It's ALIVE!!!

Phew! finally got my issues worked out and i'm back, well maybe not all my issues but the ones concerning the blogging.
So the snow continues to pile up here in the hills of southern vt. Since valentine's day storm, we've had almost an extra foot on top (~11). On the dour side of things the winds started to rip out of the north yesterday and having been raging for over 12hrs now. I'll be heading to southern aspect slopes tomorrow. Hit up snow valley this morning with the hopes that the tree line would protect it from the winds. The trees did seem to do their job but unfortunately the ARS's (Assholes-Ridin'-Snowmobiles) have decided to make snow valley their playground and have torn up a good chunk of the powder. I guess the 100 miles of snowmobile trails they have access to in the area just isn't good enough for the ARS's. It was still good for maybe 10 good turns despite all the hardships.
Storm tomorrow night will hopefully brush us with a couple of inches of new snow to recover the northern aspect's surface from this windstorm. All eye's on next weekends storm though, could be a boon or bust storm for us down in southern vt.
In local news, the crowds in manchester/stratton area have been pretty intense this past week. I've never seen it this crowded during winter, the crowds are closely rivaling the intense fall-time leaf peepers. Over 12,000 people at Stratton last saturday, you could image the lines. All drooling for a taste of the Stratton wind-buffeted courderoy, mmm...mmm good. The local beer distributor was nearly wiped out of beer this past weekend, almost a tragedy in the making. Luckily for me I have my own private stash in case of nuclear fall-out.
TK, nice pics from Berthoud. Talked to some boys from the Wasatch, who said that they're finally getting some goodies again. That usually translates to goodies for the front range too. Anybody talk to Day recently? I've had an itching to make it back down towards Taos, my guess is that it's skiing pretty well down there.
Oh yeah, last comments from me...if you haven't already heard, K-mart has been sold, Mt. Snow sold...Attitash sold, ASC seems to be liquidating. Hopefully sugarloaf goes soon too.

Homeboys' 27th Birthday Dawn Patrol at Berthoud

I woke up at a painful 450am this morning to bright florescent lights that stung my sleepy eyes. As I heated water for my daily Yerba Matte I was wondering why the torture after no new snow in that last three days. I climbed in the Subaru and picked up my boy John. After a morning chong session of "hawaiin blueberry" I was feeling better. Temps were in the mid-30's in boulder at 5am so I wasn't expecting much. We met up with homie Rob for his 27th birthday, we would not be disappointed:













Wish some of you fools were out with us this morning. How are the conditions out east??
Paz
TK

A Battle Lost

A moment away from the stoke.

I received some awful news upon my return from my Northern Vermont adventures. A friend of mine had lost his battle with drug addiction and passed away on Friday. Micah, a 27 year old Brookline native, passed out behind the wheel of his car while on his way to a heroin detox center in Minnesota. His car crossed the grassy median strip on the highway and collided with an eighteen wheeler coming the other way.

I haven't talked to Micah for over a year. He moved to the mid-west, feeling that a geographic cure to a problem that resided within his soul would alleviate his silent suffering. I remember being upset with him for abruptly leaving, he needed to put down stronger roots, get some more time under his belt, we had told him, before trying something so rash as to moving to a place where he lacked a support network. And today I will attend his funeral. Sad.

I wanted to share this with y'all because I wanted to let you all now how blessed I feel to have friends such as yourselves. Though most of you are scattered across the country, I talk to you regularly, and garner strength from the friendships which have survived herculean trials.
Thanks for being simply amazing people.

That's the end of my rant.

Riss with a Message from Colorado!

Needless to say, this was a sick day in the Colorado side country!

Yeah... it was that DEEP

I'll let this pictures speak for themselves. This was just one turn.














Yahoo!!!

Magic Gnar Gnar

First, a couple of housekeeping issues.

The blog has moved to the new "google" format, as I was forced to for some reason. Everyone will have to switch their account over when they sign in. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Now for some pictures from Wednesday

I got an odd surprise when I bought my lift ticket at the window, I looked down at the trail map on the counter and low and behold, who's pictured on the cover?? None other but yours truly, skiing at Jay Peak nonetheless. Tyler, you may be a sick skier, but have you ever been the poster boy for a mountain? Bitch!


the original shot.


