Robert2

Damn. Getting serious on me. And I thought you all had a sense of humor. I was just getting GSS to make good on his $55 tainted post for cancer promise.

What blurry picture?

Perhaps you might take note that cocaine snow post was my last trail report for the year. I figured you guys chewed up and spit out anything I posted all winter so whats a little cocaine between friends. Besides.... nobody reads PASR anymore that cares about cocaine, procaine... heroin.... does it really matter? Who are we possibly going to protect by choosing words wisely in this forum? YOU all have made it clear that nothing matters to any of you. Tasteless jokes, mindless crap, sarcasm in EVERY posting. COCAIN offended somebody here? yea. right. I posted trail reports to encourage people to come out and BUY LIFT TICKETS at the end of the season so my mountain would stay open later in the the season. My last day on the snow TR isn't going to get me any more days on the snow but somebody may have bought a season pass after reading that post. The snow on Friday March 20th was no different than any 5 degree day in February with fast rides, 100% white snow coverage, and immaculate grooming. I found NONE of those conditions the day before at Blue Mountain. MAYBE my posting didn't make a difference. But you all had a hell of a time dicking them over every day. I had a great winter and laughed a hell of lot at this forum so go ahead..... have fun anywhere you can find it. Laughing is good for you.

Maybe. Soooooo..... you guys remember Toast asking for cancer donations? Make a Difference, and help out... http://www.paskiandride.com/forums/index.p...20&start=20 And I said: BUMP this I will add $55 to my $100 IF Jeff does another $25 and GSS does another $30. And GSS said: I'll add $55 if you post another tainted thread!!!! Well GSS..... this is THAT tainted thread so now go pony up $55 for cancer research.

Family friendly filtered moderated forum: www.paskiandride.org

No. I could pass a drug test any time. So..... GSS ...how was your season pass party? I was at a wedding out of town yesterday and we got back too late today to get to Blue.

OK... so... anybody believe me now when I say conditions are great at JF... even in the last days of the season?

You know what.... it's funny you should ask. All winter I've been doing trail reports and all winter someone has said to me that my description of the snow was not quite accurate enough. I've never had, all winter, never had anything to compare conditions with because I only ride at JF. Well.... Thursday I went to Blue Mountain and coming back Friday I had something to compare. The snow at JF was white. Not just a little white. It was white everywhere. The snow at JF was soft. Not just some sugar in a few spots. It was soft everywhere. Some people at JF said we could label it frozen granular if really looking for a description. I called this type of snow SNOWCONE granular all winter. There were a few patches of groomed cord along the edges but still.....not cord ice.... it was soft to ride and looked like peanut butter if I rode flat on it..... I left a one foot wide trail on it. I've said it before. I'll say it again. SOMEONE ELSE besides ME should say something about conditions. I ride JF between NOON and 3 PM. So anyone riding in the morning may have more ice if the day is a warm day. Anyone going to BB has no way to compare with JF conditions because its a totally different crew and times to work the snow and ride the snow. I made the lessons movie to show what conditions looked like. The movie shows it all. The surface Friday was no different than any day in February when it was 5 degrees and perfect grooming. $

Winter has NOT left the house at JF. There were snow flurries falling at 10:30 AM under partly cloudy skis. The snow was absolutely amazing. They pushed the snow everywhere to get 100% coverage and the grooming was perfect. The surface was frozen granular 2 inches deep in most places with firm groomed cord everywhere else. The snow was white as cocaine. A big change from the sharp dirty volcanic ash I played on Blue Mountain on Thursday. You would never know this was the last day on the snow by the conditions. There were riders jumping on Exhibition so I parked for a minute to make a movie. I missed the jumpers but videoed lessons just to show how great the snow was. I also videoed 3 year old kid bombing Exhibition. I'll post the video after youtube takes it. JthelastDIP

Why do you guys always have to be such dicks? I had no complaints about today's conditions at all. I came more to buy the season pass today than anything else. I figured 60 degrees like yesterday would make Blue slow and sticky and suck but it turned out I got fast slick ridable snow and even better.... solid ice mixed with non-stick powder. I had a good time today. AND it was free rides.....today came with the season pass. SO NOW THAT I HAVE the season pass I can come to the season pass party Sunday. Dress in your best Sunday. I expect to take lots of pictures for the net.

R2 is a Blue season pass holder now?? Yep. I'll be at Blue Friday nights next year meeting a school bus. All other days I'll be at JF. Nothing really tragic happened. I was under dressed on my legs. I wore long underwear and rain pants. Standard stuff for days like Wednesday's 60 degree warm weather but not warm enough for today before the sun came out real late in the day. I played for an hour , got cold legs, tight muscles, came in and went to the bar. This is the second time I underdressed and froze this season. Go figure it happens on my second to last day on the snow. Its OK. I got what I came for and I will be back. If toast found me I probably would have stayed out longer but I figured the fat lady was singing.

