Robert2

I lapped Janes lane for 2 hours, 1 to 3PM. Will you be there tomorrow?

Overcast morning , cool air, real slick wet rides. Lapped Lehigh all day. Sun came out about 3 under blue skies. Plenty of snow still on the ground. Played in the glades between Lehigh and Janes Lane. JADIP

Its definitely still winter at JF. There's no less than a foot of natural snow in the glades between the groomed trails and thats got to say something about the groomed trails...where they made even more snow. The whole Pocono plateau is a snow capped peak. 600 feet lower in altitude we have zero snow on the ground but up at JF and all the surrounding housing developments they have white blanketing all the ground everywhere. Today the surface was mashed taters by 3 PM. I lapped Lehigh, Jane's Lane and Ridge Run all day. Real nice fast rides but it slowed a bit about 3 PM. Then I just hugged the tree lines in the shade and found slick fast rides again. Forget the flower show. Its still winter here. JADIP

8AM dawn patrol..... nope...... you got a better chance at meeting god than finding me on the snow at 8AM on a Saturday. Anyone who will take me on a Saturday is going to pick the arrival time, so its never up to me. And midweek my ride end of day time limit is 4PM so don't do night sessions at Blue or BB. My wife is still a total newbie so if I do get out on the weekend with her I still won't be freeriding with the PASR crew. As far as crowds go.... I saw more people at Blue at 4 PM on ONE January Friday afternoon than I had seen ALL WINTER during midweek days at Jack Frost. So yes ... I'm spoiled.... you can have your crowds.... I'll stick to midweek at JF.

I got there at around 1PM and had my student again today so we lapped snowflake and powderpuff for 2 hours. lesson movie I've never been at Jack Frost on a Saturday in February during peak season. It was crowded... like a WMMR day crowded. It sort of reminded me of every Friday I was at Blue mountain. My student got to experience the joy of avoiding crashing into other skiers. She flew like the wind and zipped in and out of the skiers like avoiding a broken picket fence. No blood today. It was a good day. JADIP

Since the Timmy bus cancels any time there is big snow I welcome the chance like yesterday. The more relatives I teach how to snowboard the more snow time I'll get when they visit DURING snowstorms. Do it right the first time and you can teach anybody to be a snowboarder. Its not like babysitting like other ski classes. None of this potted plants sitting in the snow all day waiting to be told what to do. My number one instruction for anyone I teach is if you fall you get up, as fast as you can, you get the hell up and ride to the lift. If you ain't bleeding you are riding. And if you don't want to ride down the hill, take off the board and go home. None of this wait to be told what to do next. So...like yesterday. I just followed the kid all day. Just in case she fell. I'm not going to walk up the hill so I always stay above the new rider on the hill. We would have gone again today but their minivan got snowed in. It took hours for them to dig out and then they still spun wheels on ice and gave up. We'll go tomorrow.

Any relative over the age of 12 gets handed to me to teach snowboarding. Its sort of expected. And with the Irish thats a lot of kids. This lesson was a 16 year old anorexic girl. No muscles. Just a twig of a kid that barely filled out the snow clothes. Its one thing to teach athletes but these city kids really worry me sometimes. One fall and they twist like pretzels. Or even something as simple as a shoulder roll to go from sitting to knees to stand up seems like a whole battle to get flipped over.... even with real expensive lightweight snowboards. They are house kept...like pets... no physical exercise.... no muscle tone... real pros at nintendo, WII, xbox, but take them outside and you would think they were vampires and would burst into flames under the sunshine. I teach them balance on fusion scooters and healies on blacktop before they get to the mountain. If they can't ride a fusion scooter (4 big outboard wheels and handle bar) and do S curves to check speed then I figure why waste $32 on a lift ticket. I gave this kid a fusion scooter last March. This kid passed her blacktop balance and S turns testing before hitting the slope. Wrapped up in armor... wrist guard mittens, knee pads, elbow guards and a helmet.... she had no fear of falling and took the ride... in the blizzard... until they kicked us out at 4PM.

Perhaps some of you didn't get the memo. The main routes to Camelback are route 80 , 476 and 611. All of these roads DO have snow removal plans and do have plows salting all day and all night. But employees do not live on main highways. Most employees live back in the woods on roads that right now have no markings of any kind now that a foot of snow has fallen. It will take some time to get staffed up after any major snowfall so I wouldn't be surprised if CB or Blue shuts down because of heavy snowfall. On the other hand... the smaller ski resorts need less people to operate so I wouldn't think they will close because of snowfall. The roads were very bad yesterday, people died, after the first 5 inches of snow fell so I can't imagine it any better after another foot comes down tonight.

huh... where is this?

