Mid-Atlantic Rollcall

[Grape_Ape]

I hope you guys can get some goods from this storm. I am stuck in Balmer for xmas (not really a bad thing...just not skiing).

Too bad no base was left over from Sandy Vajayjay.

[Flipadelphia]

Thinking about making a day trip to Seven Springs tomorrow as its my only chance of getting some turns in and making it back in time for dinner with family in town.

How do they typically handle with high winds? Do we think many lifts will be open?

Regardless I'll probably be there. Hope everyone gets the goods!

[MRR11]

Thinking about making a day trip to Seven Springs tomorrow as its my only chance of getting some turns in and making it back in time for dinner with family in town.

How do they typically handle with high winds? Do we think many lifts will be open?

Regardless I'll probably be there. Hope everyone gets the goods!

Well Flip, I guess by this point your questions have been answered, but I'm sure you noticed that only 1 of 3 lifts that were supposed to be running managed to open before noon, and that was 30 minutes late as well. Wind wasn't the problem though -- apparently electrical issues with the six-pack, and ice on the other two. As if they didn't know there would be snowfall and snowmaking more than 15 minutes before the open this morning. Even though I scored first chair with two snowboarders (well second after three ski patrollers lined jumped us) there wasn't much powder to enjoy due to the wind and snowmaking.

Regardless, it's great to have winter back and we are expected to get another 5-10" on Wednesday. Hope you enjoyed your day, I did too even though there were certainly some hiccups early on.

[SB]

Cannan did not get what they were calling for. 50 MPH winds brought down yet moar trees but power stayed on. Maybe it will build base. Broke in new boots and boards.

[wolfelot]

Any mags going to be at Blue Knob, PA tomorrow? I'm getting up at 4 am to hit first chair there from Columbus, OH. They have had something like 8 inches on the 22nd, 14 inches weds, 6 inches today, plus a bit more I'm forgetting with more snow coming tonight. The place filled in including the trees and sidecountry. I'm told it is totally legit terrain with arguably some of the best stuff south of VT.

I'm leaving Columbus at 4. PM me if you want to roll. Pics to follow.

[skiballs]

I checked their website , none of the glades or good slopes are open .
Not to mention the wind is supposed to be nasty tomorrow .
You might want give it another storm or two .

[wolfelot]

^^^^I have the fever too bad. I'm seeing 30/34 runs open on their site. That is enough for me and with a few more inches overnight, perhaps more will open tomorrow. This AM they said 25/34, but must have felt like they could open up more. I'll poach if I have too, if I don't think I'll kill myself. I'm rolling regardless and I'll let people know how it is.

All runs less than advanced are open. below are the advanced-expert runs from the snow report.

ADVANCED Open? Groomed?
The Playground - Terrain Park Yes Yes
Lower High Hopes Yes No
East-Wall Traverse Yes No
Edgeset Yes No
Stembogan Trail Yes No
Stembogan Bowl Yes No
Stembogan Field Yes No
Ditch Glades No No
Lower Shortway Yes No

EXPERT
Upper Extrovert No No
Lower Extrovert No No
East Wall Glades No No
D-Trail Yes No
Lower Route 66 Yes No
Short Cut Yes No

[skiballs]

Good luck .
Dress warm , the lifts are slow and and it's a windy hill .
If extrovert is closed poach that motherfucker .

[ex-powderbroker]

Drive the extra two hours to Plattekill. 27 inches and counting, woods are in and all trails open. If you tell laz you drove from Ohio maybe you can sleep on the bar!

[wolfelot]

^^^^ plattekill is on the list but it is bk 310 miles vs plattekill 600 miles from where I am. This is just a day trip. With things filled in everywhere already, Ill be ready to roll for some 3 day weekends later in the season.

[Grape_Ape]

I'm told it is totally legit terrain with arguably some of the best stuff south of VT.

Get ready for an experience. The terrain rocks (literally and figuratively) but, sheeet, that place is the hands-down worst run ski area on the planet. They'll say that they have x lifts and y trails open, but once you get on top of that fucked up mountain, its all different. They know they have you by the balls once you get there. I have stories galore.

Anyway, good luck. Their glades are completely fucked up due to the way that they cut them (read: cutting the tree down at waist height and then discarding the fucking things willynilly on the side of glade). It takes a shitload of snow to ski them.