The snow gods must have seen me coming today. The Timmy bus picked me up at 10 and got me to Blue about 10:40 and during the ride there the rain turned to clumpy wet snowflakes. The driver was damned pissed off he still had to deal with snow!!!!!!! I checked in the office, bought my season pass , and met with Kathie and Dennis Krell. The jacket raised a few eyebrows. So on to the snow. The rain stopped before I got outside and it actually was very nippy. I rode Burma and Paradise and saw from the lift ride that the rest of the mountain still had great coverage and grooming. There was some crud here and there but for most of my rides I had no problem finding good ridable snow. There was nothing sticky about this morning. The only large icy area that I found was all the way at the top of Paradise. As I strapped in for the ride I decided I did not want to carry the camera in my hand on ice because I would crush the camera if I fell. I had no problem with control so I took out the camera at the first turn on paradise where there was piles of snowcone sugar. So I got video of the rest of the ride which mostly had good groomed snow and some patches of ice. I found the ride to be very pleasant, in control, lots of snow to brake on to check speed and the hard ice was groomed to my liking also. I could pop up on edge and ride fast if I wanted and then find some powder to slow down before the turns. I'll post the video of Paradise when I get home late tonight. My overall impression of Blue today was that the surface conditions are still very ridable and probably will be until Sunday... closing day. See you all Sunday at the season pass party?

Great season this year. If possible next year it would be nice to have snowmakers and groomers identifiable some way on the web sites so we know who to buy beers. These guys are like Santa's elves. They work at night and we never really know who made all the great snow.

Perhaps I am using the wrong word when I say headwall but my definition of a headwall is ANY steep dropoff in the middle of a hill that is much steeper than the longer runs of a hill. This dropoff creates a blind spot from the view from above. Blues and even Greens can have headwalls.... they are just not as vertical as over in the black diamonds. Lehigh has just one headwall in the top 1/3 of the hill. This makes for a good visible flight at any speed 1/3 way down the hill then STOP..... assess the people below the headwall...then blast all the way to the lift. Exhibition has two such blind spots so I have to apply the brakes twice on Exhibition. I just will not trust my fellow skiiers to stay the hell off the blind spots in the fastest portion of the hills. Like I said before.... SPORES collecting their yard sale ... kids on leashes.... teams of boarders playing mini-groomers sliding down the headwall on their ass pushing snow like a plow......... and my favorite obstacle of all.... the 6 skiers standing like a picket fence all lined up across the base of a headwall because one of their buddies, or kids fell in the middle of the headwall and is still gathering up there stuff. Its like a human bowling alley. So then what? I don't need to run over them at top speed just because I'm too arrogant to believe they will NOT be there. You have to remember that midweek skiing at JF I might have 2 or 3 people share an entire hill with me if any at all so I'm used to having NO people in my way at high speeds to deal with. Add people.... apply brakes.... screw up a perfectly good 30 second ride. So I have no problem sitting down on the headwall at Lehigh and waiting the 2 minutes for everyone to clear the rest of Lehigh. I picked today to play at Blue because I figured it would be totally empty. Its 8:30 AM now and the sky is black rain clouds so I may get my wish to ride without crowds at 11AM.

YES I will be there at least until 4:30... the ride changed.

By the way R2, what is glacier ice? Glacier ice is that very last 6 inches or so of snow/ice/slush that mixes with dirt and leaves and turns brown. Then when it melts it looks like blue ice does...real smooth.... usually loses the groomed cord finish and is brown. BUT since we keep getting real cold nights it is still taking on a good grooming cord finish and any place in the shade it still rides just like any winter day... real edge carvable... even at 60 degrees today. So when the really nice white snow that has been pushed around to make total coverage on Exhibition and Lehigh is getting sticky in the sunshine........ I try to find the stuff around the edges in shade near the trees that is still cord ice. It really boils down to your preference of surface.... powder or ice. Right now it seems we have some of the best powder to play in and its mixed with some patches of cord ice. I'd rather ride very fast on ice than slow on powder. Anyone who falls in the powder will get real wet and not care...because its 64 degrees and sunny.

