Recent content by kbroderick

Head blamed the contamination on a "ski-prepping tool" according to the Ski Racing article; I think the rumor was that it was a brush. The recommendations to prepare for fluoro testing listed a lot of possible contamination sources, even to the point of thoroughly cleaning out tool boxes. I'd...

A while back (somewhere between 2007 and 2014, based on where I was working at the time), a friend and I took the single up and followed the LT over with the intent of skiing that cut. Turns out that even then it had grown in substantially versus the imagery we had access to, to the point of...

On a spring day or a pow day, the Oz terrain works nicely in conjunction with the stuff off Jordan proper. It's a bit more accessible now with the Kansas regrade, which may be somewhat unfortunate in a shakes-clouds-at-fist kinda way. If the snowpack in Oz holds up for the last two weekends, it...

It was an incredible experience, but that's also the (not unexpected) worst traffic I've ever seen around here. Stop and go for 3.3 miles to make the turn from 16 onto 26 in Errol, then some false hope as it cleared up until a bit north of the Umbagog boat launch before remaining mostly sub-10...

The challenge is guessing how many people are thinking the same way you are. Once you get off the highway in the NEK (or Northern NH or Main), the road system is geared for very low traffic levels. The storm wrapping up today/tonight is also likely to make things really interesting, especially...

I wonder how much of the wind risk could be mitigated with engineering decisions. That was clearly a priority with J8, and that lift is now one of the less wind-affected lifts on the upper mountain.

It's hugely variable on the hill. When I was there, they chronically underreported because patrol took measurements right next to the base area clinic, which often got reduced due to wind. If they're reporting based on a higher-elevation and wind-favored spot now, it could easily have swung the...

50+ MPH gusts at the base yesterday. Enough wind can cause the Ts to wrap around the haul line and get caught in the next tower, but at that point, I think I'm okay with not being on the hill. Today started off with a lot of stuff on hold but by 11 am, most lifts were open.

Sunday River started the day with five lifts: three carpets, the t-bar, and the South Ridge quad. By 10:30, the quad was shut down. At some point later in the day, it got windy enough to put the t-bar on wind hold.

In general, handling is seriously compromised versus a dedicated high-performance tarmac tire (on tarmac). Even if you're not a fan of real cornering, the difference in stopping distance is well worth the price of admission if you don't leave pavement on a regular basis. The biggest downside is...

BV has a ton of fun lower-angle terrain that should be awesome for a seven-year-old. I haven't been there in years, but the recent stuff I've seen on social media (from individuals as well as the ski area) suggests that plenty of the natural-snow terrain is fully in play, including some...

I'm pretty sure there was dreaming of a pipeline to pull from the Winooski at one point, but either way seems like it would take a lot of permitting to pull off. In the years I lived up there, the summer precipitation amounts certainly weren't lacking, but that's approaching 20 years ago at this...

Return to the future, eh? The old lift 4 (Vista double) went from the uphill end of the mid-mountain flat to the top. The decision on the quad was to provide a top-to-bottom option. It made some things better (particularly on the Cobrass side) but did eliminate the ability to lap the top half.

A number of years ago now, I went up and booted up Dodge's after reading (on an email list) how good the skiing had been the day before. Unfortunately, it was just enough colder that things didn't corn up on that aspect, which was made more of an issue because it was the first time I ascended...

re: chairlift riding—If it helps, consider how often you've actually used a restraining bar to stay on a lift where you couldn't otherwise. I'm fairly sure my count is zero. Many, many lifts outside the northeast operate just fine without bars. If it there was a statistically significant...