enjoralas Posted January 29, 2018 Report Share Posted January 29, 2018 Got a bit of a late jump this morning, nothing new for us. Wasn't really disappointed in that tho as there was still some drizzle in the air as Pops picked me up at about 7:45 to head north to Tannersville. Forecast for that area was calling for rain to be totally out of the picture by 9 am and it was dead on. Arrived at Camelback at about 8:30 and snuck in the back way by snowtubing and grabbed a nice spot outside the CBK lodge, next to the Sunbowl slope. Headed inside in hopes of processing our triple tickets and redeeming for a lift ticket, fully expecting to be told that could only be done up at the main ticket windows. Looked around on the way in and was pleased to see many tables ready for flipping when I threw my epic tantrum. Surprisingly they were were able to accommodate without a hitch, and in about 90 seconds we were back outside and making the arduous 100ft trek to the car to boot up. I was pleased with the way the transaction went, but at the same time was hoping I would be able to parlay some outrage into some sort of plastic "credit" I could exchange later for mountain goods and services. Eh, probably would have just dropped it off the lift anyway. After booting up we headed down to the indoor water park lift and rode up to hit Nile Mile. Snow started out awesome, soft but carveable, if only I knew how to carve. As the day went on it would yield to a mix of mashed potatoes and sugar, but the mountain was sufficiently deserted that none of the trails got unwieldy with push piles before we left. After a great run down Nile Mile, we jumped back on the indoor water park lift and on the way up I suggested to my dad that with the great soft snow we ought to hit the blacks right there while it was good, before the anticipated hoardes arrived to make them unskiable for jongs like us. He agreed, and so we dismounted and headed down Pharaoh to Bactrian, cruising right onto the indoor water park lift again for a ride up to tackle Cliffhanger. Neither of us have skied Cliffhanger before, as on every trip to the Camel since I started feeling comfortable on that kind of pitch they had bumps on it. With nary a mogul to found across the resort, today was the day to hit it. Took a real fun run down that, feels like it has as much sustained pitch as just about anything I've skied to this point, and I enjoyed the hell out of it in great conditions. We discussed running it again while it was so nice, but, still operating on the assumption that crowds were coming once people looked outside and realized it wasn't raining anymore, we decided to head over to the front face and hit the trails located there. Which meant a crappy run of Little Caesar to Julius Caesar to Honeymoon in order to transition from the indoor water park lift to the outdoor water park lift. Disembarking the outdoor waterpark lift we elected to make Big Pocono our first run on the front face. In our limited Camelback experience it gets cut/bumped up pretty quickly from a lot of side slipping that happens from people who drop in expecting a Blue like Nile Mile and finding something not all that off from Marjies. It probably really ought to be a black to keep it in line with the ratings for this particular mountain; I suspect it's a Blue simply because if it weren't they would feel like they don't have enough top-to-bottom intermediate trails on the trail map. At any rate, we took a fun if uneventful run down Big Pocono after posing for some selfies for the 'book at the top. It amazes me how photos and video make slopes look so much tamer/shallower than they are in person. Back to the outdoor waterpark lift and up and over to King Tut, a true blue run that we have a lot fun skiing and today was no different. After Tut we worked out way across the front face lapping the outdoor waterpark lift and hitting all the black with no problems. Until we got to Rocket. I had the GoPro with me but haven't put a mount on my new helmet yet so hadn't really gotten any footage. I suggested to Pops that I ski down ahead and set up to film him coming at me and passing me before dropping in and following him down. Figured he could look at the footage later and check form. About 1/3 of the way down he caught an edge and went down, sliding the next third of the way on his back while doing his best impression of an 80's breakdancer, alternating head and heels pointed downhill a couple of times before sliding to a stop. The skis never came off and he was able to get back up and ski down to where I was. Footage of this exists, but I promised I wouldn't share it. 😂 We finished the run and went back up the outdoor waterpark lift to finish out the front face runs, taking an uneventful run down Marjie's Delight and back up again. Looks like Camelback isn't content to let Blue Mountain and Bear Creek take all the ski resort wedding business, as they've constructed a nice looking ceremony spot just to skier's right of Marjie's, and the peak lodge is close for renovations, presumably to fancy it up for receptions. Now that we were back on the top and had attempted all the front face runs, the only logical thing to do was attack Rocket again so Pops could extract his revenge. This time I gave him the camera to set up below to record me coming down. Alas, the Rocket won again, taking him down in almost the same spot but closer to the edge, and he slid off the side. I skied down right away as I couldn't tell if he was over the side or not when I lost sight of him over the lip. We got him back on the trail and went down. We decided to take a little break, Pops was a bit fatigued from fighting to get back on the trail and clipped back in. On the way back down Sunbowl to the CBK lot, I saw that they had opened a few of the fixed grips so I let him go head and hit the Marc Antony lift for a lap. I went out Julius to Near East and dropped down to check out Pocono Raceway/Rhododendron Glen. Half of each trail was roped off for a race or training that wasn't