jaywbigred
Active member
Welp, they closed my office, so after sleeping in and having a nice breakfast sandwich from the local deli, I decided to hit up Blue for the afternoon.
In my head I thought "Oh, midweek, middle of the day in the Poconos? I'll have the mountain to myself!" Holy F, was i wrong. I was shocked by the number of cars in the parking lot, and though the lift lines weren't bad, they weren't good either, and skier traffic was pretty high on the trails. Given the pictures I've seen of Blue lift lines at REALLY busy times, I can't imagine what skier density on the trails must be like during peak. I think it was a lot of kids and college people, maybe bc classes were canceled? Dunno.
In any event, based on my experience last year, and after a warm-up run down to the six pack, I headed straight for Challenger. I could tell from the lift they had a line of seeded bumps in the same area as last year, but without kickers. I was very disappointed by them, I have to say. They seemed to be very newly/machine formed, not skied-in, and despite 4-6 inches of fresh, they were icy and full of death cookies. I took 2 runs there, then a break run on Razor's Edge, and then another run on Challenger, and as I approached an hour, I began to think that between the poor bumps on Challenger, my legs, and the crowds, I was going to be departing much earlier than expected.
But before I did, I made myself go check out the other bump field I remembered from last year, Barney's Bumps.
A side note, I have to add, is that I think Blue's trail map, in this regard, is a little disingenuous in that the trail demarked "Barney's Bumps" is really just skier's right of a second marked trail, called "Main Street", which, itself, and, imo, completely unnecessarily, is broken into "Upper" and "Lower" designations.
Now that that rant is over, let me continue to say that I was ecstatic at what I found on Barney's bumps. Three distinct sections of nicely seeded bumps which were much better formed, skied in, and softer, with at least 3-4 lines to choose from. The top section was short and forgettable, the bottom section was decent, but the middle section, the longest section, was pure bliss for me, and I used the great line, moderate pitch and good snow to work on a bunch of things and generally work towards getting my legs in shape. After a couple runs going all the way back to the 6 pack, I began to realize that there were a bunch of us lapping this trail, and that others were not using the same lift that I was. They were using the Main St. and Burma doubles, and doing so in about the same time as I was using the 6 pack, but without having to endure as long a run out and thus with a longer lift ride to rest their legs. With the zoo that was increasingly forming at the base, I decided to do the same.
I think I lapped Barney's Bumps at least 10 times before my legs really started to go and I felt unsafe, so after 3+ hours of mostly bump skiing, I decided I got my money's worth and headed home, with a significant detour added to go by Taco Bell (not sure of the drive time home, but drive time on the way TO the mountain was 1:18, 3 minutes faster than last year).
One comment I will add is re: the mountain's operation of the lifts. Blue is now using the RFID scanner-type lift tickets. They worked great when I took the base quad to ski Razor's Edge, but one gripe I had was w the line organization at the 6 pack. They have traditional lift lines set up, and then, I assume bc it was crowded, they had an employee at the front of the line whose job it was to put together full 6s of chairs. He was doing a good job, but the process broke down as a result of the gates you have to go through for RFID scan. Basically, he would put together the group of people to ride the chair together before the scanner entrance. But on the other side of the scanner, in the space immediately before getting on the chair, chaos reigned. The result was a LOT of chairs with 3 or 4 people on them. It made the whole process moot, and made me wonder if the RFIDs were doing their job/worth it. Additionally, once I started to forgo the 6 pack, in part thanks to this mess, I was using the aforementioned Burma and Main St. doubles. These are 2 double chairs right next to each other. It reminded me a little bit of Okemo. The Main St. double had a longer line, so after waiting in it twice, I decided to try the Burma line as it was much shorter. I guess I was too busy chatting on my rides up on the Main St. chair to notice, but I soon found out why the Burma chair had a shorter line: it was run at a slower speed than the Main St.! This didn't make sense to me, they looked to be pretty much identical chairs (though the Burma chairs were painted blue while the Main St. chairs were more stainless looking) and I would guess their age to be the same, so I am wondering if any of the Blue cognoscenti can chime in as to why these chairs would be run at different speeds? In any event, I went back to using the Main St. line, only to get to the front and find that it was running, but had been roped off. I.e. it was running empty. Again, not sure why, but now, after waiting in the longer Main St. line, I was forced to alternate with the people in the Burma line to get onto the Burma lift. It seemed a little weird. Meanwhile, people were having trouble with the RFIDs because they would be standing for too long in the scanning/turnstile area, and the machine would close on them and they wouldn't be able to get through without help from the lifty in charge of that, who was holding a tablet pc type device and would have to punch around to reopen the gate. The problem was the line on the chair-side of the gate not moving fast enough so that people who initially got into the gate, and whose pass opened the gate, could not clear the gate in the set time span bc they had nowhere to go. The lifty was verbally educating people that they should wait to pull into the gate until there was space on the other side, but a lot of people were making this mistake and it was certainly frustrating the liftty, other riders, and perhaps the speed of the line. Eventually, the dropped the rope and allowed people to start riding the Main St. chair again, which never stopped running throughout.
In any event, lift adventures notwithstanding, the bumps on Barney's alone made the trip worthwhile, and i have no doubt I will be back to ski them again, to see the progress on Challenger, and to hopefully enjoy the mountain in a less crowded atmosphere.
