utility skiing

Wanted to tilt the new skis on their sides. Again and again. That was mission one for the weekend. Filling some available time, go get some turns, maybe learn something.

Pulled up for a noon patrol to a packed parking lot, and headed for the locals lane. Luckily a few folks had started leaving by then and I got a snow row. It was crowded, I'd be riding the singles line all day.

Did a few laps on the Far Side, working the slow speed, round turns, tuck the back leg, arms forward, squeeze that orange, stay in the fall line, control that speed kind of thing. repeat.

Re-discovered that ski lifts are an interesting thing. The rides last far longer than most elevator rides with strangers, but on a lift you hear and learn all kinds of things you never hear on an elevator. I'm usually pretty chatty on the lift during off-peak times. I usually find some interesting people skiing here during the week. Today I figured I'll just keep my mouth down and listen.

The first lift ride I shared on the Expert lift was with two youngish seeming guys. One of them misses getting on the chair somehow and dives underneath to cover his head. We get him back on, and after a while he says something about having a choice of either going for the chair and maybe missing it, or diving under to keep from getting clocked. I utter something about that being a hard choice to have to make. I decide those should be the last words I speak on the lift for the rest of the day. Chairlift rides give us a unique opportunity to be right there in someone's personal space, and not have to say sqat. I needed to exercise that right today.

Another ride up the Exp. lift a guy is telling his buddy about meeting a pro snowboard girl who lived in Hawaii in the summers and surfed. He was in Hawaii for a war game. Hot pro girl was a friend of a coworker, and waited on them at a bar called Dukes. She hooked them up with free drinks and all. She was friendly to him, but nothing ever came of it. He'd like to run into her again. He added that she also worked at a plastic surgeon's office, as a receptionist or whatever.

Saw about 8-10 guys just rippin' the moguls under the lift. Hour after hour I heard, many of them very old school, some old men skiing for the first time this season, and a couple young-uns. One guy wearing mogul pants. Rode a couple chairs up with some of them, they talked amongst themselves, about the lack of a contest environment nowadays, and scoping the skills of those ripping under us.

A guy on another chair ride was skiing with a pretty young lady in a fancy ski coat. She was amazed at the mogul skiers under us. He said her form looks pretty good, and if she wanted to try it while her legs were still fresh, that he'd give her a quick mogul lesson. I've always wanted a quick mogul lesson too, haven't you? If there's anything someone can tell me and teach me at the top of Exhibition that will help me rip it, then I want to hear it.... I didn't stick around to see the lesson though, instead jumping down the far side going as slow and straight as possible. I saw them still coming down the moguls as I was halfway up the lift the next time.

Saw a guy in what looked like a mid-90s James Bond bad guy jumpsuit making big turns down far side. Wondering how somebody still has clothes like that, and why they would wear them. Saw two zippy little kids ski up to him in the liftline followed by a narrow waisted pair of black stretch pants with nice long hair and a lot of fragrance. Accents seemed very European, Seemed like they'd all skied somewhere other than Whitetail before.

Luckily my legs got bored with the far side work and instead of heading off to Dr. Evil's lair I decided to ski the terrain park a bit and then time it to the stone cabin. I talked to no one on the new terrain park lift. All solo rides, on a packed weekend day. When the ice sux, or the liftlines are too long, I've been using the terrain park lift. There's always better snow there, and there are big carvable walls and ramps to session.

***

The half-pipe finally opened this week too. Got in there for a few runs Sunday with Oliver. I never was much into pipes when I was a snowboarder. Wondering why I think it's kind of fun now on freeheels. It'll be fun to hit when it's soft or slushy, and there's no lift line there.

When I swapped over my bindings to the new planks, I greased them according to Voile's instructions. Voile thinks I should be doing this after every season. Both my skis released today landing a jump. Was a perfectly normal landing I thought, not that much higher than any other landing. It seemed like they came off in the air, since I landed in the normal position, ready to ski away, when I realized I had no skis below. I guess there's no way they came off in the air, so I figure I landed on my edges, and that twist caused the piston on the CRB to release. Then when I unweighted to turn, they dropped away. Interesting. Don't want that happening any more.

smackdown

Blue Knob knocked me back in my place. After a feel good session at Whitetail on Friday, on the newly forming bumps, under the soft snow blow, I finally was getting some decent runs down exhibition and thought another corner was turned.