Getting some closed trail goodness



Greenie goes for it



Ice man, end of a pow day.

36 in the driveway, 52 on the hill

6:30 AM, Feb. 15. That's Chrissy's Subaru on the left. We'd alredy cleared the driveway twice on the 14th before taking this picture.

Yesterday was hands down the best day of skiing i've had on the east coast...period. The storm is being called the 2nd largest single day event in the Champlain Valley since records have been kept.

I woke early yesterday to about 8 inches on the truck. Met my buddy Dan (patroler and good friend) up at Bolton for first chair. No wind, snowing 3-4 inches an hour...do the math. Thigh to waist deep untrackd lines were the flavor of the day. Because of the storm, only about 30 people made it to the mountain (gotta love steep access roads), and well, it was Epic. 100% of every imagniable line was going off.

Sounds like Eric and Dave managed a good day at Magic. Only differnce in the North was the fact that we had 25-30 inches of base under it all!

Dave, we're sking snow valley this weekend. Cooper can come too.

First Report

Some early comments from this storm....HOLY SHIT!!! As of 10:00 last night we had about 20" down here in the valley. Quinn was purporting 30" at his homestead. This translating quite nicely when pushed up 2000' to 3000' vertical feet. TK I think your head has been orographically lifted off this planet. Lack of O2 out there?
So Balz, his buddy Florian and I skied at Magic Mt. Quick synopsis was that the start of the day was a little rugged, there was only 4-6" natural snow on the trails as of Tuesday. Dodging rocks and branches was the name of the game in the morning. As the snow continued to pound down though the skiing got better and better. Nice thing about Magic was its aspect, the wind started howling in the afternoon from the NE, but Magic faces NW so most of the trails were getting blown in. There were maybe 30 people on the mountain during the peak of the day an added bonus. Some pretty crazy slabs formed and started sliding downhill during the day as well. Though they didn't slide far, it was very interesting to see and the slabs were quite sizable, engulfing entire trails. First time I had seen little avies from the chairlift of an eastern resort. By the end of the day we were able to start skiing some of the steeper lines Magic has to offer, small cliff bands, mini slabs and face shots for all.
Balz I hope you'll have some pics from the day, but all-in-all it may have been the best day skiing i've had since arriving back from Utah, top 3 at least. If a pre-existing base would have already been down at Magic, it would have been a truly epic day. Oh yeah, another school-free day for me!!
Balz, good luck today!!

I need Evidence!

Yeah, I here all the hype, but until I see some "thigh deep" pics....the jury is out. 20-40 inches Balls?? NWS says:

SNOW WILL SPREAD ACROSS THE WARNING AREA AFTER MIDNIGHT TONIGHT AND
CONTINUE THROUGH ALL OF WEDNESDAY. THE SNOW WILL BE HEAVY AT TIMES
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON AND RESULT IN TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 16 TO
26 INCHES BY EARLY THURSDAY MORNING. NORTHWEST WINDS WILL ALSO BE
INCREASING DURING THE AFTERNOON HOURS ON WEDNESDAY AND RESULT IN
BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW AND NEAR BLIZZARD CONDITIONS.

OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!!!

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAH!! It's coming! It's coming!!!! The first legitimate big storm in years!!! For all you west coast suckas-

Mother nature is in the process of engineering one of the great skiing comebacks of the last quarter century. At the risk of sounding like I am part of the marketing chorus, I can honestly say that this past Friday was one of the best days I have ever had on Mad River's "single" side. Although some of the snow certainly was wind driven into the trail, I was literally quad deep in powder on Catamount at a little after 9 AM. As much fun as I had on the slopes Friday, what a downer not to be in the mad river valley over the next week because it will spectacular. There were strong indications of a major event going back to early last week for the east coast but for a while, it looked as though any storm would simply add to a lengthy decadal chapter of big snow for coastal areas and a miss for areas deep in interior New England. As the college football analyst Lee Corso likes to say "Not so fast my friend !!!!". We are not going to miss this storm which will bring blizzard like conditions and a huge accumulation of snow to the entire state of Vermont.

