riderossi

hows about a saturday afternoon as in 3

You may want to call first before you head up just to make sure they aren't working on the park during the day...they were yesterday but i think you'll be good today.

The jumps looked to be a pretty decent size on Spike. There may not be a whole lot of people that regularly ride Sno that will be hitting those jumps, but the idea is to cater to those that do have the skill. As long as there are smaller jumps for those not willing to hit the bigger ones (which there are, although a smaller table top to learn on would be a nice addition) then i don't see a problem with having large jumps. Sure it might be a "waste" if you judge by usage within the first week...hell even the first year. But with a consistent solid park, with progressive and large features, more and more people will be drawn in. It might take a while as i said, but i'm sure the idea is to try to start winning over some of those that drive right past Sno and the extra half hour (or more) to go to Boulder or other places for a good park. Give it some time and with some constructive criticism things are only getting better up at Sno. Management obviously listens, and this is a good outlet for customer opinions, good or bad. Keep them flowing and they are bound to listen. That said...progress seems painfully slow this year. I know it takes a lot of snow to get a jump line on Spike up and running, but i'm not really concerned about that. It's already the end of January and there has yet to be a full park run...even a maze of rails. It would have been nice to throw some new things in on Mainline before putting the attention towards Spike. Now that the bottom section of Mainline is closed off, if nothing gets added over the night (which is my guess, but hopefully i'm wrong), that leaves 4 features and two jumps for a run. A total of 3 jumps and 5 rails/boxes, but all can't be hit in the same run. That's pretty weak for the end of January on a trail that's been open for good amount of time. As already stated, the picnic table was alright when it was first put in but now, 3 weeks later(..just a guess)..it's pretty beat. Especially with how low it is in the snow. Some low flat boxes, the wide flat box, picnic tables, another small wedge at the top of the first headwall.. something. A smaller table top would probably be nice also, like the one that was at the bottom of the first headwall last year towards the end of the year.

Yeah i think it'd be nice to see some of those easier features also. Most of the things on Mainline are easier but...you aren't going to get many new riders learning how to hit boxes with a bonk at the end... as of right now the only thing to really learn on is the small rainbow. They definitely need some flat boxes in that park..and not 3 boxes sitting upside down, stacked in steps, with a gap onto them. Nice forgiving long flat boxes and some low rails. Having some fun things to mess around on is fine, but there has to be those easier features.

i think there is a battle ship single barrel rail up now too? Also there are now 2 wedge jumps (biggest that's ever been at Sno) after the step down boxes. The first wedge was widened it seems and the second was added today. *Left is a (Cant remember what its called, shit i should know cant come to me) jump and right is the flat down, flat, or double urban rail spine at the end* Tabletop..? Also the bottom section next to the magic carpet where the rail jam was is now gone and closed off in preparation for some piles of snow being blown.

"Zip Rider - Weather Permitting"

Well why don't you go ahead and take a stroll up the Sno and take a look at all the cables and the retrieval system, then maybe you will understand why the ziprider isn't running. There is constantly ice on the cables from snow being made, which isn't exactly the best for a zip line.

long haul closes at around 5 on Sundays..

yeah, ok.

webcam back up and running : http://snomtn.com/live.htm

The "glades" on Fast Track at Sno seem like they would be good for your kid. They are really mellow and not too tight at all, but still enough to make it entertaining. I haven't been down Fast Track yet but with the fresh snow and snow blowing into the trees from making snow i can't imagine it being too far off from being ridable. But i'm sure those who have actually ridden it can give you a better idea. As for Elk, i'm pretty sure they have an absolute "no go" when it comes to riding the trees there. You will be lucky to receive a warning the first time, and second time you will be kicked off the mountain.

If you look along the sides of the "wheels" you will see brackets: |__| -Cable catchers, which will hopefully catch the cable in the event that it actually does come off the "wheels"..thus preventing the lift from dropping towards the ground. The bar you are talking about (i think) is the actual "sensor" itself. If anything is out of the ordinary it will break, stopping the lift.

upper fast track is open, upper runaway and lower fast track look good, should be open by tomorrow. If not, definitely Sunday. Kind of weird to have one part of each trail open, but they'll all be open soon enough.

If you are looking to stay closer to the city(Scranton) for more things to do after the skiing there are a few hotels that run some specials with Sno. I've never compared prices of the package (hotel+lift ticket) to the non-package deals, but i'm sure it'd save a few dollars at least. There are a couple hotels a very short drive from Sno ( the closest being at the foot of the mountain-about a 5 minute drive away), that are listed on this website : http://www.snovacations.com/ As already stated Sno is rarely busy (aside from the holiday weekends), you usually won't find a lift line longer than a minute or two. There are 5 easy/intermediate trails open at the top of Sno right now (not including the one trail that originally was a circle but now has terrain park features). More are expected to be open for the weekend if the snowmaking temps are right. I've only been to elk a couple times (and they have been early season trips) so i don't have much to say about it. I do like all the pines they have up there, they make for a nice ride up the lifts. Some nice trails up there though, but i don't recall how they are for beginners. But access isn't as convenient as Sno, and can be difficult to make it to in a snow storm (at least when it's your friends first time driving in snow and he has a rear wheel drive truck van..)