Today was a teaching day for me and my student had been on slush once last year , and now snow as her 2nd lesson. She road down Snowflake, fell once, jumped up, road to the lift and then lapped Powder Puff TEN TIMES without ever falling down again. Nice to get deep sticky "no go" snow for her first time out this year. It had just enough slip to it to ride all the way down the hill...even where its almost flat. Snow fell...no... it wasn't snowfall... it was definitely a blizzard with hard winds blowing snow sideways a lot of the afternoon. If I didn't have the kid I would have explored the black diamonds today. This is real superhero snow. Deep enough to fly like superman and if you screwup you just end up soft landing in a snowdrift. This snowstorm isn't going away. Go play if you can. JADIP

Yes... I agree...conditions were just phenomenal..... again. I wore myself out lapping Lehigh. JADIP

Snow was a bit wet from morning sleet. Not really a bad thing though. The surface was about 2 inches of dense snowcone crystals. It definitely was wet if you sat in it. But I never sit... I strap into flow binding while standing. All this wet made very fast slick riding. I wore vinyl rain pants and never got wet sitting in the puddles on the lift. The sleet changed over to heavy clumpy snow at about 2 PM and it laid really nice. Nothing sticky about this stuff. Flew like the wind on Lehigh. JADIP until the Timmy bus got stuck behind an accident for 2 hours. I didn't get home until 7PM. Missed my 6PM bloodmobile appointment.

well..last week sucked. They canceled the bus on me for Wednesday. We sort of lucked out on the travel gods. The roads to PHL were closed Wednesday and open Thursday. We went to Philly Thursday under blue skies... flew the next morning. Landed in Bermuda and witnessed gale force winds, hurricane speeds gusts... and the airport closed the next day. The weather didn't bother us much. When it cleared up we could see blue water. Had a great time there... sort of how old people do valentine's day. Coming back the high winds pushed the flight home 30 minutes early. We landed in Philly before the snow started and got home without any problems on 476.... while watching south bound 476 gridlock at rush hour. Timmmmmeeeeeeeeeee

Today we had no blue sky at all while the big storm rolled in. The surface was groomed cord. Real fast riding. JADIP

So perhaps its not really my problem that I am not qualified to operate 3 quarters and a key. Apparently this is an old problem with many people having been screwed out of flight time on the white stuff because they had to dick around with lockers maintained by incompetent Blue management. Any business that sees they have a problem this simple and does not fix it just doesn't really give a shit about their customers. Until they find a cure for this disease I'm not coming back to Blue with students. I have to carry too much stuff with me to play this game.

ha ha h haaahha... and yes .. I am amused. The roads will be cleared. We have a snow removal plan in this part of PA. Our ski tourism industry depends on clear roads. Last night they salted and cindered all night and this morning you would have never knew we had hours of snowfall last night here. You guys remember the 1996 snowstorm? 30 inches of powder and the governor declared a state of emergency and said you can't leave where ever you are. If you do you get a $100 fine and the cops will return you right back to where you came from if they catch you on the road. I was at Big Boulder just rolling down the black diamonds in hero snow. Me and 5 other mad men rode until lift closing time and then I left...drove to the Tudor Inn motel a few blocks away while all the employees were stranded there and not leaving. I was not allowed to leave the Tudor Inn for two nights. hmmm, 14 years ago...GSS would have been what ..16? ..... some of you were in diapers or not born yet.

RE: With the amount of pockets I know I have on my clothes I can't imagine needing a locker. Dressing like an astronaut is always a good idea, but for the most part you can leave the space peripherals on the launchpad. ====================================================================== Its one thing to leave the house using just pockets... I do that all the time. Its totally another situation when carrying dry clothes. They are bulky. And armor too. When I meet the city kids for lessons I bring roller blade wrist guards, elbow guards, knee pads and a helmet for the kid and some warm base layers also. The damn kids always show up with jeans and cotton sweatshirts and 3 pairs of cotton socks. So... no... this big fat bag of stuff isn't going to fit into anything at the valley lodge except the 75 cent lockers. If I can't get one of those lockers...and lock it... then I can't go play on the snow when I arrive at noon and the student won't arrive until 4 PM or later so then what? I babysit a bag all day or risk losing $200 worth of stuff by leaving it unattended unlocked. I don't think so. So no.... I don't think the merits of Blue are worth the aggravation of Blue. Not now anyway. SAVE THE TATAS

Last night's snowfall continued into the morning and left an inch of soft natural snow on top of the groomed cord. Rides were slower today in the shallow angles because of all that fresh powder but could be pumped up to ballistic speeds in the steeps. It was a very dry fine snow. Nothing sticky about it. Yesterday the groomed cord made a crackling sound all the way down the hill. It sort of reminded me of the space shuttle booster rockets. It was louder than my IPOD blasting in headphones. Today... no crackle at all... just a sa-weeeeet ride. I wore myself out lapping Jane's Lane and Lehigh today. JADIP C'mon...you know you want to do it.

