RidgeRacer Posted January 10 Report Posted January 10 16 hours ago, C1erArt said: Decided to treat myself to an end of week cool down at Frost. Good conditions, very light crowd up until 11:30 or so, a little fluff on top, but even the hard base layer held an edge. Glad to see Tbolt was open even though the website said it wasn’t. Challenge and river shot were nice, although the east side of East Mountain is completely untouched (most guns over there don’t even have hoses run to them) and I wouldn’t be surprised if Vail management doesn’t open it this season. The challenge lift wasn’t running as per usual for weekdays, so you had to make the trek over to East Mountain to ski Challenge or T bolt. Overall, a nice mellow morning. Bumped up my Carv season high by one whole point. Repeated post-run Carv advice today to ski steeper slopes 😁 How is east mountain untouched with no indication that snowmaking will occur over there at this point in the season? It’s so sad to see / hear about what was some really fun and memorable terrain turn to shit. The elevator is probably a full on extension of the woods now. So sad. RIP to the Jack Frost I once knew. 1 1
JFskiDan Posted January 10 Report Posted January 10 10 hours ago, RidgeRacer said: How is east mountain untouched with no indication that snowmaking will occur over there at this point in the season? It’s so sad to see / hear about what was some really fun and memorable terrain turn to shit. The elevator is probably a full on extension of the woods now. So sad. RIP to the Jack Frost I once knew. We had some really good years at JF with peak. its clearly different now. i would be pissed at this point if i was giving Vail money. They are just doing the minimum. 3
C1erArt Posted January 11 Author Report Posted January 11 (edited) On 1/10/2026 at 6:34 AM, RidgeRacer said: How is east mountain untouched with no indication that snowmaking will occur over there at this point in the season? It’s so sad to see / hear about what was some really fun and memorable terrain turn to shit. The elevator is probably a full on extension of the woods now. So sad. RIP to the Jack Frost I once knew. On a kind of bright note, even though elevator and elevator glade are no more, they seem to push out the snow out more to the top of elevator making the flats there and rivershot itself significantly wider, easing a blind bottleneck. I remember quite a few years ago there were about a dozen, shall we say, less experienced bros on the east mountain lift way up ahead of me. I waited quite a while at the top so I could have a clear slope for the 90 second run. I go over the river shot lip and there are bodies littered all down the narrow slope. Managed to mostly avoid hitting anyone. Challenge glade now is only one or two trees deep. They don’t blow snow over to it anymore. Edited January 11 by C1erArt 1
Icecoast Posted January 12 Report Posted January 12 They spent all that money on lifts to let the place go. I Just went back to my photos of jack frost when peaks owned it and it seemed i was riding east mountain by mid to late December regularly. What a shame. 2
EdBacon Posted January 12 Report Posted January 12 1 hour ago, Icecoast said: They spent all that money on lifts to let the place go. I Just went back to my photos of jack frost when peaks owned it and it seemed i was riding east mountain by mid to late December regularly. What a shame. Vail is concerned with headcounts. JFBB needed a lot of people to run given the number of lifts, size and age of the snowmaking equipment. Getting rid of all of that and putting in new, but fewer lifts let them seriously cut back on the on-mountain staffing. 1 1
Ski2Live Live2Ski Posted January 14 Report Posted January 14 (edited) JFBB posted pix of snow making on Floyd’s all good things in all good time Edited January 14 by Ski2Live Live2Ski
JFskiDan Posted January 14 Report Posted January 14 16 minutes ago, Ski2Live Live2Ski said: JFBB posted pix of snow making on Floyd’s all good things in all good time Oh, yeah, they sure are taking their good time on getting the good things done. you nailed it. Its pretty sad they still have 3 trails on the west side not open, and the rest of east mountain. It takes a huge commitment to have like 6-7 trails still closed, and post a pic of snowmaking on 1. LOL. 1 1
C1erArt Posted January 14 Author Report Posted January 14 1 hour ago, Ski2Live Live2Ski said: JFBB posted pix of snow making on Floyd’s all good things in all good time Maybe they are reading this. TBolt is open BTW, or was at least last Friday. Hope to be up there this Friday and skip the crowds at Blue, although it was very quiet today.