In my head I thought "Oh, midweek, middle of the day in the Poconos? I'll have the mountain to myself!" Holy F, was i wrong. I was shocked by the number of cars in the parking lot, and though the lift lines weren't bad, they weren't good either, and skier traffic was pretty high on the trails. Given the pictures I've seen of Blue lift lines at REALLY busy times, I can't imagine what skier density on the trails must be like during peak. I think it was a lot of kids and college people, maybe bc classes were canceled? Dunno.
In any event, based on my experience last year, and after a warm-up run down to the six pack, I headed straight for Challenger. I could tell from the lift they had a line of seeded bumps in the same area as last year, but without kickers. I was very disappointed by them, I have to say. They seemed to be very newly/machine formed, not skied-in, and despite 4-6 inches of fresh, they were icy and full of death cookies. I took 2 runs there, then a break run on Razor's Edge, and then another run on Challenger, and as I approached an hour, I began to think that between the poor bumps on Challenger, my legs, and the crowds, I was going to be departing much earlier than expected.
But before I did, I made myself go check out the other bump field I remembered from last year, Barney's Bumps.
A side note, I have to add, is that I think Blue's trail map, in this regard, is a little disingenuous in that the trail demarked "Barney's Bumps" is really just skier's right of a second marked trail, called "Main Street", which, itself, and, imo, completely unnecessarily, is broken into "Upper" and "Lower" designations.
Now that that rant is over, let me continue to say that I was ecstatic at what I found on Barney's bumps. Three distinct sections of nicely seeded bumps which were much better formed, skied in, and softer, with at least 3-4 lines to choose from. The top section was short and forgettable, the bottom section was decent, but the middle section, the longest section, was pure bliss for me, and I used the great line, moderate pitch and good snow to work on a bunch of things and generally work towards getting my legs in shape. After a couple runs going all the way back to the 6 pack, I began to realize that there were a bunch of us lapping this trail, and that others were not using the same lift that I was. They were using the Main St. and Burma doubles, and doing so in about the same time as I was using the 6 pack, but without having to endure as long a run out and thus with a longer lift ride to rest their legs. With the zoo that was increasingly forming at the base, I decided to do the same.
I think I lapped Barney's Bumps at least 10 times before my legs really started to go and I felt unsafe, so after 3+ hours of mostly bump skiing, I decided I got my money's worth and headed home, with a significant detour added to go by Taco Bell (not sure of the drive time home, but drive time on the way TO the mountain was 1:18, 3 minutes faster than last year).
One comment I will add is re: the mountain's operation of the lifts. Blue is now using the RFID scanner-type lift tickets. They worked great when I took the base quad to ski Razor's Edge, but one gripe I had was w the line organization at the 6 pack. They have traditional lift lines set up, and then, I assume bc it was crowded, they had an employee at the front of the line whose job it was to put together full 6s of chairs. He was doing a good job, but the process broke down as a result of the gates you have to go through for RFID scan. Basically, he would put together the group of people to ride the chair together before the scanner entrance. But on the other side of the scanner, in the space immediately before getting on the chair, chaos reigned. The result was a LOT of chairs with 3 or 4 people on them. It made the whole process moot, and made me wonder if the RFIDs were doing their job/worth it. Additionally, once I started to forgo the 6 pack, in part thanks to this mess, I was using the aforementioned Burma and Main St. doubles. These are 2 double chairs right next to each other. It reminded me a little bit of Okemo. The Main St. double had a longer line, so after waiting in it twice, I decided to try the Burma line as it was much shorter. I guess I was too busy chatting on my rides up on the Main St. chair to notice, but I soon found out why the Burma chair had a shorter line: it was run at a slower speed than the Main St.! This didn't make sense to me, they looked to be pretty much identical chairs (though the Burma chairs were painted blue while the Main St. chairs were more stainless looking) and I would guess their age to be the same, so I am wondering if any of the Blue cognoscenti can chime in as to why these chairs would be run at different speeds? In any event, I went back to using the Main St. line, only to get to the front and find that it was running, but had been roped off. I.e. it was running empty. Again, not sure why, but now, after waiting in the longer Main St. line, I was forced to alternate with the people in the Burma line to get onto the Burma lift. It seemed a little weird. Meanwhile, people were having trouble with the RFIDs because they would be standing for too long in the scanning/turnstile area, and the machine would close on them and they wouldn't be able to get through without help from the lifty in charge of that, who was holding a tablet pc type device and would have to punch around to reopen the gate. The problem was the line on the chair-side of the gate not moving fast enough so that people who initially got into the gate, and whose pass opened the gate, could not clear the gate in the set time span bc they had nowhere to go. The lifty was verbally educating people that they should wait to pull into the gate until there was space on the other side, but a lot of people were making this mistake and it was certainly frustrating the liftty, other riders, and perhaps the speed of the line. Eventually, the dropped the rope and allowed people to start riding the Main St. chair again, which never stopped running throughout.
In any event, lift adventures notwithstanding, the bumps on Barney's alone made the trip worthwhile, and i have no doubt I will be back to ski them again, to see the progress on Challenger, and to hopefully enjoy the mountain in a less crowded atmosphere.