So whats the forecast??? 20-40 inches of heavenly powpow. Sure the winds might hit hurricane like speeds. But that only means that leeward areas will be sickter!!!!!! Also, Carolyn, if you are reading this. I love you sooooooo much. But this being the biggest storm to hit NE in ten years, can we please, pretty please, reschedule Valentines day for Friday night????? I'll cook you dinner, buy you presents and be the bestest boyfriend in the entire universe!!!!

Heavy Snow.

Looks like New England may finally be getting a good size storm this week. 1 ft+ wednesday and thursday. Greenie, you going to be around Killington? Or are you going to be stuck teaching brats???

-Erik

Out of Bounds, Colorado......

Another day out in the Colorado backcountry.....winds were gusting to over 70mph on Saturday at Vail pass so we decided to keep heading west to ski some sneaky faces OB at Beaver Creek. I know, you're all thinking.....Beaver Creek, you mean hot cookies in lift line, families, and valet parking....but trust me, there is some sicky lines!! The wind had deposited some nice snow on the 2000ft east face and we raped and pillaged these lines all day long!! After a long day of pow skiing and hiking, we retired to Semana lounge in the Vail village where I drank too much and busted out mediocre breakdancing moves with the wealthy masses..... don't move out here, cause life sucks..... Lets cross our fingers for the storm this weekend....Paz, TK

Jackson

Howdy from Jackson,

Amazingly enough, after almost 2 years of slacking I have returned to the working world. I am currently employed as a carpenter/maintenance man for JHMR.
Perks: free all mountain pass and a small paycheck
Cons: working

Unfortunatly, last weekend the resorts backcountry yurt in Rock Springs had some problems. I was forced to ski out there not once, but twice to change the door knob. Accompanying me on one of these jaunts was Jackson Hole's newest homeowner and birthday boy. Y'all might know him as Timmy G. I think the bank actually lent the money to someone named Charles. I have yet to meet him.

Also had a nice time skiing from Table Mountain last week with Matt Heyliger. Nothing beats untouched knee deep surface hoar. Then we got saved from most of the four mile skate out by some snowboarders. They pulled us out with their snowmobile.

We finally have some snow in our forecast. Yahoo!! But it is supposed to get down to -23 tonight. BRRR!!

That's all from Jackson. Sorry I have not been a more frequent contributor but I have no internet connection. In fact, I am currently sitting in a my car outside a hotel stealing their wireless.

Jon

Another Nor'easter squandered

Man, I don't know what we east coasters did to piss off the snow gods, but he really doesn't seem to like us. I think it's time for a human sacrifice! I can think of a couple of racer rats from class that I would gladly offer up as sacrificial lamb.
This is like the umph-teenth coastal storm that has missed us. The last impressive one to actually hit us was in october of '05. Just in the last month I think there have been about 5 that have formed too far out to sea to even graze us. What the F#$*!!! I guess we'll have to make due with another minor clipper and any lake effect that squeezes by the 'dacks.
On the bright side of things closed trail skiing at Stratton is in full-effects, the woods are still pretty sketchy though besides the upper third of the mountain. I currently have a love-hate relationship with the mountain of Stratton. Reasons are as follows

Cons, fairly obvious and well known:
1)The mountain is pretty much all blue square, even most of the blacks are at best a moderate blue.
2)Pretentious crowd (i love it in the gondola when the assholes are debating on whether to buy the porsche or the ferrari for their month long jaunt in Europe)
3)Lack of snow produced via clippers & lake effect. Our major snowmakers are of the coastal variety (see aforementioned gripe)
4)They groom EVERYTHING!!!! besides the trees of course

Pros, less well-known:
1)Excellent tree skiing when it does snow...nicely spaced, reminicent of steamboat on prime days
2)Everybody listens to ski-patrol...aka nobody ducks ropes. I can see my tracks for several days under the lifts and I get fresh tracks whenever I duck a rope. It was knee deep in spots last week and I was the only one to plunder the goods...even the trail under the gondola, Standard, was untouched (until me). The trail would have been ripped to shreds in just about every other major resort in the northeast.
3)You can walk into lost & found and get hooked up with sweet gear like barely touched new poles, gloves, googles etc... and they trust you that its yours.

What is it about great blogging that makes me have to shit
Heeyy-oooo