Dec
19
2006
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Tuesday, 19 December 2006 |
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Finally, the first day of snowboarding. I went with J and G, two colleagues and friends of mine - we had been planning for weeks, and we couldn't wait any longer.
We met at the Berkeley Marina and boarded my truck around 5:45 on Sunday, eager to leave and beat the traffic. In Sacramento, we tossed a coin for the resort and ignored the result; we were then on I 80, intending to go to Northstar.
We got to Northstar around 9:15. We parked (the parking there is the worst of all resorts I've been to!), walked over to the pass office, got our season passes, and were on the mountain by 10.
The snow was marginal at best. Outside of artificially enhanced runs, there was no decent cover, while there were really only very few runs available. In theory, East Ridge was a blue run that was open, but in practice it's only a flat feeder run not unlike Heavenly's Sky Run.
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Read more...
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Nov
19
2006
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Sunday, 19 November 2006 |
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Guess what: I got really frustrated when I started looking for my dream board. The Custom X was not available at all in many stores, and where I found it, it was the ugliest shade of green anyone has ever seen on a mountain. So I go to my trusted eBay, where I had already bought my new Verizon phone (California law requires handsfree operation now). Get that: I got a Custom X for under $500!
I won it last night, and it's going to show probably some time next week. We'll see... The seller has 100% positive rating, but on only 21 items, of which only 2 sold. We'll see, I trust paypal protection on this one. More comments to come once the board is here.
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Nov
19
2006
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Sunday, 19 November 2006 |
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Ok, this is going to be hugely embarrassing, since every single one of you already knew about this - but I am entirely surprised by finding out now about snocountry.com. Well, actually, considering how hard it was to find in the first place, I am not embarrassed after all...
My friend Doug pointed me to it. The good thing (right now) is that it tells you of the resorts open, how many lifts they have open, how many runs, how much acreage. That's quite important: Whistler for instance advertises it is open, but when you check how much, it says only 25% of the area. Not enough to move me out there!
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Nov
17
2006
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Friday, 17 November 2006 |
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Well, looks like our friends in Heavenly were a little too optimistic until the last second. It is this morning they fessed up that they were not going to open today, but said they are now "shooting" for next Friday. Of course, anyone in the know is aware of the overpromises coming from skiheavenly.com - the current temperature is 51F, the current snow conditions are laughable, and the likelihood of a start next weekend pretty much nil.
Sigh! And I still remember Thanksgiving 2004, when I went skiing for the first time in 23 years!
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Nov
12
2006
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Sunday, 12 November 2006 |
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Check out the Heavenly site this morning (Nov. 12). The snow cannons are on, the mountain is white, and the site hopeful they are going to open on November, 17th!
Some people (yours truly) think that may be a little of a stretch: in San Francisco, today, the weather is absolutely gorgeous, with a nice sun warming us at 8:30a, and it looks like it might be a beach day. How can we square that with a mountain run next weekend?
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