Today I was schooled by narrow trails, woody lines, brush, snakes, and general Blue Knob steepness. Buchness gave me the Blue Knob version of steep and soft, hitting mostly trails I'd never tried before. Most of it was fun, but I was fighting it all day, constantly on my tails, not charging forward into hard, narrow turns. Mike tore it up on his fat Atomics, getting every line calm and controlled. The first glades were just opened up, and they're still in need of a lot of ski pruning. The steeper glades still need more snow and no more melting. Then they could all use some tracking. So, everyone, go pack down BK's glades please.

Scouted out another x-c touring spot on the way home. It took me near a couple of the finest towns in Pennsylvania.

LM

note the thermometer. it was a great day

the lifts are going to start running again here next year.
Not sure if that's good or bad

a new Michaux race

The Michaux Mash, on some good trail

details here

I re-discovered soft dry snow
it comes from a can
I get it now

reality <> expectations

not at all what I was hoping to see
contrast my reality Saturday against those previous snowy shots
Blue Knob was much more on the challenging side than the epic side,
was there before they opened, and lasted 'till 1:00 hoping the blue radar would finally arrive,
it arrived briefly at noon, then the pink radar overtook it as I left.

***
today was much more fun
skiing better snow at Whitetail with different folks throughout the day,
Kim, Oliver, and Tiff to start,
found Buchness after awhile,
then finally saw Tele-Todd, and then Tomi in the tele clinic
Kim took the kids home after lunch, and I stayed to ski,
longest ski day of my season and was glad Tomi didn't want to take any more runs after the clinic
thanks for the ride home!

a few states north

if we ever move again, this state is at the top of our list

and, Fri afternoon at White Grass

saw this in the Whitetail parking lot

Tele Todd feeling that back foot with his new Hammerhead/Kodiak rig

Opportunivore

Heading home from VA on a work day.
Skis and clothes still in the car from the long weekend
A free night since Kim and the neighbor took the boys to Hershey for the evening
Driving within sight of a ski area
season pass in possession
How could I not stop for some legwork?

Parked in a recently vacated spot in the first row
The lot was packed, but the lifts were not
The snow was what you'd expect after 50 degrees and sunny all day, then clear and 30s when I arrived. Yeah, it was fast, as they say in WV.

The fast and scratchy nature wasn't all that fun, and I thought I wouldn't even stay an hour.
Found some fun on the bermed sides of 2 large jumps in the terrain park, plus a short pump-track-like roller-berm-roller combo. It was like one-quarter of a pump track.

Whitetail built a new, short lift which just serves the terrain park. I rode that and just sessioned those berms 'till I was ready to leave. Was fun making big 180 carves on the banks.

I nearly undercut someone jumping off the side one time. Almost scary ugly. I looked before I went. There's a very small amount of token communication at the top of the park. Seems like 1 in 10 yell "dropping". People weren't expecting someone to hit that jump from the side like I was doing. The other berm/jump was more like a wide 1/4 pipe, and people were either launching straight off it, or using it like a 1/4 pipe. so my move wasn't so foreign on that feature.

Was imagining how much fun something like a high-walled S-turn section would be. Just 3 big turns would be plenty fun.

Xmas Day skiing

Bill, waving Merry Christmas

My friend Bill and I probably did this same thing 20 years ago on Xmas Day 1988. That is, leave your family holiday and go skiing. Neither of us has grown up much since then. We were partial to Timberline in those days, Whitetail didn't exist then. Now, we're both a lot closer to Whitetail.

New ways to hurt myself

Tim was working, but we never ran into him

Bonus gift: Mannke included some CDs in his xmas package from Boston. A live Meat Puppets show from 1993 which I highly enjoyed on the way to Whitetail, plus a Who bootleg from Isle of Wight, 1970 that I was dying to dig into as well. Thanks Mike!

Double Bonus: Demo'd a pair of World Pistes. Wider, stiffer, and a bit shorter than my Super Stinx. Liked them a lot, they skied really well. Might want to buy those at the end of the season.

More skiing today, gotta get it before the rains do....

Ray riding a well known section on the Weds. night ride.

Whitetail weekend

This was our weekend, pixels provided by our neighbor and Whitetail buddy Tim, and our old Virginia friend and 24-Hour teammate, Bill. Bill happily made use of that Dynastar snowboard I won at the Wild 100 a few years ago (and never mounted up). The board is now his, lucky I never got around to making a bench out of it. I guess the other part of that bench is now spoken for too, as Tim wants to try a free-carve board, and that's what I happen to have stored in the garage.

