Welcome to Jolly J's Twisted Life

It's been a Slice

2008-10-16T16:04:00.003-03:00

Check out my very first dabble in video editing. I borrowed all of Stefan's footage and sat down and pulled out all the bloopers. So here it is, I hope you like it Outtakes and Crashes - 2007-2008

Stefan and I have been talking for quite sometime about having an official blog for Crabbe Mountain. I mean...this blog has become the official blog for Crabbe...but as I got more busy with the GM job, it became more and more difficult for me to keep it updated. It's tough to work a full day (12-15hrs) and then write about it. I feel really badly about that. But as I make this announcement I feel a bit of a load has been lifted off my shoulders.

So with that...I'm pleased in introduce to you the new and improved Crabbe Mountain Blog. Between Stefan and I, it should be updated a little more regularly. It will still be a behind the scenes look at the workings here at the mountain. I'll just have more help.

Cheers!

Party Animals and the Non Party Type Animals

2008-10-06T18:05:00.003-03:00

Had a great time at our ASAA (Atlantic Ski Area Association) Fall Meeting and Educational Sessions last week. Stefan and I drove down early on Tuesday making a stop for breakfast along the way. Stopped at the convenience store just before Wentworth to pick up some...ahh...beverages. Ran into Anne and Jim from Marble...they were buying snacks for lunch. We arrived at Wentworth about a half hour early and hung out with Andy from Martock and Shannon from Marble.

As we got ready to start our meeting Mike from Wentworth joined us. We heard updates from NS Provincial Lift Inspector, our consultant, Ontario Ski Resort Association, Canadian Ski Council, Alpine Ski NS and Freestyle Ski NS, Nova Scotia Snowboard Association and Canadian Snowboard Federation, CSIA, CASI, CSPS, and Ski Atlantic Seniors Club. Lets just say it was our biggest meeting we've ever had. We adjourned early and decided to hold the Business Meeting part the next morning at 7:45am ouch that is going to hurt.

We then headed up to the reception up in Ducky's hosted by Ski Wentworth and sponsored Prinoth. It was supposed to go for an hour but went late into the night. More of the Crabbe Crew showed up including Tim, Crystal, Mark and Jay. Somehow most the Crabbe crew got conned into cooking. I was asked if we could run the BBQ, so I'm thinking burgers and dogs. No worries, we got that figured out last year at the passholders BBQ. Nope Steaks and Deer Meat. Wow, for 50 people. Stefan, Crystal and I got at it and boy were they tasty. Connor from Wentworth also helped us out. We then headed in to join the feast and a few more beverages. We Crabbe people always like to be the life of the party and 3 of us managed to stay to the bitter end, along with Greg and Jim from Martock, Shannon from Marble and poor Leslie. Thanks for putting up with us!

The next morning came way to early, but no worries we got at it. Started the Business Meeting, other than behind the scenes business stuff, we set the date for our Spring Meeting which will be at Marble Mountain for their closing weekend. I'm sooooo stoked about this as I want to do some backcountry skiing on the Rock. Then I got the "bad" news that the next Fall Meeting will be held at Crabbe. I'm sort of stoked to host our friends from the other hills, but I kind of enjoy the care free environment of the road trip instead of the responsibility of being the host. But it was our turn so what can I say. We were joined by Larry and then broke off into our Education Sessions including, Ski in School, Food Show, Groomer Maintenance, Accident Investigation, Food Health and Safety.

Luckily we got out early, and Shannon and I got to get in some shuttle DH runs in with Connor. Thanks Tim for driving Connors shuttle truck for us. Then headed back to the chalet for a quick shower.

That evening we headed to Big Al's in Tatamagouche for supper. The Reception this night was only for an hour and everyone seemed a little more subdued. I sat with Connor from Wentworth, Shannon from Marble, and Andy from Martock. We soon retired back to the chalet where Mark, Tim, Larry, Stefan and I played pool late into the evening. Everyone crashed except Tim and I, who for some reason thought it would be a good idea to stay up chatting until 3:30 in the morning. Ouch that's two nights in a row.

Got up bright and early for an amazing breakfast cooked by Barb from Wentworth and Crystal. It was no Crabbe Mountain Breakfast but it wasn't too shabby either, must have been Crystal's touch. :-) Just kidding Barb! Richard soon joined us as we chowed down, while hanging out with RBC Rider and Olympic Hopeful Rider Alex Duckworth. Andy described her cute as a button. I'd say that is accurate cool description. She was our keynote speaker than then left us to go speak to an elementry school. Alex you are an amazing ambassador for our sport and the Maritimes. Good luck in the future, don't forget to swing by Crabbe this winter.

For Educational Sessions we had Groomer Maintenance again and Park scapers. I presented making a plan and teamwork in the park scapers session. The Park Scapers program consists for 3 days. One classroom session at Wentworth and two on snow days at Poley in January, where we get to play in some brand new groomers and setup a park. Should be interesting to say the least.

