12/28 TR

[rastasquid]

Pulled into the lot at around 11:30 with my car running on 3 cylinders...which was fun. The mountain is busted. Dirty snow everywhere, rocks popping through, ice patches, bare spots. The trails that had some snow but were not open are bare now, and the last headwall on spike was 2/3 bare. Cannonball had a big dirt patch on the one headwall. Bumps knocked down and groomed out on smoke/boomer, but lightning still had some small bumps on it. Overall, a depressing 2 hours of boarding seeing the mountain in such rough shape.

[Schif]

Thats kind of disappointing to hear. How was the park looking? Last week they were blowing really hard on it but it wasn't open yet.

[Brian]

Man, we need some cold temps bad. This is getting seriously depressing. Where the hell is Winter?

[Santa Clauss]

that sounds like shit, i'm going up tonight anyway cuz i just need to ride, i'm taking the beater board though...

[rastasquid]

the park on spike does not exist yet, its just a trail. the rail garden is the same pretty much. Spike was groomed, not cord, but just kind of choppy. The snow was like glue at the top of the lifts, i was barely making it down the little incline off the lifts before I stopped, it was hard to skate around even. The snow on the trails was better, but still pretty slow. There was a huge slush puddle by the ski patrol building that you had to go through if you wanted to make it from the phoebe to the ironhorse which also sucked.

[riderossi]

Pulled into the lot at around 11:30 with my car running on 3 cylinders...which was fun. The mountain is busted. Dirty snow everywhere, rocks popping through, ice patches, bare spots. The trails that had some snow but were not open are bare now, and the last headwall on spike was 2/3 bare. Cannonball had a big dirt patch on the one headwall. Bumps knocked down and groomed out on smoke/boomer, but lightning still had some small bumps on it. Overall, a depressing 2 hours of boarding seeing the mountain in such rough shape.

 

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.

Edited December 29, 2008 by riderossi

[Brian]

Well, on the 25th, the snow was dirty. I could only imagine how bad they got after a few more warm and rainy days.

 

Good news is the cold temps ARE coming...

 

Accuweather.com's Scranton, PA forecast:

 

Sunday, Dec 28

Breezy with some sun

Low: 31

Edited December 29, 2008 by Brian

[Santa Clauss]

Yeah it was pretty bad though, real choppy everywhere, unloading ramp off the quad was all rocks and dirt, i stayed on until the last min and jumped off just so i didn't have to ride through it, hey sno if your gonna put a big guy at the top who can't do anything the least you can do is make sure the ramp is good and not filled with dirt and rocks (Supervisors) i know there is a lack of snow but i'm sure you could pull some over on the sled if you gave a fuck.

 

looks like they had put up all those white lights on spike, too bad there so damn directional it turns the trail from 60% dark and 40% orange to 50% dark, 30% orange and 20% bright freeken white while the park next to it has no damn lights at all on it... hey why didn't you get those lights up high where they should be or just fix the ones on mainline?

 

my edges are shot on the board i was riding, believe me, there's ice everywhere and i don't know how many trails they can actually groom if it gets any worse, there's already dirt in the snow.

 

I would love to know why they opened spike in the first place, maybe just so they can have a trail on the upper mountain that actually has lights on it?

 

I wouldn't recommend going back up until they have a chance to make more snow, its not worth it...

 

park's beat, last set was closed off. same features except the two boxes are set up different.

 

I didn't expect much tonight but i didn't think it would be this bad. if you can tell from my review, i'm pissed off... hey, maybe if they gave a fuck they wouldn't have bought hundreds of "new" snow guns and put in an extra pump of two... from what i heard, a pump went down and they weren't blowing at the capacity they should have, what good is 197 or 250 guns (whatever the fuck you advertise), if you cant even run a quarter of them. when a pump goes down, i know it warmed up a lot but there are trails that they really should have had opened that they didn't. like highball and the race course.