That heavy/ mushy... sticky snow is the only thing that chases me off the snow. That happened only twice this year... during warm snowstorms. BUT surprise its been so warm daytime that we are getting slush spots that then freeze at night into GREAT GROOMABLE cord ice the next day. I thought for sure I wouldn't get 2 runs in today before giving up on the sticky snow but I ended up outside for 2 hours carving on edges on the groomed glacier cord ice. You make your fun where you can find it...... and I found it today. JADIP at JF

park jumpers

Some additional thoughts about today's conditions. The mashed tators are great conditions for total noobes. MY niece rode slow and in control on Sunday in these conditions so if you know someone who wants to learn to ski but is afraid of getting hurt this might be the right stuff to learn on. AND WEAR SUNSCREEN!!!!! My hands were sunburned Sunday so I've resorted to wearing black glove liners under wrist guards so my hands don't get burned again.

I figured the sticky no-go-snow needed more slope to make it go so I started today on Lehigh and lapped a few with Exhibition. Noticing that some places had glacier ice I went for the ice instead of the mashed taters on Exhibition. It was all groomed so it had cord ripples but the color was dingy...some brown... dirt was only 6 inches below the surface but to my VERY pleasant surprise the ice ride was fast and no different than a cold 5 degree day in February. So I just picked the sweet spots and had a blast today... in 60 degrees!!!!!!!!!! When I got worn out I went to Jane's Lane and found solid groomed cord ice in the shade. Again..... just a real big WOW! All I had to do was find the ice and I could ride most of the hills by weaving in and out of the white fluffy sticky snow patches. ONE park was the same!!! Find the glacier "crap" and had a nice ride. Stick to the white stuff..... and it felt like someone was grabbing at my ankles to slow me down in the sticky snow. I got video of kids jumping. JADIP at JF

My brother ,wife and kid came 100 miles from NJ to play. Since the kid learned to snowboard they probably will come again on the weekends next year so I'll be at JF more on weekends. I bought my JFBB 9-10 pass yesterday. The kid has school ski trips to Blue on Friday nights so I may spend Friday nights at blue next year until the kid can ride on ice. She was very successful on mashed taters spring snow but cord ice will be trouble next year.

Yes... I've noticed that many PASR skiers come out for first tracks and bug out before crowds mess up the snow or clog the lifts........ or so I've heard... thats what they say about Blue and weekend skiing. I personally have never considered the snow messed up by people ...even at 4PM closing. And there's never any lift lines midweek at JF that EVER bothered me. Whats wrong with Sarah McLachlan - In The Arms Of An Angel ? I listen to a range of music made in the last 40 years and totally exclude rap and country from my song list. I listened to WMMR for 30 years then moved here. I listen to everything from Jefferson Airplane to Enigma LSD. Techno is good for kayaking...keeps the strokes going when in 2 foot waves for 2 hours. But snowboarding has a lot of lift time to kill. 30 seconds down the hill and 8 minutes up the lift. Sometimes I listen to Morse code to keep sharp. Need to keep the brain from wandering off.... it may not come back. I met up with NAX Monday and spent the day unplugged. It was really strange to hear the shhheeesshhh shhhheeeshhh noise of the board on the snow. I really have not heard or rode all winter based on surface or board noise. Bundled up at 5 degrees , armored up in wrist guards, kneepads and a helmet..... goggles...face mask.... add good loud music and its like the comfort of your living room.... while outside for 3 hours. I can't play with buttons when dressed for snow so once plugged in I stay plugged in all day.

Flatwater kayak 5 miles around Mauch Chunk Lake in Jim Thorpe 5 days a week. Until the snow falls. I wear the same clothes kayaking as I do for snowboarding when it gets cold. This cell phone picture was taken Nov 18th in a snowstorm. A few days later Boulder opened. Here's today's video of Easyrider.

I have a scouting mission I do every day to figure out where the glacier ice and mud is at the end of the season. I start at Janes Lane then turn left at the crossover into Snowflake. I take the short lift back up to the top of powder puff. That short board ride down and lift up gets me warmed up and my equipment checked out. Its also good to find out if I'm dressed too warm or cold and I can dump or get a layer or 2 in my nearby locker if I have to. So then I ride down Powder Puff , Easy Rider to the bottom and take the lift up over Lehigh. From the lift I pick out the bad spots and examine the crossovers then at the top I ride down Janes Lane to the crossover to Lehigh and blast down Lehigh. To my surprise.... there was no bad spots on Lehigh yet this week..... but the crossover is now just dirt. So I now have to hump it across Snowmonsters to Lehigh. At the bottom of Lehigh I crossover to ONE park then get on the triple chair which flies over Exhibition. Again... I scope out what's nasty then lap Exhibition until I'm worn out. Then I go back to Janes and lap Powder Puff and Easy Rider until miller time. Its a fitness program I can live with. Beats joining a gym.