great season, last blog

She said it best: Epic season!

http://www.boston.com/travel/explorene/specials/ski/blog/2011/04/putting_the_wra.html

Sugarbush has free tickets on Sunday! and Killington's last day is reportedly May 1 as well. Enjoy your last runs!

 

The best day of the year at Pico

 
There was at least a foot of fresh powder at Pico Mountain in Killington today.

As I sang, "pow pow pow pow pow pow pow," on the way up the summit lift (which opened a little late at noon ticking some visitors off and sending them up the road to Killington Resort) a man in his late 50s looked up and said, "Oh yeah!"

It was the highlight of my day and the BEST RIDING DAY OF THE YEAR SO FAR up at Pico on A Slope, A Slope cutoff, in the Summit Glades and down Forty Niner.

I got on the mountain at about 1030 and minutes into the first chair ride, the sun shone warm on my legs and bright in my eyes.

I call it spiritual, my buddy Michael Smith, who was at Killington, told me it was "warming for the soul."

 

 

Live from Jersey: A tip to a unique poll

 
To ski or board or both ... that is the question.

My former right-hand crack photographer, former councilman and New Hampshire property owner Denis Niland tipped me off to a unique poll posted online last week.

There are three ski-only resorts in the country- one of them Vermont's Mad River Glen.

Why do they do it? What's the rationale?

This article and poll by California's Adventure Journal explores that question. Is it better to ski with no boarders or board with no skiiers?

I myself nearly took out a female skiier this week as I carved, she stopped, and we both stared. We linked fingers like we were doing patty cake and pushed off eachother to avoid a collision. I could see, clear as day, how the rules of the road ( or in this case the trail) were skewed depending on the medium we were on. It was like encountering a tractor driving down a main road in Rutland and trying to figure out which way it was going to turn without a turn signal to be found ( I did see that in the city last year, BTW).

Comment what you think below. Should there be segregrated mountains or should everyone just get along?   

It's snowing feet in Killington! Get out and play!

 

Here's the map that got Pine Hill Park founder Michael Smith aka Tarzan so excited Monday!

As it turns out, Rutland got at least 4.6 inches by this morning, according to a co-op observer this morning with the National Weather Service in South Burlington.

Meteorologist Brooke Taber says snow totals in Rutland county are between 4 and 7 inches and another heavy band of snow is set to begin in Rutland in about 30 minutes.

Totals overall for Rutland and the surrounding neighborhoods is 8 to 12 inches when the storm clears the area.

"Killington ski area will do very well," Taber said just minutes ago. "They have 7 inches already and their total will be right around 12 to 15 inches."  

I hit up some ungroomed fresh powdered trails and glades at Jackson Gore Peak Tuesday. Tomorrow, I'm thinking Pico for local day. Here's what the website says: "Vermonter / New Hampshire Days* It’s good to be from Vermont and New Hampshire! Tickets are only $29 for a full-day adult lift ticket when a Vermont or New Hampshire State ID/License or a Vermont / New Hampshire Voter's Registration is presented at the ticket window every non-peak Monday, Thursday and Friday of the season.*"

 Here's Reporter and Web Editor Patty Minichiello's latest update on the storm:

Latest winter weather update from the Herald

Vermont-trained White and Clark take gold in WXG

 
He won gold and made a 'Dumb and Dumber' reference in Aspen.

"I totally redeemed myself ... you gotta say something like that in Aspen," the flying tomato told a reporter after flying high off a 22-foot halfpipe on Colorado's Buttermilk Mountain that marked his fourth consecutive win in Winter X Games extreme snow sport competition.

How sweet it was ... referencing Harry's infamous quote from what's rated the funniest movie ever - "Just when I think you couldn't possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this…and totally redeem yourself!"

What was sweeter was Shaun White's comeback, after failing to qualify earlier in the three-day X Games competition on slopestyle - beat out by an 18-year-old Canadian and Scotty Lago, riding with his jaw wired shut.

There was doubt about White - would doing commercials about fast cars and rising in fame faster than he rides the pipe be his downfall?

On Sunday, White's gold medal win on the pipe silenced the critics ... including me.

The Okemo- trained phenom conquered the "house that he built" - the superpipe event.

The gold medalist cast his body and board 19-feet plus into the air - nearly doubling the 22-foot height of the pipe itself.  

He did tricks that no other competitor did better- a double McTwist 1260 he did in the Olympics, two double cork 1080s (3 full turns), a frontside stale fish 540 and a backside alley oop, according to related media reports.

White tied his own X Games record score of 97.33.  

"Scotty (Lago, the second place finisher) had a great score and I knew I would have to pull out all of the stops and show what I have been working on in practice," said White of his second run.  "It was one of the best runs that I have ever done."

It was White's first competitive halfpipe run since the 2010 Winter Olympics.