Interesting. Saying I'm talking shit about the place if I don't like Blue. Seems you are the one that missed the point. I LIKE BLUE for their teaching areas. BLUE has something I don't get at Jack Frost. They always run carpet lifts and tow ropes in the brand new beginner ski ares. This is my attraction to BLUE. When teaching brand new students there is this time where you can't be going out on a real hill and we make the students slide down 100 feet and then walk back up a very small hill. Then teach left and right rides then link turns. NOBODY goes up a ski lift hill until they can link turns in the beginner area. If they can't link turns they can't slow down so its a safety issue. So the longer you keep a student in the 100 foot ride then hump up the hill area the more worn out they get and sooner or later they screw up and crash bad because they are just plain worn out from humping uphill. BLUE has cured this problem by making beginner areas where you don't have to hump back up that hill. My students aren't athletes. My students so far at Blue have been city kids who aren't going to last very long in lessons dragging a board uphill. My latest student is a member of AARP and the best chance for her success is going to be a beginner area with a carpet lift or tow rope. So... no.. I'm not talking shit about BLUE because I don't like BLUE. I'm telling it like it is and nothing more. Don't read into it anything else just because I have a 4 year history of daily riding at Jack Frost. When I say my stuff doesn't fit in my season ski locker and you say you can fit your stuff in a ski locker .... thats great.... you win...you can fit your stuff in a ski locker. But that still doesn't do shit for me or everyone who doesn't have a ski locker. Blue has to fix the valley lodge locker problems. Its that simple.

RE: robert, what are you bringing to the mountain that needs to go in a locker? Bottles of water..... dry clothes.....batteries... electronics. When you take buses you don't get to set the temperature or have the luxury of walking out of a house into a car like most of you always do. I've waited 2 hours on bus stops in February for the Trailways bus in 7 degrees. I must carry extra warm layers with me and I can't be wearing sweat drenched clothes after riding all day. So either Blue deals with their visitor storage needs better or lose customers to a ski resort that can. I've used pay lockers everywhere I ever took a bus to ski and never ran into such time stealing locker crap until last week at Blue. I used the quarter lockers at Jack Frost 4 years ago when I had a season ski locker. Those ski lockers were outside and just like the season lockers at Blue. Too narrow to fit a backpack. But Jack Frost indoor quarter lockers had a bit of a different twist. The money collection box was missing in one column of lockers so when you dropped your quarters in they would just roll out at your feet. I used the same two quarters all winter. The next year they put in the big wide indoor season lockers.... that fit backpacks.

That's an interesting idea. ...jamming them up to they don't have to pay? How's that done? I would think if they were doing something like that then the coin slots wouldn't still be functioning.... and they do function just fine....drop 3 quarters in ...and you hear them clank down to the money pot... but the key doesn't turn all the way out and then the locker is still unlocked. http://ww5.komen.org/Donate/Donate.html

Light snowfall all day dusted everything with about an inch. Just enough to hide the groomed cord tracks. Some places had sugar granular... like the headwall on Lehigh. Nice riding. JADIP http://ww5.komen.org/Donate/Donate.html

This isn't about locker roulette. Its about how Blue has no real policy or solution to the basic problems that need to be addressed in a professional customer service fashion. Not here's your lost 3 quarters...go find another locker. They have two huge problems here to fix. The first one is the number of people using pay lockers who should have some place else to stow their stuff on site and out of the way. The second problem is the fact that their own employees telling me that the lockers have been broken for years and management refuses to replace the broken locker mechanisms. As far as giving Blue a fair shot goes.... Blue got the fair shot and screwed the pooch 4 out of 6 times. So.... no.... I'll stick to Jack Frost where the snow is pure as cocaine. You can have your sharp dirty volcanic ash ungroomed at the end of the season slopes while I ride daily at Jack frost on the good stuff until April. If I can not get a locking locker in the valley lodge I can't teach at Blue so until they fix the valley locker problems my students will have to go some place else.

What about in the valley lodge? Thats where I have to be for the teaching hill. Any way you slice it there is no Blue policy for snarfing up locker space without paying for keys. And to have a wall full of large lockers...75 cent lockers...where half of them don't have working key locks...is just plain screwed up. I wouldn't really care if a locker or two were jammed but for the people working there to tell me they don't fix them ... they just give back your money.... if you ask for it...forget that crap. No locking lockers at Blue. No more going to Blue for me or my wife. I was really thinking I was going to have some fun with you guys. I brought the Chinese board and left it in the board rack facing the lodge in plain sight for you guys to find me when I was getting ready to go out and you easily would have spotted it on the hill...even from the lift.

I bought a season pass and a season locker thinking BLUE THE TRUE would be perfect for meeting up with my northbound students on Friday. That means if I go EVERY Friday night all winter I'd be even on the cost of the pass and locker. I even made arrangements for the Friday bus to be a permanent schedule. But that changes tomorrow. I'll do Jack Frost and forget about BLUE THE TRUE. If I go to Blue it will be on a spur of the moment trip not a weekly event. Its just not worth my effort if I have to play games with lockers like that again. Funny thing happened to me today. I met a former employee of Blue Mountain who used to work in rentals and was THE GUY that was responsible for those lockers working. He told me they were screwed TWO years ago and the new owner refused to invest in new locks so guess what.... nothing new about this issue.... but there's a new stunt jump new bag and a new out door grill...etc.... You can have your Blue the true. I'll take Jack Frost where the snow is always as pure as cocaine.