JFskiDan

The power has now gone off at my house twice in the last week. Both times at night. it looks like this.

No - i was looking at the poconos for the cold temps, and philly for the high temps. i know i saw 0 degrees on my thermometer here, not real sure if we dipped into the negatives around philly or not. Lets say 90 degree temp swing.

Snowbasin today. i think it got up to about 94 around Philly yesterday. sometime around this date in January was when we had that real cold snap, like -9. Basically a 100 degree difference. i like the cold way more than this over 90 and humid bullshit.

Personally i would host a Derby party, but thats just me. it looks like they are moving around snow, but currently there is no access to Big Boulder lift, which i would assume would be the lift they would use, if they use one.

Back by popular demand is May Day this Saturday May 3 from 10am to 6pm at boulder PARK. All snow passes are just $10. To get in on the loop be sure to check out boulder PARK's facebook page to see what they are planning...

And train rides!

i would say that their decision was based on the forecast for Saturday. i think they would have opened if the weather was going to be more favorable. Was hoping for 1 day this weekend to finish the season at Frost.

Boooooooooooooo.

Very nice.

i went there about 5 yrs ago with a party of 12 or so. The only positive thing i could say about the experience that is was definitely not crowed. I put it on a different list. i think that place changes management somewhat often.

A little lacking in Stowe pics, but i think we bumped into the Stowe smoke shack. looks well built. i think this was the glade we were in that we entered off of Nosedive, and kind of cut across Goat and National. Sugarbush - Deeper Sleeper (i think) nice long mellow glade. had nice snow in it Castlerock - Castlerock Run Liftline

Made the drive up to Vermont Sunday after skiing Frost with some friends on Saturday. Pretty easy 5 hr drive to Okemo from the poconos. My original plan was to head further north and hit Jay, Smuggs, Burke, and Cannon, next week but i was having issues finding someone to look after my dog. I revised the plan to stay at my parents place at Okemo, where the lodging is free, dog is being looked after, and dinner is always ready by 6:30 pm. I skied Okemo Monday, its kind of hard not to, Sachem Trail is about 100' away. i havent been to Okemo in a long time. Conditions where pretty much the standard east coast stuff we have been dealing with all season. Really nice grooming, but after things get skied off the hardpack and ice come back through. There was a light dusting overnite which did a great job of making things look better than they really were. i left the groomed trails pretty early in favor of Double Diamond, and Outrage. These are two trails at Okemo that have some loosely spaced out trees on the trail. These would have been great if conditions were better. They are both natural snow, non groomed runs. light dusting of snow on top of hardpack/ice, with rocks and boulders mixed in. Still you can pick your way down, but it would be really nice if conditions were better. i looked into Loose Spruce, which is a glade, but i wasnt crazy about the snow, in it, and i was alone, so i bailed out pretty quick. Safety first. In the afternoon i check out Jackson Gore. Kind of more of the same over there, just nothing to get too excited about, but on my way back to Sachem i passed by a Glade i would like to check out today. Bottom line is nothing nobody already knew, Okemo is for families, there is tons of slopeside lodging, and they really do a nice job with their Grooming. They also over rate all their trails, and they actually state on their trail map "this system is a relative system and valid at Okemo only" Tuesday i made the 2 hour drive up to Stowe, to catch up with Guitar and Tiny Moose. They were skiing with a crowd from the ski divas, and another friend of theirs. This was day 2 at Stowe for them. We quickly met up and skiied with the group mixing in some trail with some of the glades over by the chapel which were really fun. Over all conditions were better than Okemo, but their natural snow trails were suffering from the same coverage issues, and there was some ice to be found in spots. I think the glades were a bit more filled in and a the trails overall were in better shape, they didnt seem to get scraped off quite as bad by the afternoon. After lunch Guitar and i split off and headed for some glades off the Four runner Quad. Made a few runs through some really nice glades and decided our last run or two would be some nice cruisers since our legs had a workout and we were sweating up a storm. Stowe is a fun place, and i could have definitely done another day there, so, two thumbs up. Wednesday was Sugarbush. Woke up to about an inch of new snow, and it continued through the day with minor accumulations, but what did fall made the day really nice. We met up with some of the same group from the previous day. for the first part of the day we stuck to runs off of Lincoln Peak, then made our way over to Lynx Peak where we found Deeper Sleeper which was a really nice tree run. Sugarbush had very similar conditions as the other mountains. Natural snow trails and glades were lacking some. Definitely some things to avoid in Deeper Sleeper. After noon a few of us broke away to head over to Castlerock Peak, which from what i understand has no snowmaking what so ever, so we were a little concerned about coverage, but we took the trip up. Castlerock is where we really found the best runs of the day. Liftline was a little sketchy at the very top, but there were some convenient ways to drop into this a little further down. there was alot more powder on Castlerock, then the rest of the mountain for whatever reason. We had a blast on liftline playing in some bumps with really soft powder, which was barely touched for whatever reason. it was hard to leave there, but this was also the travel day home for Guitar, Tiny Moose and most of the other group. We left Castlerock just after 2 pm. i made one more run off Lincoln Peak which proved 2 things, my legs were shot, and Castleback was the place to be in the afternoon. Sugarbush is another place i really liked. lots of varied terrain, and we didnt even touch Mt Ellen. I would love to spend some more time in Castleback, as i saw some lines through the trees that looked pretty interesting. Overall, it was a great trip, it would have been nice to really get alot more snow, but this is the East Coast. I am sure Guitar and Tiny Moose will add some as they skied Smuggs on Sunday. Double Diamond, Outrage, and Black Hole at Okemo. Pics from Stowe and Sugarbush to follow.

