Jump to content

1/17 - powder day


EdBacon

Recommended Posts

Just got back from a great day at Jack Frost. Best conditions so far this year. Had a blast. 

Left a little late but the roads were fine (only about an inch of snow fell in Bucks Co.) and got into the parking lot around 9:30. Booted up and went right for the east side, didn't hit any of the blues or terrain park today. Mountain was practically empty. I was able to ride on to most lifts, but that's not unusual at Frost on a weekday. First run of the day was poaching T-bolt. It was closed for snowmaking which meant I got a run down an almost untouched 8 inches of pow over snowmaking whales. Maybe half a dozen tracks on the trail total. Next up was Happyland which rode good throughout the day but got bumped up later. Moved over to River Shot and Floyds which rode great: pow which started to get tracked out but just turned into nice soft bumps. I love nice soft bumps. Tried Elevator glade which was icy underneath, couldn't hold an edge and slipped it, rather than ripped it. 

Run of the day was Floyds. Not for the trail but because somebody attempted to drop Risk It. Basically, Elevator Glade and Risk It are ice close to the open trail where the snowmaking blow over has set up into cement, peppered with ice chunks from when they groom out the adjacent trails. The further side towards the woods only got the 8 inches of cover from last night. Not enough to start hucking cliffs. Anyway, this guy didn't give a fuck and decided to send it over Risk It into some ice chunks. Slid his way down and lost his ski. I was kinda jealous. I wish I was that gnarly. 

Everything was tracked out, but still riding well by noon. Packed up around 1:30. All in all a great day.

20180117_122849.jpg

Edited by EdBacon
  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whats the Elevator looking like these days?  A rain then freeze tend to fuck up the E glade and elevator until it like softens and then get new snow on top. That area right below risk it can be a ton of fun, but needs lots of pow since its usually full of ice boulders pushed over from Floyds. Looks like the trees at happyland were real good. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

32 minutes ago, JFskiDan said:

Whats the Elevator looking like these days?  A rain then freeze tend to fuck up the E glade and elevator until it like softens and then get new snow on top. That area right below risk it can be a ton of fun, but needs lots of pow since its usually full of ice boulders pushed over from Floyds. Looks like the trees at happyland were real good. 

Elevator doesn't look doable, at least looking over the edge of River Shot. Lots of brush in there. A couple tracks went down but I don't think anyone did the whole thing today. It's just really choked up and 8 inches is not enough on top of nothing. It might be more open skiers right after you come out of Elevator Glade, but again, 8 inches on top of nothing isn't enough for me to attempt it. 

Happyland is always the most consistent, for whatever reason. I think the big fan guns they use on Challenge just make less dense "snow" so it doesn't ice up in there as much from the blow over. 

Edited by EdBacon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Its ashame they arent paying attention to the Elevator. The off trail stuff is what makes that tiny little mountain fun. My last year as a passholder, i was cleaning out the E glade to make it skiable. Not real easy to pull tree branches out from a foot or two of man made. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, JFskiDan said:

Its ashame they arent paying attention to the Elevator. The off trail stuff is what makes that tiny little mountain fun. My last year as a passholder, i was cleaning out the E glade to make it skiable. Not real easy to pull tree branches out from a foot or two of man made. 

Were you able to ski it without natural? 

From what I understand it was too difficult for them to clear brush on such a steep pitch for a trail that doesn't have snowmaking. It's a shame. It was a unique trail. Probably the most difficult thing in the Poconos. I honestly wouldn't mind if they let some of the trees grow in to make it into a kind of gladed run, and just keep the briers clear. They still do a great job on the other glades though. Even Risk It, which is probably stupider than Elevator. 

Edited by EdBacon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The elevator used to get lots of blow over, so it was skiable even without natural. Like i said, they paid more attention to it in years past. Probably the last time it was cleaned out was 2009. Rumor has it even years before that, they once groomed it, which turned out to be a disaster. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, JFskiDan said:

The elevator used to get lots of blow over, so it was skiable even without natural. Like i said, they paid more attention to it in years past. Probably the last time it was cleaned out was 2009. Rumor has it even years before that, they once groomed it, which turned out to be a disaster. 

My guess is you might be able to pick a path down after they've blown a lot of snow. Unfortunately with the rain they got there isn't a ton of blow over. They only started remaking snow over the weekend and I'm not sure how much attention they gave to River Shot. If they had a week where they just solidly blasted River Shot then I'd give it a go. It sucks because you can't see down the damn thing from the top to figure out what its gonna be like. 

Edited by EdBacon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, RidgeRacer said:

Seems like Happyland is the last of the really nice "off piste" left at Frost. Hopefully they maintain it because it's a pretty special run. Elevator not being rideable any longer hurts my heart.

I don't think anything ever happens to Happyland. They seem pretty committed to keeping the glades they have now open. They've since put signage up and made it pretty semi-official. The only thing that didn't get signage was Elevator, incidentally. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Ski2Live Live2Ski said:

Awesome. Nice surface everywhere today.

How were the crowds, and is Subaru Fest worth it at all? Do they really have ski demos there? Practical to get on the demo skis, or there are lines everywhere?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lots were more crowded than I have ever seen there but the lift lines were not bad at all. There were free ski demos with no real line but I did not bother. Free raffle, live band playing on snow, free coffee and hot cocoa and give away pins, bandanas, lip balm, sunglasses, etc. 

 

It was better a couple years ago when they had free lessons.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Ski2Live Live2Ski said:

Lots were more crowded than I have ever seen there but the lift lines were not bad at all. There were free ski demos with no real line but I did not bother. Free raffle, live band playing on snow, free coffee and hot cocoa and give away pins, bandanas, lip balm, sunglasses, etc. 

 

It was better a couple years ago when they had free lessons.

I think there've even been free tickets, if you RSVP in time. Somehow I didn't find anything like that this year.

But anyway, I'm excited. Parking should be no big deal, since we'll get there around opening time, and everything else sounds like a great deal of fun.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...