Snow Even Here Now

We've had a pretty good cold spell that has included ice and snow, even here at our house. All the local ski areas opened the weekend after Thanksgiving this year, then closed for the week, opened last weekend and are going strong now. We've had enough cold that they could make a lot of snow, then we had a couple of good storms come through bring more of the natural stuff.

Practice has already started, at least on the weekends. Weeknight practices start next week so we'll be making the long drive starting then. We're planning on spending a lot of time at the ski slopes over Christmas break. There's plenty of snow now and I'm sure there's more to come since it doesn't look like we'll be getting out of this really cold snap anytime soon.

Parents Meeting/Start of the Season

Last night was the parents meeting for the ski and snowboard teams. Most of it was all stuff we'd heard before - practice schedule, volunteer commitments, etc. There were a few new things. It looks like they're reworking the snowboard team a bit and it sounds like it will be for the better. At this point, we are staying with this team for the long haul so hopefully Whitney can get out of it what she needs. Probably the best news we heard was that since we're looking at a string of really cold days coming up, they hope to open the resort on Nov. 30 for skiing! We'll see if they can actually do that, but if so they will most likely be open weekends only until mid-December. That means no weeknight practices for a while yet, but we'll definitely be gearing up soon.

Since we're getting close to the start of the season, it's time to get a few things done. Last night we were able to take care of getting the girls their season passes so now as soon as the snow starts falling, they'll be able to hit the slopes whether Whitney has practice or not. Whitney was also able to pick up her new jacket before the meeting. Now I need to get her snowboard in for a waxing and sharpening. The last one she got last season was not very good; I'll be talking to the shop about that. She also needs new board pants and a new helmet.

It was rather exciting to see some snow on the top of the mountain last night when we went down. Hopefully more will start falling soon, whether it's from the snow guns lining the slopes or from the skies above.

Snow is Starting to Fall, Just Not Around Here

Yes, it's true, snow is starting to fall in the western states and New England, but it's 75* here today. No snow! I saw on my Snow and Ski app that several resorts in Colorado have gotten snow, the pass near Loveland is closed due to snow, and Copper Mountain is doing a limited opening today. Several resorts in New England, mainly Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine have started to open. I'm sure they've only got a few runs ready to roll as well. For all of them, it's going to be full on pretty soon.

As for us, it'll probably be at least a month and a half before there's any hope of hitting the slopes around here, maybe even a bit longer. At least we know it's getting closer. We got the letter last week about the snowboard team; the parents meeting is coming up in a couple of weeks, the grill schedule is out and Bob has signed up for his days, Whitney has been looking at new board pants (hers are getting rather thin in the knees).

Looking forward to colder days!

Mid-September

So we're now into mid-late-September and it's actually starting to look a bit like winter. Not around here, of course. Copper Mountain posted some pictures yesterday of the snow they had gotten. It definitely looked like more than a dusting. They also had some comment about the second day of fall being the first day of winter. There were several mountain ranges in the west that got snow over the last few days.

A week or so ago, I saw on facebook that one of the mountains in New Hampshire was firing up their snow guns. Nothing to get excited about yet, they were having a night with cold enough temperatures to fire up the guns for a test run. I haven't seen anything about natural snow falling up north yet.

It will be quite a while before we start seeing any of the white stuff on the East Coast, at least our part of the coast. Hopefully it'll be a cold winter with lots of snow!

It's Only September

We're still months away from any snowboarding, but it's getting closer. USASA is starting to post information about this winter. Hopefully the Appalachian Series will have schedules up soon. I'd really like to know how many boarder cross competitions there will be and where they're going to be held. It would be especially useful if there's only going to be one or two and we have to go out of series for her to get in a couple more.

Whitney also has a list of things she needs to look into before the season starts. She's going to find out the requirements for becoming a snowboard instructor. It would improve her skills plus give her a good job skill. Not that we live close enough to a mountain right now for that to be a possibility but when she goes off to college, it would be good. I would guess she probably has to be 18 though. The other thing she's going to look into is the USSSA (not sure if that's too many "S"s or not) since they are the feeder organization to the Olympics, as I understand it.

For sure on our schedule is the parent meeting at Massanutten in November, practices there all winter, and hopefully another trip to Nationals at Copper Mountain in April.

Dreaming of Winter

We took a vacation to the Southwest and there was still snow on the mountain tops. We saw it in several places in the distance - Arizona, Colorado, and Utah. It made my snowboarder dream of winter and wish she was at the top of the mountains.

 All the ski resorts in the area were closed, so she had no chance of snowboarding, but she enjoyed dreaming.

Then we saw this sign at Bryce:

which just made her laugh. No way would she even think of snowboarding there!

She'll just have to keep dreaming of winter for a few more months.

Some random thoughts

Just some end of season ramblings, things that struck me as funny, odd, or interesting.

First up is the old guys at Mt. Sunapee. I just found it really funny when Whitney and I went up there for our second trip in March. We got there just after opening on Monday morning and there weren't too many younger kids because school was in session. There were, however, lots of old guys (and women, too). These were men in their upper 60s, 70s, and probably 80+ years old. I kept seeing them coming in and out of the lodge, getting a cup of coffee, chatting with their friends, heading back out. Then about noon or a bit after, they all started clearing out. Guess they had gotten in their exercise for the day and were heading off to do other things.

Next is helmets. We have always told the girls they had to wear helmets to bike; no helmet, no biking. Same deal with skiing/snowboarding. Down here at Massanutten, not many seem to wear helmets. You would think with all the signs about it, with Sony Bono and Natasha Richardson both dying from head injuries sustained while skiing, that more people would wear helmets. Maybe they think it's a small mountain so they couldn't get injured that badly or since it's right near the campus of JMU, it's the invincibility of youth (in this case, college students). It's a requirement of the ski/snowboard team to wear helmets during practice. One of Whitney's coaches wears one all the time; he's had a couple of concussions in the past so wants to stay safe. The other coach wears one during team practice but I've seen him without one other times. I'm really surprised that Massanutten doesn't require their instructors to wear helmets. I think I would. I was just reading up about Natasha Richardson (to make sure I had the right person) and she was taking a beginner lesson when she fell and hit her head. It doesn't take racing down the mountain and falling or crashing into a tree (as Sony Bono did) to have a serious head injury.

Big difference when we were in both NH and Colorado. Helmets are much more prevalent both those places. The funniest thing was the suntans that people had in Colorado. Their helmet and goggles covered a good part of their face and many had some sort of mask that covered their nose/chin area but there was still a nice tan on their cheeks. You could really tell that some of these people spent a lot of time on the slopes.

And last is night skiing. Almost all of the ski areas around here have night skiing but very few in New England have it and Copper doesn't. I have no idea why it's different. Is it because we have a shorter season and they have to make the money where they can, i.e., night skiing? The slopes are usually open until 9:00 pm. It's definitely different skiing at night; the lights make shadows and they don't light up the whole width of the slope usually. That's about the only thing I can come up with as to why there's night skiing here and not in other places. I guess if they're going to put all that money into snowmaking they might as well get good use out of it.

That's it for this season. It was a great one, we really enjoyed the trip to Colorado and Nationals. See you all next winter!