There will be, at some point. But i didnt want my TR tainting up the nyc cigarette cost and facial hair thread.

Stowe was really nice today.

i can set you up with the Bonafides if by some chance we are at Blue at the same time.

Got on the snow just after 9 am today, i wasnt sure if today was considered a holiday, and i was too lazy to look it up so i just settled for a 9 am start. snow overnight was in the order of 6" inches or so....pretty heavy stuff too. i was pretty confident all the trails would be groomed out, but i was wrong. East Mt was ungroomed and a few other slopes were half groomed out. Managed to get some pretty decent runs down lightning/rivershot before it got tracked out, then headed to the trees and the elevator. The sun came out for a while and really made the snow noticeably heavier. i left about noon, fun skiing today. A few pics. Skied risk it, there are a few visible rocks in the middle. From the lift i kept looking past risk it, thinking i would be able to ski the woods just to the right of risk it, and ski out the bottom of risk it. i have kind of had this idea for a while now, and they did do some clearing in there about 2 yrs ago, but havent had enough snow to check it out. i started in but, not too far in i sunk down almost to my knees. i thought better of doing this since i was skiing solo, and i really have no idea what is really back there, so i duck walked out of there. Havent been this far right in the elevator for quite some time. so i will give props to JFBB for not grooming everything out. But i will never fully understand their logic as what not to groom. It makes sense that East should be left ungroomed, but this is the connector from East Mt lift, to challenge. its flat, if not uphill. No decent powder turns to be had here, so just groom it out so its not a pain in the ass to get from east to challenge. Also, i think they left Lehigh ungroomed. Which is kind of silly too, since its one of the heavier used beginner slope. i skied it on my way out and it just looked like a ski shop threw up on it, with skis, poles and people just strewn all over it.

The new owners have thrown a ton of cash at the place, and what they have done to it has been awesome. i would think they would want to re-coup some of that before laying out that kind of bread for a high speed. If they do, i think they would pretty much be following the previous owners playbook for failure.

20 KW definitely keeps the beer cold.

Did you get power back? Heard west chester was pretty bad. Did you get power back? Heard west chester was pretty bad.

Slopes are great, trees are kinda un-skiable with the heavy crust on it. Elevator has some straight up glacier ice in spots, weird. Kinda thinking about montage tomorrow, but undecided at this point.

Nor do you have pallets of salt, i am sure. This is one example of when a reply from you is not necessary.

Can i buy a couple pallets off of you then?

Any one know where to buy a couple pallets of salt? Its starting to become a hot commodity.