Edited December 29, 2008 by davieclauss

[riderossi]

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.

[Brian]

I didn't expect much tonight but i didn't think it would be this bad. if you can tell from my review, i'm pissed off... hey, maybe if they gave a fuck they wouldn't have bought hundreds of "new" snow guns and put in an extra pump of two... from what i heard, a pump went down and they weren't blowing at the capacity they should have, what good is 197 or 250 guns (whatever the fuck you advertise), if you cant even run a quarter of them. when a pump goes down, i know it warmed up a lot but there are trails that they really should have had opened that they didn't. like highball and the race course.

 

Well sorry you had a bad day... but that's actually good to hear. The reason they haven't been blowing liek whoa is because the pump's down, and not because they're trying to conserve energy costs or whatever.

 

Knowing the way that mountain is.. shit breaks, but Sno immediately throws money at it to fix the problems. So once that pump's back up and running.. get ready for typical "holy shit that's a lot of snow" Sno Mountain.

[rastasquid]

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. I realize that the weather was the main cause of the suck as* conditions today and they can't control that, but like dave said, they bought all those new fancy guns and can make alot of snow fast, they did it last year, so whats up this year? that last cold streak, combined with all the snow we go last weekend should have been enough to get more than just one more trail open. I don't know...just kind of frustrated that I bought a pass as this point..frost, boulder, and camelback have almost all their terrain open...

 

EDIT: Hopefully Brian is right and it is just a broken pump and they are going to fix it and take advantage of cold temps to pound the mountain with snow.

Edited December 29, 2008 by rastasquid

[bigdaddyk]

Sno seems to really be affected by the weather. Last season, I also noticed that the top of the north face always had a lot of stones in the snow. It almost appeared that the stones were drug onto the snow by groomers or sleds.

[Brian]

Not sure of the %... or how many they claim they have open (there are more people that get pissed off they're lied to when the mountain calls 20' long cutovers "trails" than people that get impressed when a mountain says they have 21 trails)...

 

 

But according to my math... they have 9 out of 15 trails open.

 

Open:

Mainline o

Bunnyslope o

Whistler □

Spike □

Lower Runaway ◊

Canonball ◊

Smoke ◊◊

Boomer ◊◊

White Lightning ◊◊

 

 

Not Open:

Highball o

Easy Street (which never really opens) o

Switch □

Upper Runaway □

Upper Fast Track □

Lower Fast Track ◊

[Brian]

Wow..so they open the diamonds first..interesting..they need to get more Blues open..that's what most people ski...

 

Yeah.. it just feels like there's tons to ski when they have their blues open... even though I can go a full season without actually skiing them, it's nice to have them available as an option.

[Santa Clauss]

Yea, i used the board i used because i assumed the conditions would have been more loose and slushy, I figured there would be bare spots and dirt which is why i used the old 157, the edges are fucked on it, there too bad to fix, but its great in loose or powder, plus you even said your base got dirty which is a pain to clean.

 

Bitching? yeah it is, but how else do we get them to fix these problems? should I call up the moose and tell him to climb up there and fix the lights? Squids right "riderossi" were disappointed with the progress compared to other mountains and were actually customers, try riding the park at night, its horrible, (This is in no way the park staff's fault) that goes out to you too OHH glorious GM of sno, why don't you take a sled ride up mainline at night, maybe then you'll change your priorities, if you actually have any.

 

I'm also pissed because several supervisors told me my brother would certainly be hired... Not a call yet, maybe there pissed because of what i say and by not hiring him its like getting back at me personally? It's too bad you lost a lot of good people from last year, apparently they weren't getting the hours they used to have, I guess all the new kids were getting more hours than the people who have been there over 3 years, Just last week I saw a new kid at the top of iron horse too feet up against the glass leaned back watching a movie on his ipod with the headphones on...

 

NOW THATS BITCHING...

