gravitylover

Sleet and graupel can be so good especially if it doesn't get wet/foggy/misty at the end. Smooth and bouncy FTW.

^^ I just don't bother. Whatever grows is good and the less time and effort I have to put into maintenance is time well spent. I'm also near the top of a hill in a watershed with a creek 100 feet below me so I'm supposed to have whatever fert. I would use cleared with the "authorities" and my preference is to keep them away.

I saw 48 on the dashboard this afternoon. It was actually more like 10 because it was 45/46 here.

Temp is down 12* in the last hour or so and we've had long rolling thunderclaps with CG lightning. Cool!

This storm was pretty poorly timed. The dryout had been going so nicely and there wasn't really going to be much of a mud season despite the deep and long lasting snowpack. Ah well, hope it's a windy spring.

I kinda want it over but... The woods are drying out nicely and where there is still "snow" it's the most wonderfully supportive crust ever. If the r**n doesn't do it in that cold might just lock it back up. I hope that's the way it works out.

I could go for a bit o' snow, just not too much and it should hold off until after about noon so I can get a good bike ride in that morning. I dunno, not feeling it really and could do without it so if it doesn't happen I won't be too bummed. I ended up around 75", had snowpack for two months straight and still have banks running down the shaded side of the driveway. Great pic, really shows what's up at the higher elevations. Around here you need to get to about 850 feet for it to look like that. As long as it's shaded or north (ish) facing there is still anywhere from a coating to 8" in the woods, even open fields are still fully covered if the aspect is right. Unfortunately the crust has gone away so moving around in the forest is a chore but it looks like the next two mornings Crusty the Clown may just make a return visit for a few hours each day. That I'll take long before more snow

Woooohooooo ooooo What a super sillious fun ride we had this morning The woods are such a great place to be in the winter and in the woods around here it is still winter. There was a minimum of 6" and up to a foot in spots with very few bare spots, especially above 700 feet, but there are some torched out zones. We rode in Merrit Park in Patterson (NY) and the trail is pretty icy in spots but nothing too terrible and everything else was a super supportive crust with an extremely high traction surface. It was actually more pleasant to ride off the "trail" because it was smooth and higher traction so we played with all sorts of terrain features and rolled through places you would never go into on foot which was really cool. We rode about 5 miles with probably 1200 feet of climbing in 2.5 hours so slow going but oh so super fun. Now I'm going to have some ice cream

Getting sketchy. 32-33*, the wind is up and its still raining but there are flakes mixing in. Snowpack looks to be about 50% but tough to tell in the dark.

Yeah this is a pretty durable pack, I still have 2-8" depending on aspect. I don't know about keeping full cover for another day though. There are enough small holes now that the rain tomorrow will most likely leave it at or under half before it freezes back up.

^^ Haha :-)

Catamount is 2 for 1 tomorrow. Makes it $15 each.

If that two hours is a requirement you might consider West Mt http://www.westmtn.net/ They sure do. I think that during the week you would be hard pressed to find a more family friendly place.

Bring a couple of cans of food and have a wonderfully affordable day at Middlebury Snow Bowl.

There were some ponds on the Oceanside/Baldwin line that we used to skate and ride our bikes on when were kids too. I expect that by tomorrow I'll see some ice use happening in my 'hood. The local ponds are looking ready and the one closest to my house only gets about 5 feet deep so it really should be good.

It's 9 in Soho so why can't it be 9 in the park?

Have Erie and Ontario frozen over yet? Is this cold coming in with wind? Hmmmm, might be pretty good ski conditions in the favored areas. Road trip?

That's where I taught my twin daughters to ski also. I bet I have a whole bunch of stuff that you need, skis/boots, etc that no longer fit. I never bought girly stuff for them so color won't be an issue. PM me about it some time. The one thing the place does have going for it is what a good learning area it is so you should be good to go. Their snowmaking? Well umm, it's there. In conjunction with the high quality grooming the surface is at least white (most of the time when it's not grey.)

??? I've been associated with the place one way or another for a few decades and I've never heard that before. The Bump or Thunder Bump are the "regular" nicknames. Will they have anything left? Hmmm, maybe kinda sorta but may not be worth paying for although according to my kids what's on the ground there now is glacial so it might hold up but I wouldn't hold my breath. Look at this before you leave the house - http://thunderridgeski.com/mountain-cam.html I hope that MLK storm that's being spoken about turns out to be worthwhile, I'm ready to get out and make some turns. I totally agree with the mid to late January historical start to the season. I always considered it a bonus if there was reasonable snow before New Years and if I didn't really get the bug until about now that was typical. At least now there are fatbikes so I can get my fall/early winter yayas out

^^ King Pine kicks *ss. I skied there a bunch in the late 70's and early 80's and they always had the best conditions around. Nearly unlimited water meant that they would be wide open when everybody else was trying to get it together.

Anybody been to Bousquet? What's the place like?

I've considered myself a Magic groupie for a while now but you really need to get lucky there. The better the day is the more quickly it gets tracked. Granted the trees are fantastic but the best/longest lines are shot by 11am. At B-East I can find long untracked stretches right up until my legs give out and since it doesn't have the reputation for being a great powder hill the liftlines are non-existant.

Those are weeknights so I would just play it by ear and go where the snow is, rooms will be easy to find. Western NY and PA may have smaller hills but if the snow is good who cares how big the place is and it will leave you doing fewer miles overall without the big push to get where you're going at the tail end.

Today was a mixed up mess. Some graupel overnight then snow grains a few times through the day and then around 2:15 it started snowing and changed to sleet by 2:45 and plain rain by 4 with the temp hovering just a touch below freezing. Fortunately it hasn't iced up but driving feels sketchy and now that it's dark I would expect it to.

Couldn't agree more! This month has been great. Unfortunately I've been working so much I haven't really had a chance to appreciate it and when I have a day off it rains or I have just been too lethargic to do anything fun. Hopefully it stays relatively dry for the next six weeks though as my schedule seems like it might normalize.