Amazed at Oliver's skiing. This was our 6th day this season, and there's a huge difference in today compared to Seven Springs the day after Thanksgiving. He really digs the new Sidewinder Trail at Whitetail. It has a high, long bank along the left side. The bank is pretty cool to get a little surfy on, and has formed lots of rollers and ramps with a sometimes difficult transition dip to get back onto the flat trail . Oliver goes up & down & up & down the first sections of bank, then just straight-lines the rollers of the bank the rest of the way down, and tries to hold his speed to hit a big whale at the bottom. I like how he's already discovered the fun little hits and sections off the edges of the trails. I like how he seems to be able to check his speed when necessary. I know when he's straight-lining it could go ugly in a nano, but so far....

That trail will only get better with more snow(making). Today, there were some rocks and dirt showing through on the high side. Was almost a like singletrack luge run to stay in the rollers that Oliver was skiing.
Oliver did ask to ride the high-speed to the top of the mountain. I was nervous about that, not wanting any straight-lining down that. He skied cautiously, making turns through the thick and surprisingly fun mashed potatoes. Got down with no problems and he skied right back over to the other lift, saying he didn't want to do the big one again. Was pretty happy about that too.

sweet Woodward

This entire mountain bike park looks insane.
I love how they manual those rollers, especially that table-top one. Anyone who's ridden with me in the past few months knows that I've been trying to get the manual (and a decent wheelie while I'm at it). The problem with both of them, is my fear of the sweet spot. Or, more precisely, my fear of that place one degree beyond the sweet spot.

But, I just learned a couple ways to practice and get the feel of the sweet spot for fleeting seconds. And anyone who knows me, knows I'll drill the hell out of something if I want to learn it. One trick is to manual down any little drop. A ramp, a driveway, a dip in the trail, a roller on the pump track etc.. When my front wheel is in the air, and I hit the drop, there's a natural acceleration right into the sweet spot. The other trick is handy in the woods, and that's to wheelie over small branches, logs, and rocks. I get my front up, and pedal through the impact with the object. The natural tendency is for the object to slam the front wheel down as soon as the rear smacks, so to keep it up, I have to lean back into the spot. This could make for some entertaining moments for any riders following me. I know I had some moments at Raystown a few weeks ago.

frosty

some family skiing on Saturday

Tony should've had a Tomi Ring

Wrenchy

frosty ride
showed Big Dog that new trail from the 50
got to sketch across the slickest log in Michaux with a dust of dry on top
impromptu call to head for some post-ride Chambersburg chili thanks to Kim!
double impromptu bonus showing them the pump track and it was 28 degrees, frozen, and dry
quik pre-chili session ensued

Not many pixels to show for the past 5 days off work.

Fun was had, starting with what Kim says was her "best Thanksgiving ever".

a little more of this,
and a ride on some of the fine Norchaux
waiting for more snaux....

Slab avalanche at Wisp (in Maryland!)

story here

Turns is Turns

A skillz session with MBM on Saturday.

a little of this on Sunday
Seven Springs
2 kids
no poles
no buckles
felt great to get that Keystone White coursing through my veins,
into the nervous system,
and straight to the brain
first turns out of the way
and
set the downhill hook a little deeper into unsuspecting kids.

Tiffany had just discussed alternative energy sources this week in school

I like the looks of this

where else

southerners to the Arctic

Plan was Hamburg > Grebeci > Salamander > Ijsberg> Hamburg

I took a lot more photos today, but for some reason, not many heads were captured in pixels. I wasn't just trying to protect the innocent. We sessioned Dirt Rag Rock for a while, though I wonder if it's also called Vulture Rock, since a very large one just sat on a rock about 15 yards away the whole time we messed around there.

Tom was the first single-speeder I ever rode with. Would that have been around 1998? I know it was in the Fridley Gap area of the GW. It was probably on that same bike. I think that was also the first day I rode with Glenn W, and remember thinking, holy shit, who in the world is this hammer??

On our Grebeci run, we encountered a group of riders at the Blue/Grebeci junction. They said/asked something about that being the exit. As we rode Grebeci (without that group), we encountered many many other groups, including a group containing 3/5 of the 2008 SM 100 podium. There was a DCNR Flagman out working the Table Rock section. We all had to wait our respective turns for a clean shot. Lots of giggles and gasps, a couple crashes, a flat, and lots of compliments to whatever mountain/trail/geologic meteorlogic or fuzzy logic force combined to arrange so many rocks in such a way. What was once the sole domain of raptors, rattlers, and bears is now attracting species from NUE studs to Sunday tourists.

So, we didn't make it back to Ijsberg the return way. Took Salamander to Sand Flats and worked back from there. These southerners will be back at the trough soon to try the other direction.

One other thing about the Shed: The fun:grunt ratio is so much better than Michaux or the GW. I always leave that place with a week-long grin. Almost as giddy as Raystown.
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