Freeski919

Well, I got day one in at Stowe. They were spinning the new Fourrunner Quad, and now they have a spiffy RFID system, which is way easier than pulling a pass out every run. Temps were mid 30's to start, and got up to upper 40's by noonish. They pretty much had two runs on the top two thirds of the mountain, which funneled into one run for the bottom third. Conditions were pretty spring like, with soft mashed potatoes that quickly formed up into some nice bump lines. All in all, a good day to be out there. Shiny new lift. Couple rails. Bumps on Centerline Bumps on Lord.

I'm currently sitting in Slatington PA, so nope. Besides, as a lowly mountain employee, I'm not allowed to ski on opening day. And last season, I got about 2 feet of fresh pow on December 7. Which is usually about two weeks into the season around the 802.

Opening day at Stowe: looks like midwinter. Sick.

Seasonal rentals or an inexpensive purchase of used equipment is the way to go. The hassle of getting rentals every time alone is a game changer. Since you're asking for advice for a 4 year old skier, let me give you my two cents, based on spending the last decade teaching 4 year olds how to ski. Two lessons are great. But more lessons are better. Much better. At 4 years old, kids who are learning to ski are developing the foundational skills of effective skiing at a point where they will become much more deeply ingrained than if they learn when they are older. The great part about this is that if they learn it the right way now, they'll rock it out for the rest of their lives. A 4 year old who gets a really strong foundation will be ripping moguls, trees and the park by the time they're 6. The downside, if they learn ineffective skills now, they'll spend the next twenty years trying to unlearn them. And most likely will give up way before that. Your child will definitely benefit from having a familiar set of boards under their feet, but they'll benefit way, way more from having consistent instruction from a pro. Not that you don't have valuable insight into your child's skiing, but professional instructors are trained to see all the factors that go into that skiing, how to remedy the ineffective bits, and encourage the effective parts. Definitely take the money you save in that seasonal rental and invest in more lessons. It's worth it.

Was up at Stowe this morning to pick up my pass and my uniform, and I checked out the snow status while I was there. Lord and Ridgeview look to have a fairly solid layer of cover down to about Crossover. The base area has had some snow blown on it, but it's still pretty thin. Here's to hoping... of course, I'll be in freaking PENNSYLVANIA on opening day! Stupid Thanksgiving.

It's official. Stowe's opening day has been pushed back to Wednesday 11/23- Thanksgiving Eve. Sugarbush is forecasting Thanksgiving, while Jay and Smuggs are aiming for Black Friday. Good news, the weather roundabouts here is looking to take a significant nose dive starting tonight, and most of the mountains will be able to crank the guns around the clock for at least the next 2 or 3 days, and overnight lows after that should let them keep cranking next week.

Stowe did start blowing last week, but the temps for the first half of this week do not look at all favorable for snowmaking. I was walking around in a tshirt today, and it looks like more of the same at least tomorrow. The National Weather Service says its going to chill out by Wednesday, which would open the door for around the clock snowmaking... but the Weather Channel's temperature foreceast is about 15 degress higher, putting overnight lows in the mid 30's. So it's definitely wait and see time here in the 802.

They blow at the top of Vista all the time, too... You know that place below the groomer barn, which would usually be a perfect place to stop out of traffic? Yeah, they hose that spot, so you can't hear yourself think when you stop there.

So you put groomer units on either side, but there's still only one plow blade on the front? Any real groomer will tell you that if you don't have snow on the blade, you're not grooming. And if you put a 3x wider blade on the front of the cat, how unwieldy is that going to be to use, and how much more horsepower is it going to take to move that monstrosity? Sounds great in theory, but I don't see how it could work on the current chassis size of any snowcat. And a bigger chassis means reworking the logistics of a whole lot of groomer barns, maintenance facilities, etc.

And a 19 year old kid who was hired in November driving the thing.

A couple problems with Blue taking a cue from Okemo. I worked at Okemo, so I have a better idea what they're about. The first grooming pass they make, with the 'aerator' or 'mountain tiller', uses proprietary technology. The aerator was invented at Okemo, and they have patented the process. So Blue can't use it. Also, Okemo has much more time to do legitimate intensive grooming. Blue doesn't close until 10, so grooming can't really begin until 10:45 or later. And beyond that, Okemo has more cash on hand to run their grooming operation. That means more groomers, better groomers, and more money to fuel and staff those groomers. And as far as the staff goes, the Okemo staff has been there for decades. They're so good because of massive amounts of experience. Now, I'm not saying Blue can't improve. They can make a ton of improvements with what they have. The nozzle size they use for surfacing, and letting the snow leech before grooming it out are definitely improvements they could make. But they're not going to be able to do many of the things Okemo does.

