Schif

I used to go through Split Rock until I got stuck at the toll booth one night with all my cash in my snowpants in the trunk and an awkward search for coins. Since then I go down 940 to the intersection of 115 and turn there. I think it actually is a bit faster since you don't have to slowly wind through a residential area, and it lets you hit up a Wawa which is nice.

White Lightning is skiing better tonight than yesterday if you guys can believe that. And everything else is insanely fast. Perfect night out here with next to no one on the trails. Edit: just went down boomer and they groomed out the bumps.

What is an average non VIP wait like at blue on the weekend?

The mountain was awesome today. Things started softening up around 10 or so and the north face, especially white lightning were skiing about as well as they ever have. Great snow, steep trails and parking lot beers made for a top notch day.

Oh Bob Costas, he says some interesting things sometimes, but at the end of the day he's still a really smart and genuine guy. I had the pleasure of meeting him and hanging out at the Baseball Hall of Fame a few years ago, really great to talk to. As for Curling? It's pretty much the coolest, and is the last hope a guy like me has of becoming an olympic athlete. I always say I want to sign up for the local league here, but never get around to it.

I guess this was on the Local news today, the place is getting completely lit up with snow guns right now. Impressive.

My office has just now cracked 56 degrees. It was 49 when I walked in this morning. Thankfully I keep my gear in the car and I grabbed my Northface to wear all day.

Today was fantastic. The complete lack of crowds kept the fresh stuff available for hours and hours. The trees on upper fast track were the place to be all day, even though they weren't running long haul. I was hitting fresh fluffy snow in there until I left. I have no idea where everyone was today, but I'm glad they went where they did, and I went to Montage.

Wish I checked this earlier, I was up from 9 to about 3. Fantastic day out there.

Beautiful sunny day here at montage. Everything is open including the elusive long haul lift. The trails serviced by long haul aka upper/Lowe runaway and upper/lower fast track are in perfect shape, it seems that all the tourists are sticking to all of the other lifts (decent sized lift lines) leaving this piece if the mountain for mostly pass holders

Great report, looks awesome out there.

Pretty disappointed I missed out on this.

This clipper storm was a joke, a dusting on the sidewalks up in the Wyoming Valley. Also, did anyone else see the big warm up coming this weekend? 60 and rain is bad news bears. I hope the weatherman is wrong.

It was pretty great out there this morning. The majority of the mountain was pushed out and groomed nonsense, but there were some fantastic pockets of actual snow if you knew where to go. The right hand side of both Smoke and Boomer off of the main part of the trail were probably just under a foot of fresh stuff this morning. As the day went on this area got bumped up with soft fluffy piles of snow, with no crud at all to be found. In some spots, namely on the actual trail, the good stuff was scraped down to ice between the bumps, but to the side next to the trees and where some tall grass was still poking through about an inch, it was all nice floatable stuff. There were a decent amount of people there this morning, about 1/4 full parking lot, and it seemed like everyone knew what they were doing considering the fact that all the good stuff was tracked out by 11. From being up there last night, it seemed that the way the wind was blowing on the Northface, it was pushing all of the falling snow across the trail and piling it up against the woods, that is what led to the good snow. I only ventured up top once today, and it was windy, the snowguns were on all over the place, and thanks to low clouds, very foggy. There wasn't nearly as much natural snow piled up on the sides up there, probably thanks to heavy winds.

The theme of the morning here at Montage is "float, slash, lift, repeat" lots of deep ungroomed natural snow for the taking.

Lights were great tonight, very bright, and really made the place shine. Much better than the old ones. They are also blowing snow absolutely everywhere. The firepower is pretty impressive right now, we should have some new terrain open by the weekend. White Lightning was crazy deep with whales, and was being blasted the whole time I was there.

Flurries Just started outside my office window in Wilkes-Barre. Schools and some businesses have already been closed for hours in anticipation of this Winter Storm of death. One to Two inches projected for up here. All I'm hoping for tonight at Montage is quiet snow, not the normal earsplitting sound of scraping and cutting through ice.

The lighting looks great from the base area, and it's super bright from the highway, but I haven't gotten a chance to ride under it yet.

They posted the trail map on their facebook today, as far as I know it's not on the website yet.