This being said, I love that mountain and mourn its downfall. One of the best ski experiences I ever had was in the winter of '92/93 and it snowed 50+" in December. I was a freshman at St. Francis PA and called my bro to tell him to get his ass up from NC to go skiing. We skied EVERYWHERE on that mountain.

Anyway, let us know what you think of it. I hope they fixed their glades since last I was there.

[DRZ1050i]

Anyone been to Timberline recently? I kinda miss that place.. they have enough snow in the trees yet?

[highway12south]

Last few days have produced in Wva.

Plenty of turns like this .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSVWobnQLFw

[DRZ1050i]

Wheeee fluffy shit!

[Grape_Ape]

Paging wolfelot...to the white courtesy phone.

How was the skiing at Blue Balls?

[Grape_Ape]

Also, I will be at Canaan Valley this weekend skiing downhill at tline or canaan one day and at whitegrass the other. Anyone skiing this weekend?

[johndc]

Headed for 7 Springs for first time this weekend. Not sure why I've never been there before, other than I thought it was about 5 hours drive from DC, which turns out to be an exaggeration (barring traffic). Hoping for some decent surface conditions, since they got a pretty good dump, and it's stayed cold. Looking at their trail map, seems that the best bet is probably to head for the North Face, but if anyone has any other tips for liftline crowd avoidance, low skier density, good grub, or other, please let me know. I'd be particularly interested if there's any area where I should look for some nice bumps. Thanks for any advice!

[wolfelot]

Sorry for the delay on the Blue Knob report. Blue Knob had been on my radar for quite some time. with BK all of a sudden getting a ton of snow and opening up the whole mountain it became a no-brainer to go to Blue Knob. I think they received something like 8, 7, 14, and 3 inches since around December 17th.

I had heard the BK was a pretty 'rustic' area with antiquated snowmaking, but when they have natural snow the place has as serious terrain as pretty much anywhere. I was skeptical of what I had read, but having now visited BK, I can definitely say they the terrain here really is PHENOMENAL for the area. The terrain at BK legit and skis far bigger than the trail map suggests. Great glades, great sustained steeps, short lines and an old school vibe. I HIGHLY recommend you go check it out when the place is going off. I'm hooked and will get there as much as I can this year when conditions are decent. The drive from Columbus is 4:35 with one short gas stop. Sorry the pics are not too rad. I was solo and just had an iphone. Plus I was busy skiing.

I could not find anybody to go with me, which didn't phase me. My plan was to get on the road by 4:15 am to get first chair and hit the pow leftovers along with what the wind blew in. Sometime after getting on the road I took this pic at 4:44 AM:



While it was not a full powder day, there were still fresh lines to be had in the trees in the AM.



This run below is steep. BK has a mid-load station where you can hop off instead of going all the way to the top. This mid-load serves about 700 vertical feet of blacks, double blacks and glades. All of which are very steep and tight. There is not a long run out at the bottom like you will often see so nearly all of the vertical is real skiing instead of lazily cruising to the lift. I'm in pretty good shape and in the afternoon sometimes had to stop before I got all the way down.




This is just a slope side pic. As you can see some areas have quite a bit of saplings. While the glades here are great, there could be MANY more. Some glades that were previously on the trail map, but they are no longer on there. I checked them out and there was a ton of saplings that made them impassable even if they had 5 more feet of base. I hope they will bring them back even if it is the midatlantic and they simply won't be in play very much.




This is a shot of the top of Extrovert, one of their double blacks and from what I understand their signature run. What you see here is really only a fraction of of it. Pretty steep for the area. It is steep enough that there are several areas where you cannot come close to seeing the bottom. It was technically closed, but being openly poached the whole day, especially by me .




This is stembogan bowl.



In total I took about a 20 minute break the whole day. I got to the Subaru at 4:09 PM and rolled out of the BK parking lot at 4:20.

All I can say is BK is freaking awesome! It wasn't a bottomless powder day but there was pow to be found in the AM and the snow was soft all day. It was a LONG, LONG day but totally worth it, even solo. From what I understand conditions can be frequently crummy at BK, but when conditions are solid, you HAVE to get there. They day I was there they technically had something like 31/34 runs open and then next day only 23/34 runs open because there was no base under the new snow. You could still poach if you were not too worried about your skis. I poached.

