Schif

I saw on the camelback website that they are doing pond skimming on the 22nd and it's free. That might be a good day to head out there for me.

Gotta love their alien pass deal, but I'm surprised its starting so early.

I went up this morning to one of the only mountains around where I knew I wouldn't run into any PASRs in the parking lot. Since it's Montage I didn't feel any need to be up at the crack of dawn so I rolled into the lot leisurely around 10am.Temps were around 25 in the about half full lot, but I managed to snag a spot about 6 rows back from the Phoebe Snow unloading area. The snow was fantastic today, perfectly groomed "packed powder" or whatever the kids are calling it nowadays. Edgeable, smooth, and fast. No slick spots to be found all day. All the bumps had been mowed down on Smoke, Boomer and White Lightning, leaving smooth fresh surfaces to tear up. They made snow the past two nights, and it led to some fantastic conditions. White Lightning was dare I say it, very manageable. It's still steep as hell, but wasn't nearly as technical as usual, it was more of a bomb the hell out of it, carve some big turns and hold on to your hat. There was an ASRA race on Switch today, and I rode the lift with a British chap who lives in Jersey and travels all around for races, I knew he was serious because he had one of those little single bar facemasks on his helmet like a field goal kicker. The top of the mountain was just as good as the bottom, and I even ventured over to the lodge area and hit up Mainline and Easy Street for some good turns, at one point as I passed the lodge, I counted 3 people basking in the sun and apparently asleep in the Adirondack chairs on the deck by the fire pits, really taking in that "I'm on vacation" kind of attitude. After Easy Street, I cut across the top of the bunny slope, much to the chagrin of people jealous of someone on that trail that knew how to work a snowboard properly, and cruised down Cannonball for a sweet top to bottom run. A few more laps on the Northface, and I took off around 2 with temps around 34. There was still tons of great snow and moderate crowds at best, so I realistically could have stayed there all day, but I had some stuff to take care of so I left. As I'm driving down Montage Mountain road I get a call from my mom saying she was at the Shoppes at Montage just down the hill (It's very visible from the trails), and so I met her there, cruised around a shoe store wearing snowpants, and then I took her to lunch at Panera Bread. I'm hoping to convince some fair weather skiers to come out with me tomorrow, and then I'll have another report to write.

Binghamton typically travels south to Elk, but that's not a very big market.

They have a pretty cool set up in the conference room of the lodge now with these airboards lined up against the glass wall, and a video of guys using them playing on the back wall. Is it dumb? yeah, but if it makes them a few bucks with next to no investment then who cares. My guess is that whenever there is going to be some extreme and totally wicked air boarding, ski patrol will close off one of the beginner trails for a few minutes to accommodate the most extreme preteens in all of central jersey. For the rest of the time, we won't even notice it. The long and short of it to me is that it's a lot better than a mountain coaster.

That John Deere Tractor was running on Diesel backup power for a while on Saturday. I don't care if it runs on 2 mules attached to a pulley, as long as that things spins, I'll be snagging some awesome runs.

The fact that every mountain around here needs a summer operation should be an indicator that skiing alone isn't paying the bills anymore.

I saw the video, but I don't have any idea what it could be. I think the end was just a cool time lapse look at the lift. That side of the mountain couldn't support a high speed because it doesn't service enough terrain. Not to mention you would have to be able to ski a black diamond to get to it, which would either limit the people using it, or even worse, encourage people to go down a trail that they can't handle.

I second that

Great morning with you guys out there. Ridge Racer hit all the important parts, great snow, sunnier than I expected in the beginning and fantastic snow. It was a little chilly, 11 when I got there at 9:20 and 22 when we left around 1:00, but not terrible. If the snow wasn't as crusty I think we would have spent the entire day in the trees, but what was skiable was pretty great anyway. Parking lot beers were had before we took off, and it was nice to enjoy them uninterrupted by security guards. There was a guy in a yellow vest in the parking lot, but he only seemed interested in keeping Priuses from parking along the handicapped driveway. In other Montage news for the day, they had a rail jam on the brand new rail garden they built 2 days ago in front of the lodge, and when we ran over to the lodge for a quick bathroom break I noticed they set up a tent outside and were selling hot toddies, Irish coffees, and had a shot ski ready for any group of brave souls who were interested in that. As usual, the parking lot was packed, but there didn't seem to be any congestion on the trails and there were next to no lift lines. Life is good at Mount Tage.

Men's Slopestyle is pretty sick tonight. I had a rare day in the park this morning, and now this is the icing on the cake. I wish the rail section of the course was a little more interesting though.

Went up for opening today, around 830 and had a spectacular day as usual. The weather was cold, but the sun felt good on my face and legs. Snow was squeaky as I walked across the base area after waiting for my friend to get a ticket, and was pretty fast as we took our first run down cannonball. The Alpine Tracker app clocked me in a 48.1 mph on that run and the rest of the day was pretty similar. Great groomed conditions all over the mountain. I tried to go in the woods off of upper Fast Track and at first I felt like I needed an Navy Ice Breaker ship to get me out of the predicament I was stuck in, i.e. crust on the dust, but in a secondary and tertiary and quaternary run, I had a lot of fun in the woods. There were a lot of tracks already through the trees, including a wide swath scratched out which actually made the woods very rideable. the only issue is that you couldn't really go off the beaten path, but I still had a great time in there. Lots of top to bottom runs like that today. Lots of fun cutovers from trail to trail were the same way, lending for much more tree riding than I initially thought. Everywhere else it was all perfect edgeable and fast cord with the exception of Boomer which was half bumped and White Lightning which had been mowed down within the past 3 days and is starting to bump back up now, but they are a lot smaller than usual. I grabbed a few parking lot beers, one in the Lodge, and one in the car on the way home and had a fantastic Saturday.

