Ski areas are opening up here in New England, but it’s mostly the White Ribbon of Death. We’ll hold off until December at least and then hope to get a few tune up days on Indy Pass mountains.
Big Sky opens Wednesday with an astonishing 50 runs. Bridger doesn’t open until the 13th, but folks are skinning up like crazy to ski a foot of coverage. I joke that there should be a line of orthopedic surgeons with pom-poms cheering them on. Looking forward to skiing.
Supposed to be a storm this week. I went out and painted outside. It was warm, sunny and windless.
Heavenly is ‘open’ but I can’t imagine what they are skiing on.
Epic pass purchased, stage one of the move done and it look like the wasatch range will get some more storms next week according to Open Snow.
I doubt the 5 year extended wax hotbox experiment ( aka skis in the garage roof in Houston) will have done much for the skis so I’ll probably be hiking some hills to condition myself, and then go to a friends house to recondition some skis , or drink beer. Or both
The Epic pass comes with a free wax/tune, but if you’re in Washington then you may be out of luck. I recommend a trip to Utah or Colorado, and you can get a $20 wax for free.
I picked up an Epic Pass again this year because of the generous discount they give military veterans. I’ll use it for day trips here in New England plus I can use it for a ski club trip to Beaver Creek/Vail that is planned for mid-February. That same ski club has a trip planned to Madonna di Campiglio in Italy in early March. I’ll be doing these two trips instead of my usual trip to Sugarloaf in Maine.
In addition, my other ski club has a trip planned to Jay Peak in Vermont this year. This will be in lieu of the usual trip to Sunday River in Maine.
So if all goes well I should be able to ski at four new (new to me, that is) ski resorts this year.
Here’s hoping that nothing goes wrong physically. I’ve been dealing with left shoulder, left ankle, and back issues. But everything seems to be ok for now.
Speaking of therapy, my mental health is not doing so great in the aftermath of the election. We donated a metric fuckton of money during this cycle-an order of magnitude more than ever before, and while I won’t say it was wasted (I’d hate to be sitting here thinking “what if?”), it certainly didn’t achieve the outcome I wished for.
Which is an aroundabout way of saying I booked a heli trip for Jan 17th. Get the fuck out of this country for the inauguration, and ski powder. The hell with it.
Jay is definitely a better ski destination than SR, IMO, especially if you like skiing the woods. There are no better glades in the northeast, although Saddleback and Sugarloaf come close. If you have people in your ski club that frequent Jay have them show you around.
Park at Stateside, take the Jet chair and go as far skier’s right as you can, into Timbuktu. If the snow is good you can lap that for a few runs to explore all the great lines. Then go skier’s left to Kitz Woods → Hell Woods. If you want more after that, North Glade is a lightly used area without much traffic, or Andre’s Paradise but the ski out is a bit of a pain. That requires heading to Tramside. The tram is fun for a single run, but unless there’s no line it’s just not worth it. It’s good for the super steeps, but the only run I typically do off the tram is Valhalla.
Thanks for the advice, @Telemark. Other ski club members have also told me that Jay has great glades. I’m not actually much of a glades skier, but we’ll see. I had a great time with some easy glades a few years ago at either Bretton Woods or Attitash (can’t remember which one it was).
I really like Beaver Creek and Vail, because I can spend the entire day barely repeating runs, and still only do groomed blues and bowls.
Be sure to come down to the front side of Beaver Creek around 2:30 for free, fresh baked cookies.
Assuming that everything is open by the time you get there, these glades are great low angle fun:
- Quarter, Half, and Full Moon
- Doe Run
- Kokomo (not really a glade, but fun)
- Bushwacker
- North (a bit more difficult)
- Showoff (more difficult)
- Bonaventure (more difficult)
- Stateside (more difficult)
Got my first day in today. And I’m feeling great…
I was worried cause my legs/knees were giving me fits over the summer. But today was good. Warmed up on some blues, later on actually found a line of moguls (about 7 turns) and cranked some slalom turns on this little narrow steep trail nobody uses. Wore myself out good.
But… Heavenly turned about a 1/4 of my secret parking area into Handicap. Both good and bad, I reckon…
Awesome
I am in Park City Utah , the mountain range is the wasatch range , which probably looked like Washington. I shall go get the planks tuned by someone who knows what they are doing and I’ll go drink beer .
I found out that PCMR from 5:30 to 830 am will allow uphill skiing up one run ( and skiing back down) My inner keen person says ‘ sure sounds like a bracing early morning get fit thing let’s go for it’ . Reality is likely to be ‘bluuggg 5:30 am is something that should happen to other people”
Oh yeah, much better. I’ve never had a bad day skiing in Utah, and given the small sample size, that increases the odds that it’s great there. One of these days I’ll get to punch the Park City notch on my Epic Pass. It’s so close, but just far enough away to require a bit of planning.
I paid way to much for the Epic Pass to climb on my own.
Exactly. I don’t pay to slide around on snow. I pay to ride the chair. 
Dawn Patrol is a time honored tradition, get first tracks before skiing the rest of the day lift-served.
Ahhh… My Dawn Patrol is usually turning down the stereo, throwing a blanket over the three people under the pool table, making sure the dogs are situated, stirring the coals in the fireplace (to reduce ash), finishing off a couple of bottles of beer I left stranded by the BBQ or hot tub…
Last tracks always cover the first.
That was a Parady, by the way
Found my brake spring had snapped on my left ski. Had to cannibalize a pair I don’t use with the same bindings (Look Z’s) and retrofitted the “Special Edition” parts onto the heel turntable. Back on the hill Thursday. Another perfect day.
I grew up in Utah and considering that I’m in my 60s now, you can imagine how long ago that was.
I had two fundamental misconceptions about skiing based on that experience.
First, I thought snow was dry and never icy. Little did I know that’s not the case everywhere else.
Second, having skied weekdays on the cheaper resorts or having gotten lift tickets through school, getting hand-me-downs equipment and such, I thought that skiing was cheap.
Anyway, today was our first day. Rusutsu was gorgeous today. About 15 cm of fresh snow, not very crowded and no, repeat no lines on the lifts. Not all runs are open but the conditions were great for the ones that were open.