well day off it is, from the website: DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER SN

Highball was opened mid-morning today. Looks like switch(i guess the official name is "race course" on here) is set to open soon. Looks a little bare at the top but maybe they can push some snow around tonight and get it open tomorrow, though i'm not sure how the middle looks. There was definitely some big ol' piles on that trail though.

hope you hold onto that camera tight or it's going to get blown out of your hands.

was too lazy to go back and edit it..but yeah, i don't ride the park that much anymore, so i don't care much about it. I'm at the line where progressing would mean pushing it a bit too far over the edge that i feel comfortable with. That is all. Maybe i'd ride more at night if the lighting was better, i don't know, but i'm pretty content with riding 3 hours a day.

hence the "there are some that do" and "not to me" statements.

power lines. As for the conditions and not going up until snow gets blown. The snow on every trail was pure white today, the ramps were fine and rebuilt with the groomer, and once again i didn't have an issue with ice, but there was some here and there that got scraped from beginners...to be expected. Loose sugar at the top of the mountain, didn't make it to most of the diamonds. I only got one picture (poor quality as usual), but i assure you the rest of the trails looked the same today. So here's what you missed if you decided the conditions were too shitty at Sno...pure white fresh cord: As for the park..i really have no desire to ride the park at night, i usually don't ride at night at all. But, i understand there are some that do, and to them it may be (read: is) and issue. Not to me. rasta-"after last weekend, today was terrible, which was part of the disappointment. The reason we are frustrated with sno is because the way they choose to open trails and make snow doesn't seem to make much sense." Well..after 3 days of rain and no snowmaking you can't quite expect the conditions to be near what they were before the warm/rain spell. The way i see the choice of trail openings is there's always going to be somebody bitching( not saying you aren't entitled to it either so don't go off on that tangent..). But if we got that 10 inches of fresh powder and the only trails open were the bunny mainline highball and spike at the top of the mountain, i think there'd be a lot more disappointed people. Hell even all the park rats were lapping the north face in droves tracking out the fresh powder. Me, i'd rather have the north face open first than the top of the mountain. But, like i said it'd be nice to have highball open to teach beginners on, instead of whistler. But you win some and you lose some..the weather isn't exactly helping much.

Well, apparently i have a different definition of bad than the rest of you guys...or i just don't bitch as much, guess it's one or the other. I actually have edges on my board and didn't have a single problem all day. I've also never ridden park at night, so to be honest, i could not care less if they had 0 lights on them. As to why they opened spike first...why not? I'm sure they were blowing on spike to get snow on there so they can open the park sooner. Why not groom it and use it as a regular trail until then? Shit happens..would have been nice to have highball open first though.

wow...the way you are making it seem is like an atom bomb got dropped on the place. Now the mountain isn't in mid-winter form, but it isn't the catastrophe that rasta is describing. There is some ice here and there, but mostly it is off to the sides of the trails where it doesn't matter much anyway. I didn't notice any sort of "big dirt patch" on cannonball..but i also tucked it because some kid almost slammed into me and i made it a point to show him how to actually ride, maybe i missed it. I had no problem gliding off the unloading ramps at any of the lifts, actually quite the opposite(this may be due to the different times we were there). I can't speak for the shape of the diamonds except cannonball as i was stuck on Whistler and the Bunny all night teaching my girlfriend, who is linking turns pretty well on the bunny her first day. The unloading ramps at the lifts were a bit low and can cause some problems for anybody skiing/riding with their small children. Also they were only letting 2 people ride the quad because of the width of the ramp at the top, 3 people definitely could have made it off without problem I'd say. The snow is pretty dirty though, i'll agree with that...the white parts on the base of my board aren't white anymore. Spike, which i didn't hit, looked like it had plenty of coverage from the lift.

Rode today for a few hours, snow was pretty heavy as expected, but nice. Lower runaway and Spike are the most recent trails open. Doesn't look like anything else is going to be open without a couple days worth of blowing though. Be up tomorrow afternoon sometime.

still kind of in the "pre-season" stage right now...The trail for the main terrain park is being blasted every chance they get so there is a big push to get some more park oriented things rolling. right now there is (to the best of my knowledge) : - two small flat boxes set up one after the other - small (10 foot?) single barrel hand rail - kicker on top of little headwall - option: flat box, or flat wide rail - option: small up to flat box, or down sing barrel urban rail - option: small (10 foot?) mailbox, or miniature ride on rainbow box Plenty of rails,boxes, and wall rides waiting to be sent out, just need some more snow blown.

just got back from a couple hours...conditions still nice packed powder across the mountain, plenty of little kickers and bumps on the sides of every trail to screw around on. white,smoke, and boomer all bumped up with smoke probably being the nicest of all of them. that's all from me.