Just got back from my first day on the snow this year. I pulled into the lot at 9:55 Conditions were overall pretty good considering the rain last night. Nice grippy snow with a few ruts and a pretty small amount of cookies. Open trails included Mainline, Whistler (with terrain park features), the bunny slope, Cannonball, and Boomer. Cannonball was definitely the run of the day and I lapped it 3 times. The first time I was going to go down Cannonball, ski patrol stopped me and a few others at the top of the trail while a groomer came up the trail pulling a wheeled trailer. Kind of odd, but right behind it was another groomer laying down fresh cord behind it. Needless to say when they gave the all clear I moved ahead of the older lady who was chatting it up with ski patrol, and bombed this 20 foot wide strip of heaven, at the bottom I had to ask if there was a fire extinguisher in the lift shack because my hair caught on fire during the run I was going so fast. The park was set up pretty nice, with 2 decent sized jumps and a nice collection of rails and boxes, but on day 1 I wasn't quite ready to hit them yet. Not too many people out there today, mostly ski patrol guys doing training and getting their first day of turns in. Overall the mood was a pretty happy one from everyone there. There were probably 150 cars in the lot when I pulled in, and only about 170 when I left at noon, so it wasn't an overly crowded day, but it's still early season. I grabbed a swig of moonshine from a big mason jar, because I forgot to pack any beer, and cruised on home. Happy Ski Season Everyone!

Any PASRs going to be at Montage this weekend?

So I went up to grab my pass from Montage last night and poke around at some of the new improvements. I must say I was pretty impressed overall, these guys sank some serious cash into the place, and it wasn't just a coat of paint here and there. We'll see how the trails are tonight or tomorrow, but here is what I found last night First of all when you pull into the lot, the first thing you hit is a brand new traffic circle/dropoff area, which is actually pretty nice. The Soccer Moms dropping off their little park rats after school are going to love this, rather than the dirt and stone parking lot of old. There is a pretty cool wire sculpture in the middle which I'll assume is from the same local artist who did the ones of the guys rappelling down the side of a building in downtown Wilkes-Barre, and the ones stacked up on each other/ hanging from a building in Pittston, with banners strung between the two pieces. As you head down the brand new steps you encounter a totally redone area, with the new rental/retail building on the left, and the lodge on the right, and a big fire pit in the center. The smell of drywall and spackle filled the air as the doors of the rental side opened up, but the ski shop looked well stocked and ready to sell people from new jersey the gloves they forgot to pack. I turned around and looked at the lodge, the biggest difference I noticed was a severe lack of MS paint images of a particular moose, almost sad to see that little guy and his triangular blue mountains go. In his stead was a new awning sporting a nice logo, and a gigantic window that was never there before, showing off chandeliers. So I cruised into the lodge and stepped into a whole new world. Gone was the smell of teenagers, french fries and wet socks, instead it was a freshly carpeted floor, new paint, and nice wood accents that made the place seem like a pretty cool place to hang out, rather than a big box store with ski clubs running around. The customer service area is beautiful, but since I didn't want to get labeled as a creep on the first day I was there, I refrained from taking pictures of it due to the nice girls behind the counter. Instead of that little office, customer service is a big counter set into a big nook, very much like a hotel front desk. So I snagged my pass and snapped some pictures of the most visible thing in the entire lodge and/or county. These Chandeliers/art pieces/lights/scrap/American Pickers' dreams come true are actually pretty awesome. Clearly cell phone pictures don't do it justice, and I wasn't going to work on getting a good shot while contractors/staff were running around finishing stuff, but they are pretty cool. Here is a side view of them, there are actually 4 individual pieces up there. They are made of old chairlift chairs, the old lights from around the mountain, sleds, scooters, neons, big bulbs, bumper boats, toboggans, and whatever else the guy could get his hands on. Swanky. I poked my head into the new bar area, and it looks nice, beautiful new bar, cool lights hanging, and new carpets/tables. I didn't get any pictures in here, because it seemed like they were having a meeting. The food selection seems to have been stepped up this year too, above the big cafeteria area there are signs for a pizza place, Starbucks Johnny Rockets, and Ben and Jerry's ice cream. A TR about the fries will have to come from someone else, because I usually just cruise down to the Shoppes at Montage for a burrito from Panchero's instead of hitting up the lodge, but maybe I'll sample some of the food this year. So I decided to continue the tour and head out onto the patio by the snow, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, a lazy effing river surrounded by snow. I don't know what's up with that, but here is another angle to show you that I'm not making it up. Overall, the place looks great, I know they tuned up all the lifts, and long haul is 100% ready to run this year. New Groomer, and a diamond and a double diamond for opening day makes me a happy camper. For the first week or so I'm sure there will be some bugs to work out, but overall it seems pretty awesome, and as long as no lawyers get a look at that snowy death trap that is the lazy river, I think we are in for a quality first week.

Maybe they are waiting on a shipment of barrels? They seem to have done everything else right, so I can't imagine they would blow it by pushing snow into the lazy river.

There aren't any open trails serviced by long haul yet.

2 northface trails open for today, the weirdest thing about the snow up there is that as of last night, half the lazy river is still exposed in the base area. It cuts off the Mainline/highball trails and the shuttle lift off from everything else by a chasom of concrete. I had a little report all done up last night, but my pictures wouldn't work, so I'll have to redo it when I get a chance today