December 27th 2008
I am not great with details, so in an overview fashion.....
The
snow was soft and fast for the most part, albeit a bit wet from light
rain during the night. Great conditions when falling on your butt! No
rain, no ice from the precipitation last night. Cloudy, however the
light was good and the sun did peak through occasionally, temps were in
the mid 30's at 9am warming to low 40's by night fall.
Crowds were light with little lift line wait, if any.
All
trails were open with deep coverage with some exceptions of some
ungroomed small trails. (2 groomers decided to take a short holiday
break last night.)
Tannebaum is set up as a truly beginner park
with all the features low to the snow. This is a new and much need
improvement for Boulder. Great for taking your inexperienced friends to
learn park.
Freedom with all the Boulder classic jibs flows nicely and the skier group I was with lapped it continuously.
Widow
(Love Park) was set up as an intermediate park with longer rails and
boxes, 3 jumps at about 15-20 feet that are lofty so you don't need to
barrrel your way into them. They are easy to overshoot, so all you
experts take it easy! These jumps are great confidence boosters in that
they shoot you higher and give you good hang time with out having to go
mach 10.
Big Boulder Park opened with 2 jumps tonight at 5 pm.
John did a great job with building hybrid step over style jumps. These
jumps the first at ~30' and the second at ~50 lip to knuckle have the
knuckles of the jump higher than the lip. These are great jumps in that
just after the apex of the flight you pass over the knuckle.
Essentially if you end up short, you aren't dropping out of the sky
from 20' and wrecking yourself. They are forgiving and great for
learning those bigger tricks.
I should add the group of
snowboarders, Billy, Louie, Scott and a couple of others were raving
over the first jump (30') as being super sweet. You can over shoot the
first jump, as also in Love Park. so train someone already experienced
and please people use spotters! It is the holiday season and there are
people who are learning their turns and oblivious to park etiquette in
spite of all the signage.
The second jump at the bottom (they
haven't built the middle jump and frankly, I don't think they should)
is intimidating by the look of it. rest be assured I watched whisper
quiet landings tonight like I have never ever seen on the east coast.
The group of skiers that I was with about 12 or so were steadily
progressing up to 9's and 10's and would have kept going had the fog
not rolled in. KT threw a massive steezed out 10 to a deep landing, a
snow snake bit him and twisted his knee up pretty good. We all hope its
nothing serious.
Okay I wrote a book, but after reading some rather sour reports of recent, I thought that an eyewitness report was in order.
The
long and short is that Big Boulder is now everything everyone has come
to expect and more. The weather looks really favorable through the week
next week. If you have friends that would like to try out some quality
park features set up in a progressive fashion by trails with increasing
skill levels, then I would encourage you to visit to experience the
best the Mid Atlantic has to offer. Should be a lot of kids really
throwing down this week so you can watch that too!
Lastly.
On a personal note. Those stepover jumps on Boulder Trail are the
"shit"! Thank you! I have been asking for that style for a solid year
now. There are some very stoked kids anxious to come back as a result
of that build. Props!
I am not great with details, so in an overview fashion.....
The
snow was soft and fast for the most part, albeit a bit wet from light
rain during the night. Great conditions when falling on your butt! No
rain, no ice from the precipitation last night. Cloudy, however the
light was good and the sun did peak through occasionally, temps were in
the mid 30's at 9am warming to low 40's by night fall.
Crowds were light with little lift line wait, if any.
All
trails were open with deep coverage with some exceptions of some
ungroomed small trails. (2 groomers decided to take a short holiday
break last night.)
Tannebaum is set up as a truly beginner park
with all the features low to the snow. This is a new and much need
improvement for Boulder. Great for taking your inexperienced friends to
learn park.
Freedom with all the Boulder classic jibs flows nicely and the skier group I was with lapped it continuously.
Widow
(Love Park) was set up as an intermediate park with longer rails and
boxes, 3 jumps at about 15-20 feet that are lofty so you don't need to
barrrel your way into them. They are easy to overshoot, so all you
experts take it easy! These jumps are great confidence boosters in that
they shoot you higher and give you good hang time with out having to go
mach 10.
Big Boulder Park opened with 2 jumps tonight at 5 pm.
John did a great job with building hybrid step over style jumps. These
jumps the first at ~30' and the second at ~50 lip to knuckle have the
knuckles of the jump higher than the lip. These are great jumps in that
just after the apex of the flight you pass over the knuckle.
Essentially if you end up short, you aren't dropping out of the sky
from 20' and wrecking yourself. They are forgiving and great for
learning those bigger tricks.
I should add the group of
snowboarders, Billy, Louie, Scott and a couple of others were raving
over the first jump (30') as being super sweet. You can over shoot the
first jump, as also in Love Park. so train someone already experienced
and please people use spotters! It is the holiday season and there are
people who are learning their turns and oblivious to park etiquette in
spite of all the signage.
The second jump at the bottom (they
haven't built the middle jump and frankly, I don't think they should)
is intimidating by the look of it. rest be assured I watched whisper
quiet landings tonight like I have never ever seen on the east coast.
The group of skiers that I was with about 12 or so were steadily
progressing up to 9's and 10's and would have kept going had the fog
not rolled in. KT threw a massive steezed out 10 to a deep landing, a
snow snake bit him and twisted his knee up pretty good. We all hope its
nothing serious.
Okay I wrote a book, but after reading some rather sour reports of recent, I thought that an eyewitness report was in order.
The
long and short is that Big Boulder is now everything everyone has come
to expect and more. The weather looks really favorable through the week
next week. If you have friends that would like to try out some quality
park features set up in a progressive fashion by trails with increasing
skill levels, then I would encourage you to visit to experience the
best the Mid Atlantic has to offer. Should be a lot of kids really
throwing down this week so you can watch that too!
Lastly.
On a personal note. Those stepover jumps on Boulder Trail are the
"shit"! Thank you! I have been asking for that style for a solid year
now. There are some very stoked kids anxious to come back as a result
of that build. Props!
white/purple jiberish hoodie/grey pants or black tall coat with blue pants!! 4frnt stls