[1st v-dub]

Headed for 7 Springs for first time this weekend. Not sure why I've never been there before, other than I thought it was about 5 hours drive from DC, which turns out to be an exaggeration (barring traffic). Hoping for some decent surface conditions, since they got a pretty good dump, and it's stayed cold. Looking at their trail map, seems that the best bet is probably to head for the North Face, but if anyone has any other tips for liftline crowd avoidance, low skier density, good grub, or other, please let me know. I'd be particularly interested if there's any area where I should look for some nice bumps. Thanks for any advice!

Springs local right here, with about 20 years there. Total jong post as it's my first, but this might be helpful:

Stuff on the north face is the only stuff with any length to it. If you are staying at the hotel, take the polar bear 6-pack lift to giant boulder but instead of going down giant boulder, stay skiers left and cut across to giant steps. Take that to the bottom with the high speed 6 person and lap gunnar / giant steps / gunnar tree line. Gunnar tree-line is probably fairly packed and maybe even brushed down to grass in some mogul troughs. Giant steps and gunnar are just fast "black diamond" groomers but about as long as it gets there. North face slope itself is a fun quick groomer as well but tends to get washed out to ice and the quad that runs up the slope is the slowest lift on the mountain. Seriously 12 minutes up for 45 seconds down.

Personal favorite is to lap stowe / tryrol on the front side. There is a reasonably quick triple that runs up tyrol. There was a good bump line with a small 20 yard break in the middle where the slope flattens out. It runs right under the lift and the good line is in an area only about 15 yards wide with a lift tower on your left and a couple snow guns on your right, so keep your hands up, point-em, and work on A&E. The bottom is NBD and has a bunch of lines, but none are typically tight, it gets a little more side cut due to some traffic crossing.

Stowe typically has better / the best bump lines. about 25 or 28 degree slope, pretty fun to lap. Has been plowed recently though so yeah. Avalanche on the front side is a fun black diamond with a super fun headwall if you hit it right. Don't hit the trees below it. A triple runs up that slope as well and is a reasonably quick trip. Goosebumps can be a great bump run, fairly steep to start, but may be a complete shit-show as it was smooth, then got some natural, then everyone tried to ski it over new years. I'm only guessing though as I stayed away to play in the trees that were untouched.

Springs can be a pretty playful little hill, just gotta explore. If you are flying solo, most lifts have singles lines that help. Not sure I'll be up there this weekend or not, but over new years and the day that I went over christmas, the place was empty, partly due to conditions, partly due to prices.

I don't know if it warrants a full weekend stay, you can easily ski everything in a couple of hours. You might want to consider hitting blue knob on your way home the next day or something. Kind of small, but cheap, steeper than springs, and pretty interesting for the area.

Cliffs notes: bump fags (like me) hang out on tyrol, goosebumps, stowe, and the lower part of giant steps, right under the lift.

Have fun!

chris

[johndc]

Thanks, Chris, very helpful! Already made plans to stay at 7 springs all weekend this trip, but next time will think about hitting both 7 Springs and Blue Knob in a weekend. I did ski BK once and it was a lot of fun.

[skiballs]

I'm hooked , rolled one in the BK parking lot at 4:20.

Good work dude .

[Grape_Ape]

I could not find anybody to go with me, which didn't phase me.

My M.O. too.

It was technically closed, but being openly poached the whole day, especially by me .

The only way you can properly ski blue balls. One has to be careful though...rocks, glaze ice, and stumps abound. It's the only place where I actually broke my ski in half (hit glaze ice on a closed upper extrovert and careened into the woods at an alarming clip...threw my skis in front of me to act as a cushion as I hit a medium sized birch). My brother was amazed I wasn't hurt. :-)

I've always wanted to ski off the back side of the knob to Pavia. It's like 1,500' vert.

Glad you had fun. Blue balls is a fun place when the snow is right.

[wolfelot]

^^^that would be cool to drop off the backside if the snow was there. Are things as insanely thick over there as they are in some of the off piste stuff that is in-bounds immediate side country? There were 8 feet tall 1 inch thick saplings spaced about 5 inches apart EVERYWHERE that would have been great to ski if they were wacked down or they had a 10 foot base, which ain't happening.

[ArmadaBC]

^ There are extensive logging roads all over that hill and lots of people in the area with 4 wheelers/snowmobiles, if you do some general exploration there are tons of options.

[Grape_Ape]

^ There are extensive logging roads all over that hill and lots of people in the area with 4 wheelers/snowmobiles, if you do some general exploration there are tons of options.

That's good to know...I tooled around back there years ago but couldn't find any options straight down the fall line. I'm always afraid I might get shot by a hill-rat too.