The course wasn't the reason he backed out. It's a fairly similar set up from the X games a few weeks ago. He's a business and wants some gold medals, not wasting time on something he can't win. Not cool man. If you qualify, then do it, if you're not interested, don't even try out. Also, this might be a weird observation, but it's something I just don't get, I noticed this at the X-games a few weeks ago, and again tonight. What's with these people wearing a hat, then putting their goggles on, then putting their helmet on. Or just having a helmet and no hat, but the goggles still underneath. I can't think of any people that I know who do this, maybe I'm doing it wrong with just a helmet and goggles outside in the strap, but I doubt it.

10 inches in my driveway when I shoveled at 7 this morning. I just walked in the door so it looks like I missed the good stuff today. Hopefully the good stuff wasn't found today and will be available for me tonight or tomorrow.

Saw this pretty cool aerial shot of the Northface on Montage's facebook this morning, figured I would share it with y'all.

So I've been up to Montage a few times in the past few days, and in 3 days things changed so drastically I couldn't believe it. Thursday night I went up for a few runs after work. I rolled in around 6pm and parked right next to the Phoebe lift and went right to it on Cannonball. Conditions were very unlike Montage that night, squeaky snow, and lots of cookies. Grooming was inconsistent and it looked like it had been rushed in some places, and neglected for a day or two in others. The weather was brutal as well. 7 degrees when I got out of the car and 5 when I got back into it. I had every inch of skin covered up, but it was still biting out there. Top of the mountain was totally off limits, i tried one run top to bottom and was thrilled when I finally got back down to the valley. All in all I got in 6 runs and got the hell out of there in a little less than an hour. I guess a lot of people felt the way I did because all night there might have been a few dozen people out there total. This morning, the heavens were shining down. I had to go into work, so I had written today off as a total loss, but I ended up getting to go home around 9. So after doing the recycling, and taking care of some other household stuff, I grabbed my gear, put on one light layer and headed out the door. I got on the snow just before 11, and was really surprised with the conditions. Well groomed snow everywhere, with fresh dustings of man made stuff on all the bumps. Snow was not tracked out anywhere when I got there and the crowds, while pretty heavy for Montage, were very manageable. Long haul was running, and while it seemed like 5/6ths of the chairs were filled, there was no wait to get on, so I lapped that a few times. The woods, thanks to a lot of dense man made blowover, are actually pretty skiable, though not very deep. I cruised around the upper mountain, the lower mountain, and the three double diamonds a hand full of times each under sunny skies and moderate crowds. Fantastic day out there. I left around 3 when lift lines were at their peak, and I was waiting upwards of 3 minutes for a chair. Unacceptable in my book, so I went home and made myself a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup. On one of my top to bottom runs on the last headwall of lower fast track, there were a few safety team guys ushering everyone over to the far right side of the trail, and about 20 people standing with their skis off below them. I saw a few pairs of skis stuck in the snow crossed, but I didn't see any ski patrol anywhere so I was very confused. It all hit me when I hopped on long haul and got an aerial view though. There were at least 6 ski patrolers huddled around a sled in the middle of the woods between fast track and runaway. From what I heard from someone on the lift later, someone had been flying down the trail and either lost control or was never in control, and went flying into the trees. The scene was pretty deep in there and there are a lot of rocks and a snowmaking pipe right at the edge of the trail, so that must have been a pretty spectacular crash to wind up 100 feet deep in the woods. I guess whoever it is was pretty banged up, but not dead thanks to his helmet. Just more motivation to keep my brain bucket on. Interestingly enough, I've seen ski patrol in that general area a few times already this year, but nothing as severe as this one. I guess people can't handle that pitch and the turn. I'll be back at it tomorrow morning, hopefully a little earlier and I'll add a little more to the Montage report.

Not only that, but typically we don't have a quiver of boards as extensive as skiers. I've got 3 boards and only 2 really see action and I've been at this for well over 10 years. In a 10 year period, how many skis do some of you guys go through?

I totally agree. While there are still a lot of snowboarders like myself out there, it is without a doubt on the decline.

Nice Pics, especially the last one.

Great day with you guys. Conditions were fantastic and crowds were low. Add in Long haul and some of Roots 10:30 brew, and it was a top notch day

Where's everyody at? I've been lapping the north face for a while and I'm the only one here who isn't employed by the mountain.

JohnnyLaw, yep there is a Johnny Rockets right inside the lodge which I'm sure will lend for a quality lunch report from whoever heads in there for a bite. I'll be wearing a two toned brown jacket with an army green helmet.

I'll shoot for getting there around 8 or so for passholder first tracks. Then if I end up sleeping in I'll still be there by 830 or so.

I'll be up there. What time are you guys going up?

If I have to, I guess I could be persuaded to go to Montage on a Saturday morning.