EdBacon Posted January 14 Report Posted January 14 I mean. They CAN'T open any faster. This is what they have capacity for anymore accounting for snowmaking equipment and staff. Vail would need to drop money into upgrading the snowmaking infrastructure at this point, putting permanent guns on those trails, or buying lots of new portable guns and hiring more snowmaking staff to work them. That seems unlikely. 1
RidgeRacer Posted January 14 Report Posted January 14 2 hours ago, EdBacon said: I mean. They CAN'T open any faster. This is what they have capacity for anymore accounting for snowmaking equipment and staff. Vail would need to drop money into upgrading the snowmaking infrastructure at this point, putting permanent guns on those trails, or buying lots of new portable guns and hiring more snowmaking staff to work them. That seems unlikely. They had permanent fan guns all over the mountain, before they shipped them up North. I believe Peak resorts did that actually when they acquired mt. Snow and Hunter.
C1erArt Posted January 15 Author Report Posted January 15 6 hours ago, C1erArt said: Maybe they are reading this. TBolt is open BTW, or was at least last Friday. Hope to be up there this Friday and skip the crowds at Blue, although it was very quiet today. For some reason they have TBolt and Thunderbolt listed as separate trails, and the latter is listed as open.
EdBacon Posted January 15 Report Posted January 15 5 hours ago, RidgeRacer said: They had permanent fan guns all over the mountain, before they shipped them up North. I believe Peak resorts did that actually when they acquired mt. Snow and Hunter. Did they have 100% coverage with permanent guns? I didn't start frequenting JFBB until like 2015 so I'm not familiar with what they had before that.
RidgeRacer Posted January 15 Report Posted January 15 (edited) 6 hours ago, EdBacon said: Did they have 100% coverage with permanent guns? I didn't start frequenting JFBB until like 2015 so I'm not familiar with what they had before that. If I recall yes. On both mountains. It was a big selling point for them back then, and they cranked out some serious snow. They were a huge reason why so much of the off piste terrain was accessible back then. If it wasn’t 100% it was definitely the majority of terrain edit…after doing a little research, here were the details. This is from 2008… ”Jack Frost and Big Boulder are owned by Missouri-based Peak Resorts. Michael Cloeren, public relations and events director at JFBB, said Peak Resorts just bought 90 fan snowmaking guns for Jack Frost and 60 for Big Boulder at $30,000 a piece.” Edited January 15 by RidgeRacer
JFskiDan Posted January 15 Report Posted January 15 6 hours ago, EdBacon said: Did they have 100% coverage with permanent guns? I didn't start frequenting JFBB until like 2015 so I'm not familiar with what they had before that. i dont think so. i think they have a smathering of fixed guns, and supplement alot with portable stuff. for some reason i remember a picture from frost, i dont know when, with all of the portable stuff lined up, and it was a ton of equipment. probably right before Fail sold it all. Any Company that was interested in revenue from JF would be 100% open now. Last year Camelback took some of the spotlight off of JFBB with them tripping over their dick all of last year, Vail just trips over their dick year after year, so its pretty normal.
EdBacon Posted January 15 Report Posted January 15 (edited) 3 hours ago, RidgeRacer said: If I recall yes. On both mountains. It was a big selling point for them back then, and they cranked out some serious snow. They were a huge reason why so much of the off piste terrain was accessible back then. If it wasn’t 100% it was definitely the majority of terrain edit…after doing a little research, here were the details. This is from 2008… ”Jack Frost and Big Boulder are owned by Missouri-based Peak Resorts. Michael Cloeren, public relations and events director at JFBB, said Peak Resorts just bought 90 fan snowmaking guns for Jack Frost and 60 for Big Boulder at $30,000 a piece.” I remember Peak still aggressively made snow with their portable guns although I guess that wasn't sustainable, Vail or no Vail. Wouldn't hold my breath over Vail rebuilding that snowmaking infrastructure though. Edited January 15 by EdBacon
JFskiDan Posted January 15 Report Posted January 15 14 hours ago, C1erArt said: For some reason they have TBolt and Thunderbolt listed as separate trails, and the latter is listed as open. i wonder if that is left over from Peaks trail map, if i recall it was Thunderbolt, and Tbolt glade. it is one way to get your trail count up, and Blue should take notice. put trails on the map twice. looking at some various trail maps, for some reason the show Tbolt as the top of that trail, then thunderbolt on the lower portion. 2023 map 2022 map. there are so many different trail maps for JF. but i cant find one where challenge glade/happyland, or one park glade is included. but check this one out. what a blast from the past. Dom and i were talking about this last weekend. Gonzos Grind, Mad Tree Glade, Solitude Glade, Elevator, and even Risk it. little cliff huck was stupid, but anyone remember Marks Way? RIP all the fun shit at JF. God damn with snow, that place was fun as shit. 4
RidgeRacer Posted January 15 Report Posted January 15 I don’t think happyland aka challenge glade or Marks way were ever on the map. They definitely had signs out there though. 1
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted January 15 Report Posted January 15 I remember Jack Frost having a pretty cool bar in the second floor of their lodge like T-2000 or something.