On the way home the 7 of us stopped at a Big Stop and had a great meal. I think everyone enjoyed themselves and found the educational sessions worthwhile. It's really nice to sit at a table with people from the other hills and find out they deal with the exact same challenges that we do.

I had a bunch of errands to run in Fredericton on Friday morning and picked up some KFC for the boys for lunch. When I pulled up to the garage there was a Rottweiler with a face full of porcupine quills in his face and he wasn't too happy to see me. Actually he probably was as I was carrying a big bucket of chicken. The guys told me had been guarding the garage all day and that on Monday there were 3 Rottweilers at the bottom of the mountain. I love dogs, but I will say 1 cranky Rotti with a mouthful of quills is an interesting challenge to deal with. I really wanted to help this puppy (60 - 70 pounds) out so I baited him with KFC. Once he got a taste of that, he really gave me a hard time. He charged me several time trying to get me to drop the chicken but I retreated quickly but still kind of held my ground. I then threw a plate of chicken in the back of my truck. The pup, was now guarding my truck and the garage now. Great plan Jay. Eventually he went into the back of my truck and I was able to sneak up and slam the tailgate and back window closed. That got my heart going. He wasn't all that happy but at least now the boys could actually work without worrying about our new pet. After a bit the pup curled up and went sleep. He looked so peaceful when he's not charging me growling and showing his teeth. :-)

I then went back on the phones trying to find help from my new friend. Animal Control called back and said the the province will not pay to help a sick or injured stray dog. I told him I think it's a good dog and want to help him and worst case scenario will take the dog if I have too. I didn't want to see this dog put down. He said to give him some time and he would see what he could do. In the meantime I tried working some favors with my vet, even tried bribing with lift tickets but they were backed up and couldn't help us. I called another Vet and they said it would be $150 for the first 15 minutes and $45 for every 15 minutes after that for quill removal. That was a little more expensive than I was hoping. Animal Control called and said the SPCA in Oromocto would help us. I met him there the ladies at the SPCA were awesome, the puppy was now acting like a puppy and even leaned against me and let me rub him. The Animal Control Officer even thought he had a report of 3 missing Rottis earlier in the week and hoped that was the owners of this puppy. I said my goodbye and went home feeling happy that I helped out this poor puppy. I think we will have to do an SPCA fundraiser this winter.

I have since learned that he has been reunited with his family. And that on Saturday they found the other two, who were in pretty bad shape but they are now reunited. The fella I rescued name was Kojak. That's a pretty fitting name.

Today on my way to work, I was taking the shortcut to Crabbe as I normally do. Just in on the dirt road and around the first turn, and there are two horses standing in the middle the road. I got out of my truck to see if they would come to me. Not that I have a clue about anything horse related (other than in the Olympics the Horse should get the medal not the rider). They started toward me but soon as I started to walk toward them they ran off down the road. I turned around as I knew there was someone back on the highway that had horses. I spoke to the nice lady and she said they were not hers. I then asked for some advice on how to catch a horse and she gave some oats and told me how to hold them. I think she was somewhat amused by my enthusiasm as I stood in her drive way as a city slicker with wet hair, and shorts and t-shirt and plans on catching a couple horses. She also thought they might belong to someone at the other end of the dirt road in Hainesville. Perfect in two minutes I'm now heading back into the woods with a old beer box, some oats, a tow strap and I'm gonna catch me some horses. I'm so excited about this that I haven't even decided what I'm going to do with them when I catch them or where I'm going to take them, I don't even know who they belong to (and they got me teach about planning at the park scapers course). I drive up to them get out, pour some oats into the beer box and whistle (like it's a dog and it's going to come). I shake the beer box and sure enough here comes the big horse. I show him the oats and reach out the grab him but he is obviously smarter than I am and runs past me and my truck. Ok here comes horse number two...this guys is not as smart and really likes his oats served up in a beer box. I'm able to untangle my tow strap and attach it to the collar thingy that horses wear that go over the face down near their mouth. I then attach the other end the bumper of the truck. Give horsey some more oats and start to plan how I'm going to catch the other horse. I'm pretty much thinking I'm an animal catching god at this point. It's also about this time that my beer box oats loving friend has clued in that there are not much for oats left and I've tied him to my truck and his friend is 100 meters down the road going the other way. So this horse starts to freak a little. I take the beer box away to go fetch his buddy, now he (or she I didn't really check) is really pissed. I get about half way between the two and hear the one I have tied up whinnying (is that a word), I turn around to see it rearing up and then bucking. My poor truck is at ground zero and is rocking back and forth a bit. Ok maybe horse catching is not as easy as I thought. So I head back to the truck and attempt to untie the horse. Well he wants nooooo part of me. I'm trying to avoid being kicked as he bucks and trying to avoid getting crushed between the horse and my truck as I try to free him. This is really hard to do when the horse won't let you near you and keeps turning to show you his business end so he can kick me easier. At this point I thought about letting it go with my tow strap, but that was an expensive tow strap so I keep working at it and eventually get the horse turned around, untied and it takes off at full spring...wow! I will say my heart was racing at this point, probably don't need to finish my coffee as I'm now fully awake. Not really ever being around a horse much in my life and now being at ground zero in the middle of the woods with a pissed off horse at the end of a strap is not something I will forget anytime soon.