 

In other X Games news, Clark finished first in the women's halfpipe, clinching gold and doing the first-ever 1080 (three full twists) in the women's sport. In an interview, the West Dover, Vt., native said she hopes the trick will advance the sport for girls.

And, here's a story I did today in the Rutland Herald on Rutland snowboarder, telemark skiier turned X Games snocross adaptive finisher EJ Poplawski.  

EJ Poplawski comes clean 

White gives up

For the first time ever, Shaun White did not qualify for the slopestyle competition in the Winter XGames. He gave up, according to announcers. With a score of 39 in his last run, White sets the stage for up and coming snowboarders to take the top places in the extreme winter sport competition.

Men's halfpipe is yet to come.  Check your local listings for times of broadcast.

Here's the link to one Denver reporter's media guide to the XGames

http://www.examiner.com/snowboarding-in-denver/digital-and-social-media-guide-to-the-winter-x-games-15

Vermont's Kelly Clark did the first ever 1080 (3 full turns) on the superpipe

 

 

Sportscaster: "Changing of the guard happening in front of our eyes"

The highest score in snowboard slopestyle has been achieved by 18-year-old Seb Toutant of Canada, who is in first place after his last run at the Winter XGames 15 in Aspen.

Sportscasters have called it a "change of the guard" as Okemo-trained Shaun White has dropped to 11th place - a surprising position for the veteran boarder who has never not made the finals after 9 appearences.  Only the top 8 riders make it to the finals.

In 2009, White earned the previous top score of 96, according to an analysis by ESPN 2.

Okemo-trained Shaun White trails leaders after first run of XGames

EsPN 2 is on in the newsroom and Shaun White ranks a surprising seventh in the Winter Xgames snowboard slopestyle, trailing Norway's Torstein Horgmo (first) and Canada's Seb Toutant (second). Stay tuned ...  

"Rebel without a clue"

 
"Into the great wide open, under them skies of blue, out in the great wide open, a rebel without a clue."

Tom Petty sang in my ears as I struggled down an ice-covered snow trail called Rolling Thunder on Okemo's Jackson Gore Peak today.

I felt like a rebel without a clue for sure. Who knew ice would be so intimidating? Just when I thought I had powder riding down pat, rain had to fall onto the trails Tuesday night. A thin sheet of crackly ice covered the ungroomed/roped off trails at Okemo, for some reason, throwing me all off. I struggled to keep my board tip up and had a little less fun because of it.

I did Kid Cudi down Quantum Leap, a diamond trail groomed to perfection with about sidewalk-sized strips of powder on either side.

Temperatures were warm but with the wind chill factor up the Gore lifts, it felt like a brisk 10 degrees.The resort's web site says 17. All morning it was cloudy and snowy but the trails were largely absent any people so an overall good day of riding solo.

Overnight Tuesday, Okemo got 7 to 9 inches of fresh snow that was mostly packed by groomers by late morning Wednesday. They call it "hero-snow" cause when wet snow falls it makes trails slick and rides fast.

The scenery? Well, it was gorgeous, with every tree branch dusted with what looked like powdered sugar.

Tomorrow I ride again and hopefully, some of the snow whipping in my face today will accumulate.

On the ride back to Rutland, I stopped to take some pictures of ice formations that form along Rt. 103 before the Gore exit each year. They were blue and I wondered how the thick ice got that way.

According to numerous scientific accounts I found online, ice seems to look blue because of light. Ice looks blue because that's the product of a relatively long travel path of light through the snow or ice.

Long, red wavelengths of white light are absorbed by ice and the blue (short wavelengths) are transmitted and scattered in it. The longer light travels in ice, the more blue it appears. 

Red is at the beginning of the white light spectrum and blue, at the end.

"In simplest of terms, think of the ice or snow layer as a filter. If it is only a centimeter thick, all the light makes it through; if it is a meter thick, mostly blue light makes it through. This is similar to the way coffee often appears light when poured, but much darker when it is in a cup," according to this link.

Here's another good explanation I found from Carleton College in Minnesota: (read slowly,it could get confusing)

"Snow is white because full spectrum, or white, light is scattered and reflected at the boundary between ice and air. The white color of bubbles at the top of a dark beer work the same way—small pockets of air reflect and scatter visible light. Ice only appears blue when it is sufficiently consolidated that bubbles do not interfere with the passage of light. Without the scattering effect of air bubbles, light can penetrate ice undisturbed. In ice, the absorption of light at the red end of the spectrum is six times greater than at the blue end. Thus the deeper light energy travels, the more photons from the red end of the spectrum it loses along the way. Two meters into the glacier, most of the reds are dead. A lack of reflected red wavelengths produces the color blue in the human eye."

But as I got closer to one of the formations, I discovered someone had hit their target, with bright blue paintballs. See pics below.

 
 
** CRISTINA ** LIVE LIFE, CARVE HARD