 

Look, i'll praise sno when they do things well, you've seen me do it, conditions last week were freeken amazing!!! but i'll also be an asshole and tell everybody of the problems they have in the hopes that they do something about them, and if they fix the damn lights i'll tell everybody about how glorious the new lights are, take my shit for what it is, its a non biased "inside" review of the mountain. and believe me, i know a lot of people on the inside...

Edited December 29, 2008 by davieclauss

[Schif]

Yeah.. it just feels like there's tons to ski when they have their blues open... even though I can go a full season without actually skiing them, it's nice to have them available as an option.

The blues allow you to have a more varied and longer run which is why I like them to be open. Not to mention the tree runs you can take advantage of over there.

 

I love that they concentrated the snow first and foremost on the Northface seeing as that is where i spend the vast majority of my time.

 

On a side note, I was there last week on the 22nd and had the weirdest thing happen to me. All night the lighting was spotty at best of course, but there were a number of lights that kept shutting off and coming back on. Most notably the one at the top of the big headwall on boomer. We went down the mogul covered part of the headwall in perfect darkness, and then when we went back up it was on, and when we went down again it was off. This wasn't the worst part though. At around 945, we hopped on Phoebe Snow and by the time we hit the first tower, all the lights on the entire mountain went out, the lift stopped, and we saw 2 really big bright green flashes that looked like they came from the area by the blue squares. After a few minutes the power came back on and lit up the northface and the lift ran, but when we got to the top, the upper part of the mountain was still dark and no lifts were running.

 

If anyone has any kind of knowledge of what happened let me know, I've been really curious, just never got around to posting.

[Santa Clauss]

dude I would have freaked out. I was going to try to give you an answer but I have no clue what could have happened...

[riderossi]

dude I would have freaked out. I was going to try to give you an answer but I have no clue what could have happened...

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.

[Sno Mountain Skier]

Two transformers blew up. I dont remember which two exactly, but they blew out and they lost power for the rest of the night.

[Santa Clauss]

yea too bad it was too dark to see the trail to see if it was dirty when i was there. but seriously, i'm not saying it was the mountain's fault it was icy, just the fact that the condition of the trail was icy! it was sunday, i was there from 5-7 after a weekend day you would expect the trails to be pretty much beat, thats not the problem, the problem was the neglected unloading ramps that were loaded with dirt and rocks.

 

the park rats were lapping Northface because the park was beat... (Again, lack of snow, not the park crew's fault)

 

highball should have been opened to keep traffic off mainline, they should have been blowing piles on mainline to at least make a decent park (YEAH AT LEAST ONE PARK) while they work on making snow for spike, they shouldn't have even started making snow on lower runaway until the important trails were opened.

 

At least planet put pressure on management to make sure they could have the snow they needed for "a" park, idk wtf is going on?

 

And what's wrong with riding park at night, its like your against it and it shouldn't be done, you know most people who go up there ride after school or work? just because its not important to you doesn't mean its not important.

[riderossi]

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.

 

 

And what's wrong with riding park at night, its like your against it and it shouldn't be done, you know most people who go up there ride after school or work? just because its not important to you doesn't mean its not important.

 

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

[Santa Clauss]

yeah that whole "(read: is) and issue. Not to me." got a little choppy

 

hence it was how it was said which lead me to that assumption

Edited December 30, 2008 by davieclauss

[librider]

And what's wrong with riding park at night, its like your against it and it shouldn't be done, you know most people who go up there ride after school or work? just because its not important to you doesn't mean its not important.

 

I hate riding park at night. Actually in general I mostly hate night riding all together.

[riderossi]

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.

[rastasquid]

well that pic looked good, and hopefully, they are able to make some snow soon. I'll be up on wed morning so I'll try to take some pics. I had to wax my board today, because my base was jacked from sunday...it looked like it had a full season of riding on it. I look forward to ramps with snow on them and less rocks in the snow fuc*ing up my stuff