Sundown 01/18/2009

I arrived at the hill a little before 10:00 and was on top of the hill very quickly. I headed straight for the NorEaster / Temptor bumps. There were not many people on the hill yet and the NorEaster bumps were skiing very well. The bumps down to the Temptor flat were a bit funky but that’s the norm. Temptor was skiing really sweet early on. All 3 major lines, left, middle & right were skiing well and covered in fresh snow. From there I headed over the Ex bumps which grew in size with the new snow. I did this for the next hour plus and the skiing was very good. I was really working on staying forward, keeping good shin pressure, driving the tips of my skis into the bumps & working on my pole plants. I think I made some head way on the shin pressure front, my shins were killing me all day as a result. After a couple hours of solo skiing I hooked up with my buddy Nelson and one run latter we ran into Powhunter. The 3 of us skied together for the next couple of hours and had a good time considering the deteriorating condition of the bumps and other factors.



Warning! If you don’t want to read the ramblings of a grouchy old man read no further:


Around 11:30 the race going on let out for lunch and course maintenance or something. The hill was then flooded with all the ski racers (kids) and the crowds and lift lines started to get pretty bad. Groups of 10 year old racers sometimes 15 and 20 at a time made there way down the NorEaster / Temptor bumps snow plowing and scraping off every bit of snow in sight. With in 2 runs I noticed a huge difference with how the bumps were skiing. With in an hour all the lines went to total crap! Temptor was so crowded with little ski racer brats that at times you had to wait 5 to 10 minutes at the head wall for the trail to clear out. The stand out moment for me was when a group of 5 or 6 racer kids were sliding down the bumps on there stomachs top to bottom taking up the entire width of the trail. To make things worse these kids were totally unsupervised and had no idea about ski etiquette. I usually give little kids some slack, but these kid’s race / ski every weekend and should know how to behave on the trail. This all made for a very frustrating couple of hours.

I have had some bad experiences with those groups of little kid ski racers this year, too. I feel like an old lady complaining, but they really have no respect for anyone on the hill. Sorry you experienced that today, Tim. Sounds like it was great before that, though.

MR. evil said:

Groups of 10 year old racers sometimes 15 and 20 at a time made there way down the NorEaster / Temptor bumps snow plowing and scraping off every bit of snow in sight. With in 2 runs I noticed a huge difference with how the bumps were skiing. With in an hour all the lines went to total crap!

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Well, in all fairness, you went skiing on the Sunday of MLK Day Weekend; probably one of the single busiest days, especially at a SNE feeder hill. After reading your report, I was prepared for the worst. I was pleasantly surprised!

Got a call from Brian from lift teo when I was on my way over. I got skiing a bit before 7 pm. Snow was falling and it was a nice cool, but comfortable night. I found the bumps to be almost identical to the other night. There are at least 4 decent line with the two down the center being the best. Sure, they sorta fall apart after the kickers, but they've been like that since the reseed. I thought the surface was great too. Very little scratch and the wall bumps that formed here and there were soft enough that you could just point right at them and explode! Sorry Tim. It just seemed like you and me skied a different trail today. "Total crap" is not at all how I would describe it.

Met up withe Brian after about 5 runs and also took a few runs with downhill04. We were lapping high speed. Summit right to Nor;easter bumps with no stopping and then very little breaks before and after the Temptor bumps. Crossing over Ex to get at those bumps was a bit dangerous given the traffic. It was very busy for a Sunday night (again MLK day tomorrow). Temptor had a few instances of people way over their heads, but most of the time we had the run to ourselves. Lift 2 was ski-on pretty much. Lift 1 backed up (everyone loves to ride that instead). I felt my skiing was on tonight. I was nailing the bumps and was able to crank out really fast turns on the flats to/from the bumps. Extremely satisfying night. We picked up about an inch or so. Enough to keep the surface good all night.

Brian and I spoke with Chris Sullivan at the end of the night. Temptor is going to be their focus this week, The left hand kicker is in. The line leading up to it is very good. Chris is going to have Kurt head up with the cat and rework some of the areas of whaling at the bottom. He might even send him up to push up better landings for the jumps. Chris is very aware that the kickers need more pop and better landings. He went so far as to draw us a side view in the snow. He definitely has the right idea. Temptor will be buried with snowmaking Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday nights. We should be in great shape on Saturday.

Anyway, a great night for me. One that went too quickly, but I feel very satisfied.