happening, and right as I approached they dropped two adaptive skiing sled participants into Raceway, so I headed over to Rhododendron to stay out of their way. I was glad I did because I came across a staff member setting the brush gates for the self-timed course. I decided to pull up and tell him that I thought it was really great that they bother to set something like that up and that we enjoy it. He thanked me and basically said that it was his baby and he's solely responsible for it, and he had been trying to get it working since Christmas but the wiring wasn't working. He finally found a spot where a critter had chewed the wires and spliced it and got it working just the day before. I told him that I knew that feel and tapped the Comcast logo on my jacket, and we both had a good laugh and then everyone was cheering. I skied down and joined my dad in the lot, where I swapped goggles and shed a layer. We tried to have a conversation but it was impossible with all the loud music and drinking and tailgating going on in the lot. We decided to escape the cacophony and chilled outside the CBK lounge for about 20 minutes. Went inside to whiz (downstairs bathrooms, only negative to parking there and using that lodge but I'll take it) and then went back out. We decided to run some Raceway/Rhodo laps, and the mountain coaster lift was open so that made it nice. We ran half dozen or so laps including a few down the brush gate course. I'm terrible at it, but it's fun. End up taking the turns too wide and thus slow. Damn wide-assed skis. After those laps we took a Bactrian run down to the indoor waterpark lift again, working over to the outdoor waterpark lift. We did several combos of Marc Antony and Cleopatra uppers and lowers, lapping the Marc Antony lift. Lower Cleo was in real nice shape and was fun to ski. Upper Cleo resembled a stretched mogul field, with constant and pretty consistent bumps on the relatively shallow slope, but with real stretched spacing. The first run we took down it that kind of sucked because there was a couple dozen people in it and they had wildly varying ability to deal with the chop. The second time we took it it was empty and we could blast down it with speed and had a great, fun run. Back to the outdoor waterpark lift to the top, we took another run on King Tut and then a repeat of Big Pocono. We decided we were just about done for the day, but decided to hit a few more Raceway laps since they're nice and easy and whenever we wanted I quit we were parked right there. We headed down Sunbowl and too late noticed that the mountain coaster lift had stopped spinning, so rather than turn around and skate back to the lot we headed for one last run up the indoor waterpark lift. At the top we decided that rather than take the cat-track Julius Caesar again we would head down Pharaoh and make a hard left and try to negotiate the uphill to get to Pocono Raceway. We were successful with some minor poleing and cruised back down to the lot to call it a day. On the way down the mountain we stopped in at Zack's Taco Shack which was doing a booming business. There's only a couple picnic tables and a couple counter stools inside along with a few standup spots, but some space opened up just before our food came up. I had a fish taco which was the special of the day and a pork taco as well as a chicken burrito. It was all fantastic but the fish taco was the star. All in all it was a great day of about 24 runs, 16 miles skied and about 16k vert. Next day on the snow will probably be a Thursday night session at Blue before leaving for Steamboat on Saturday. Will be at Blue Tuesday night for 80's themed trivia but probably won't ski after. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saltyant Posted January 29, 2018 Report Share Posted January 29, 2018 Great report. I'm glad you liked Cliffhanger. It's my favorite trail most days, and it's great because it's wide and has a nice sustained pitch. Also, it's usually not too crowded since most people seem to think it's truly "extremely difficult", even though we both know that's poppycock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadows Posted January 29, 2018 Report Share Posted January 29, 2018 Awesome report that was a good read. Hilarious at times, freightening at others. Best TR ive read this season -Window cleaning gazette 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indiggio Posted January 29, 2018 Report Share Posted January 29, 2018 "impossible with all the loud music and drinking and tailgating going on in the lot" Wait? What? Has Cameltoe revisited their policy on parking lot tailgating? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enjoralas Posted January 29, 2018 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2018 56 minutes ago, indiggio said: "impossible with all the loud music and drinking and tailgating going on in the lot" Wait? What? Has Cameltoe revisited their policy on parking lot tailgating? Nah, that was the one part that was outright fabrication, along with my willingness to flip tables in the lodge. It wasn't partying that chased us to a table outside the lodge, but rather the want to sit down to rest. The rest was all factual. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted January 29, 2018 Report Share Posted January 29, 2018 Now that was a good report!!! Now Matt Edge finally knows what Camelback is like. Salty take notes!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootDKJ Posted January 29, 2018 Report Share Posted January 29, 2018 Excellent use of tags. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indiggio Posted January 29, 2018 Report Share Posted January 29, 2018 19 minutes ago, RootDKJ said: Excellent use of tags. I'm laughing so hard...Your friend salty. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzslope Posted January 29, 2018 Report Share Posted January 29, 2018 Fun report to read, thanks. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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