RidgeRacer Posted January 15 Report Posted January 15 1 hour ago, GrilledSteezeSandwich said: I remember Jack Frost having a pretty cool bar in the second floor of their lodge like T-2000 or something. E 2000. As in elevation 2000 feet. Wanna be careful about altitude sickness when you're up there. 1 1 3
EdBacon Posted January 15 Report Posted January 15 3 hours ago, JFskiDan said: i wonder if that is left over from Peaks trail map, if i recall it was Thunderbolt, and Tbolt glade. it is one way to get your trail count up, and Blue should take notice. put trails on the map twice. looking at some various trail maps, for some reason the show Tbolt as the top of that trail, then thunderbolt on the lower portion. there are so many different trail maps for JF. but i cant find one where challenge glade/happyland, or one park glade is included. but check this one out. what a blast from the past. Dom and i were talking about this last weekend. Gonzos Grind, Mad Tree Glade, Solitude Glade, Elevator, and even Risk it. little cliff huck was stupid, but anyone remember Marks Way? RIP all the fun shit at JF. God damn with snow, that place was fun as shit. 2017/2018 they had enough natural snow to open all the glades and ski patrol opened EVERYTHING even stuff not on the map. Elevator, Elevator glade, Mark's Way. The liftline under the East Mountain lift was open to skiing that season. You could go down the lift line from the top of River Shot, drop off that little rock ledge on the side, then cut over the lower part of Mark's Way back to the runout of River Shot back to the lift. Can't do that anymore.
JFskiDan Posted January 15 Report Posted January 15 27 minutes ago, EdBacon said: 2017/2018 they had enough natural snow to open all the glades and ski patrol opened EVERYTHING even stuff not on the map. Elevator, Elevator glade, Mark's Way. The liftline under the East Mountain lift was open to skiing that season. You could go down the lift line from the top of River Shot, drop off that little rock ledge on the side, then cut over the lower part of Mark's Way back to the runout of River Shot back to the lift. Can't do that anymore. im thinking 2015 was my last year there. sometime around 2011 or something it snowed like crazy and all that stuff was in play for quite some time. back then, ski patrol didnt open anything. they pretty much let you ski rocks if you wanted to. Nobody stopped us from skiing the completely over grown elevator before they cleared it out. And think about that for a second. Peak took the time in the off season one year to completely clear that mess out. No way vail would have done that.
RidgeRacer Posted January 15 Report Posted January 15 3 minutes ago, JFskiDan said: And think about that for a second. Peak took the time in the off season one year to completely clear that mess out. No way vail would have done that. I’ll have to find the thread but I’m pretty sure they cleared out elevator because we were asking for it here on PASR 1
C1erArt Posted January 15 Author Report Posted January 15 Always thought Challenge Glade a whole lot more fun than TBolt or solitude glades.
EdBacon Posted January 16 Report Posted January 16 6 hours ago, JFskiDan said: im thinking 2015 was my last year there. sometime around 2011 or something it snowed like crazy and all that stuff was in play for quite some time. back then, ski patrol didnt open anything. they pretty much let you ski rocks if you wanted to. Nobody stopped us from skiing the completely over grown elevator before they cleared it out. And think about that for a second. Peak took the time in the off season one year to completely clear that mess out. No way vail would have done that. It was more like that, yes. Patrol did put up sticks where Marks Way crossed the East Mountain liftline so people wouldn't ski all the way back down the lift line since you'd hit your head on the chairs coming straight down to the bottom terminal. There isn't much space to get around there. So they were down there checking the safety so I guess it was semi officially "open". That season, 2014/2015 I think they were open until April 21st or 23rd or something.
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now