Decided to sacrifice my Sunday sleeping in to catch first chair at the mountain today. Temperatures started at about 10, got up to about 25 by the time I left at 10:30. Caught some nice first tracks when the quad opened, and again when the gondi opened. Conditions were pretty decent with a couple inches of fresh. The fresh pow blew into the trees, and covered over the tracks. Shred the gnar. Dawn twilight on I-89, through the Winooski River valley. Liftline empty, except for a patroller. Sunlight just hitting the peak of Mansfield The Mansfield Nose. The top of Goat. Looking up Goat, you can just see the American flag flying from the Octagon. Very patriotic. View of the Chin and gondola from Goat. The Smuggler's Notch Trees. More Trees.

Excellent... when are you planning a trip?

Yeah, some of those pics are Centerline... there were plenty of poachable areas, and there were a decent number poaching. Epic.

Temps in the high teens, dumping snow allll day. 16-24 inches of fresh, fluffy POW! Absolutely epic day without much crowd, bitching winds out there though. Nice to get in my first epic powder day before Blue was even open.

There are no legit park features yet. Like I said the whale backs hadn't been groomed out, and a bunch of them were fairly hittable, as long as you had a spotter, because they're totally blind landings on narrow trails. Woods are still bare, there's just a dusting elsewhere on the mountain. Limited picture taking, was more focused on actually skiing. I got one from the summit, then a few from the base. Summit: Skis... on snow finally: Base: Repping Blue Mountain sweatshirt in VT: Blowing Snow over at Spruce Peak:

Went to Stowe today for their opening day. Got there about 9:30, they had the quad turning, ended up getting to the summit at 10:00. Temps were in the high 20's, and the wind was vicious, whipping from the north at 20 to 30. That was rough on the lift, which was turning pretty slow. They had 6 trails open technically, but really it was two runs for the first 500 vertical or so, then one run to the bottom. There was all sorts of snow conditions, as expected in an eastern WROD. Some boilerplate, some death cookies, and some nicer soft stashes along the sides. Not too many people there, never had to wait in line at the bottom of the quad. I called it quits after 5 runs, feeling my lack of off season conditioning pretty badly. Stowe is looking to run the WROD tomorrow as well, then they're looking like they'll open up more terrain starting on Friday.

Stowe opens on Wednesday, top to bottom with a few trails. We've got frigid temps in place for the week and foreseeable future. I'm tuning up my skis this weekend... thank God I have five days off over Thanksgiving! Stoking hardcore, so happy I don't live in Pennsyltucky anymore.

I'll look like a goob at MRG any day of the week. LOL.

Having seen you ski, its pretty obvious. They're called edges. You've obviously never met them. Oh, and that ass sticking out backseat style probably isn't helping either.

Alright everyone, it's time to add to the stoke market... I was up at Stowe this past weekend... unfortunately couldn't get any turns in, I was there for their hiring clinic. But I did manage to snap a couple pics which I'm sure everybody will enjoy. Here's the Spruce Peak base area on Saturday: And here's Mansfield on Sunday. I wanted to get the whole mountain in the shot, because the entire summit is white... but the clouds rolled in before I could get a shot of it.

I don't understand why KMart would be blowing on top of what fell already. The ground up here isn't anywhere close to being frozen yet, it's still pretty warm really. If they don't let the earth get exposed again and get a hard frost on it, they'll just insulate the unfrozen ground, and it'll bite them in the ass at the end of the season when their entire snowpack gets undermined. Meh... KMart never really makes any sense, so why even bother trying to figure them out?

I'm here in Burlington, and it's pouring rain right now. Like monsoon heavy rain. But I'm heading up to Stowe tomorrow for their hiring event. Someone from Stowe emailed me today advising me not to use the Mountain Road to get to Stowe, as it's been snowing all day up on Mansfield, and the Mountain Road is probably closed for the winter now. Epic! Jay is expecting more than a foot, they closed their golf course for the season today.

From what I've seen of the construction pictures, it doesn't look like a massive expansion, it looks like they're redoing the courtyard outside the lodge. Any improvements the do now will probably fit in with the new lodge. I could see them building a whole new lodge where School Hill is now, then levelling the old lodge. Heck, the way the mountain is laid out, moving the lodge a hundred yards uphill isn't too bad of an idea.

Blue absolutely has tons of room to expand, that's no doubt. They own the land to the east of Paradise for a mile or two down the ridge line. The problem that develops is that once you expand past Paradise, you're looking at a significant amount of infrastructure to make it viable. More lifts, probably another lodge in the valley. Blue definitely won't be getting into that anytime in the next five years. The water park is going to be the major capital improvement Blue does in the near future. I managed to eavesdrop on one of the water park design companies pitching to Barb at the end of last season. This thing is going to be massive. From there, the longer term plan is to completely level and replace the entire Valley lodge, and moving pretty much everything down there. Then they'll level the Summit Lodge and rebuild that from scratch too, and the redistribute the services between the two. Along with that, they'll be building the condos. All in all, you're looking at the 10 year development plan for Blue. Blue won't have any new trails when it turns 50.