Sundown 1/18/09 (night)

Real fun night tonight. I got there around 6:15 to a pretty full lot, though I got a good spot. I was surprised to see that they were still running the shuttle to the auxiliary parking lot. The line for the ticket window was completely across the entrance and going along the rental building. After a chat with Chris Sullivan I headed up the mountain around 6:30. I wasn't sure what to expect after hearing reports that the bumps were thrashed, I was happily surprised to see that the bumps were still in really good shape. The lines seemed pretty much the same, with only a minimal amount of extra scrapage. The light amount of snow that constantly fell all night only made things better, they probably got 1-2" while I was there. I took it slow until I met up with Greg, who was a man on a mission. All of my runs were down Temptor, save for one down Gunny when they were grooming Nor'easter. We met up with Downhill Jay for a few runs, which was cool.

I felt like I was skiing pretty well tonight, with a few decent top to bottom runs down Temptor. The only thing I'm disappointed in was that I was too chicken to hit the kicker, I just wasn't feeling the landing. I also wish they ran the lifts for another hour or so, I was just getting into a groove when we had to leave.

In speaking with Chris before and after skiing he seemed pretty confident that they will have the bumps in real good shape for the comp. They're going to do some tweaking on the kickers as well as some minimal cat work on the lower bumps combined with snowmaking.

Almost forgot to mention that the lower section of the Ex bumps is starting to fill in pretty nicely in spots.

Greg said:

After reading your report, I was prepared for the worst. I was pleasantly surprised!

There are at least 4 decent line with the two down the center being the best. Sure, they sorta fall apart after the kickers, but they've been like that since the reseed. I thought the surface was great too. Very little scratch and the wall bumps that formed here and there were soft enough that you could just point right at them and explode! Sorry Tim. It just seemed like you and me skied a different trail today. "Total crap" is not at all how I would describe it..

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To each there own I guess. Who knows maybe my judgement was scewed by other factors on the hill. I personally thought the bottom half skied better than the top. Steve didn't seem too impressed either. We were both enjoying the EX bumps more than Temptor.

I wasn't upset by the fact the mountain had crowds Greg. What really pissed me off were the hoards of unsupervised racer brats acting like asses. These kids ski all the time and should know how to behaive and have an understanding on on hill ettiquete.

Well then both you and Steve are nuts. All the lines above the kickers were money. Etiquette? :lol: Kids don't have any stinkin' etiquette. It is what it is...

I managed to get in about 6 runs last night. I went up with the girlfriend and her 2 daughters. Made a couple runs with them and then met up with Brian and Greg. My back wasn’t feeling right and cut the night short just to be safe.

While I was waiting for the girls to finish skiing I had a pretty cool thing happen. I changed out of my ski pants/boots and into my street cloths. I left my boot bag in the lodge as I was waiting to put the girls stuff in it. I walked outside, grabbed my skis and headed towards the parking lot to load them in the car. I turned around right after closing the trunk and there was a Sundown guest services employee standing right behind me. He asked me if the skis I just put in the car were mine. Somewhat dumbfounded I said yes. He then said that he was suspicious that I might have stolen the skis because I had street cloths on and didn’t have boots to go alone with the skis. I explained the situation as to why my boots were still in the lodge and he was satisfied.

The point of this story is that I was very pleased to know Sundown has employees who are on the look out for equipment theft. This makes me feel more comfortable when I leave my skis on the rack when in the lodge. I know that these employees will not catch everything but it is nice to know somebody is at least trying.

downhill04 said:

He then said that he was suspicious that I might have stolen the skis because I had street cloths on and didn’t have boots to go alone with the skis.

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He probably thought you looked like a dirtbag too...

:razz:

Greg said:

He probably thought you looked like a dirtbag too...

:razz:

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I'm sure he did, even my mother thinks that :lol:

bvibert said:

In speaking with Chris before and after skiing he seemed pretty confident that they will have the bumps in real good shape for the comp. They're going to do some tweaking on the kickers as well as some minimal cat work on the lower bumps combined with snowmaking.

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Does anyone know if the kickers will be open any nights this week?

I will be there on Thursday night and possibly Tuesday night. I would love to get some more time on those kickers before Saturday to figure out how to stay on my feet.

I didn't get any word on the kicker schedule, it sounds likely that they'll be reshaped before the comp anyway, so I'm not sure how much good getting used to them as they are now will do.

I'll push to see if we can get Thursday as the next official practice session. Hopefully we can get the kickers reshaped by then with better loft and landings.

Greg said:

I'll push to see if we can get Thursday as the next official practice session. Hopefully we can get the kickers reshaped by then with better loft and landings.

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That would be a good thing!