they thought it would be a great idea for her to come up for the $10 lift ticket and just left her alone when they got here. i'm pretty sure she'll never try skiing again. i taught my girlfriend, sarah, how to ski. i'd say it was successful, as she seems to be one who would do better watching from the lodge all day than out on the slopes. she was not too happy early in the day when it was still raining, and i think that was putting a damper on things. she had some trouble getting down at first. No trouble getting on the lift, and only fell the first two times getting off the lift. after lunch, the sun was out, and she was happier. by the end of the day she had a few runs without falling under her belt. for some reason i couldn't get her to turn, which baffled me because every time she got off the lift she would make a perfect turn to the left to get back to the slope. i'll work on that next time she skis. since i spent the whole day with sarah, i was unable to check out the rest of the mountain. i really wanted to check out the bumps on floyds folly, and i do enjoy the speed run down river shot. maybe next time...

are those trees on the left of the 2nd pic supposed to be a glade? whatever happened to the mad tree glade or whatever glade was on the East Mountain? EDIT: here we go: I think I remember when Elevator was on there...was a while back, and I didn't go to JF for years. Was Risk It a glade? why don't they maintain these trails anymore?

the high here in Philly is 73. I'll be at JF for the WMMR day on Friday, but otherwise the January thaw does not affect my skiing as I only make it out once every week or every other week. I kinda just want the weather to stay consistent so I don't have to change how I'm dressing and stuff like that.

What the hell is up with the weather? It was freezing last week, this week it's going into the 60s! This is ridiculous.

Doc D, Whatever I did with my edges worked. I just had three great days in Killington. Skied in the woods for my first time ever today, it was amazing. Also, your waxes were nice. I applied two coats of the all-temperature for the trip....I wish I had your cold wax, but I didn't have time to order it and I had the all-temp wax from your kit. The high around the bases was about 7 degrees on Thursday....my skis were squeaking across the flat stuff near the base. The temps were warmer Friday and Saturday....Waxes worked really well on these days, my friend asked me to tell him how they worked for me so he might get some from you.

Leaving for Killington in 3.5 hours. I can't wait...will post some TRs over the weekend.

http://www.woot.com/ - for today only

looking good. i'm headed up to killington Thursday morning. It's supposed to snow there from now till then, and then on Thursday the high is 8 degrees. fuck.

I can't say for sure but i thought i heard somewhere they were only good at JF.

Just bought 6 tickets for WMMR's day off at the slopes....only $9.33 each. Teaching my girlfriend to ski on this day since it's cheap and we lack money. My sister and her friends are going too.

Oh, and I was extremely disappointed by the utter lack of snow on Switchback and Razors. Sidewinder didn't look like it had much either....who the hell said they were gonna open it tomorrow? There's not even snow to build a wall around the stairway into the park. I know the weather hasn't been GREAT, but I feel like Blue dropped the ball here.

I know it's warmer down here, but I'm going to Killington this upcoming Thursday through Sunday, and the 10-day forecast is looking gorgeous for the trip.