Long story short, I eventually found their owners and they headed off to fetch the horses so I headed off to work. Thankfully.

General Manager, local Animal Control officer...what's the diff.

Big Projects

2008-09-26T14:11:00.008-03:00

I know, make two posts then I bugger off. Well infact I've been extremely hard at'er up here on the mountain.

I think when we last spoke it was Harvest Week. I had a great harvest, how about you? I volunteered with the Ski Patrol providing first aid services at the festival. My shift was Thursday from 8pm - 2am. I was pretty stoked about that as there were a ton of acts that I really wanted to see and people seemed to look after themselves quite well so I didn't have to actually do any first aid which is always a bonus. First, I got to check out the Derek Trucks Band in the Blues Tent. Wow what a guitar player. I found the show to be a little boring other than the absolutely amazing guitar work and really musically it was beautiful. But it didn't make me feel like dancin' and that is important to me. I then checked out Keith Hallett and the Homemade Jamz Band at the Mojo Tent. What an amazing display of young talent, both of these groups rocked the place. I really enjoyed Keith Hallett. Then later in the the night I checked out Matt Anderson who is roughly from my hometown in Perth Andover, and then later on the Matt Anderson Band at the Hoodoo House. It was a great night in all. Friday night Linder and I headed back to the Hoodoo with Lloyd and Dianne and checked out Mike Cadillac and the Rockin' 88's. Another fun show.

Keith Hallett in the Mojo Tent

Since then I've been busy preparing for our gearbox overhaul and my presentation at the ParkScapers Seminar to be held at Ski Wentworth next week.

First up would be the Gearbox overhaul. Every 10 or 11 years we get our gearbox overhauled. We here hoping to send it to Dopplemayr CTEC in spring but they put us off until now. It was a lot of work and much of the work was done by hand, but we are glad to finally get it and our drive bullwheel sent off so they can get everything ready for the season for us. We hope to see them back here in 3 to 4 weeks. Then we have to get everything put back together which will be a lot of work in itself. As you can see from this gallery, it's a pretty big job.

I've now moved onto working on my presentation for the ParkScapers Course. My presentation in on Conflict Resolution and Team Building. I'm presenting to participants from most resorts that are members of the ASAA (Atlantic Ski Area's Association) so it should be fun. It seems my presentation is more on planning but I didn't come up with so we'll run with it. We have a big crew going down, there are 8 of us in total. Mark, Stefan, Crystal, Jay, Timmy, Larry, Richard and myself will all be taking in different educational sessions that will be held between Tuesday and Thursday of next week.

So on that note, the weather is not looking so great for the weekend, maybe I can get some inside work done around the house.

I'll leave you with Stefan's latest creation "Pinch Flats and Taco'd Rims" which was filmed at the Downhill Mountain Bike Races in August at Crabbe.

Cheers!

Rock and Rollin'

2008-09-10T12:30:00.006-03:00

I know twice in one week...Stand BACK!

Me checking out the conditions on Elgees a few years ago to see if it is ready to open, first tracks a nice perk to the "job".

Last night I went to the Crabbe Mountain Ski Patrol's information session for this upcoming season's Ski Patrol Course. It was really nice to see everyone that I haven't seen since the snow disappeared. In many ways, I really miss patrolling. I started back in the ol' Fredericton Area Ski Patrol Days in '96. It was a ton of fun and I got to ski with a bunch of real kick @$$ patrollers. I also got to learn the patrol culture and made friends that will last a life time. In '99 I started working on the pro patrol. In 2000 I became patrol leader of both the volunteer and pro ski patrols. In 2005 I stepped down from my position as patrol leader for the volunteer ski patrol. I continued managing the pro patrol until last fall. So needless to say with over 10 years into the patrol it is a big part of my life and who I am or have become. Over the years I've been in a bunch of patrol competitions. I've finished 2nd I don't know how many times in first aid comps. I guess I just wasn't meant to ever get a 1st place finish in a first aid comp. Maybe some day I'll take another crack at it

My favorite result of all came at a Toboggan Comp at Mont Restigouche, with a Team of Timmy, Stefan and myself. We not only dominated the course, we had enough time to do the course twice and still have time between us and second place. There was this steep mogul pitch near the beginning. I was in the handles, Stefan was my rope man and Timmy was our patient. We were the last team to go, and while we waited we watched every other team stop up at the crest of this steep pitch and then carefully pick there way down. I turned to the boys and said if I'm feeling comfortable I'm just gonna straight run it. As we approached the lip I just keep skating as hard as I could to get more speed, I yelled back to hang on. I didn't quite have enough speed to air over the lip, but as I dropped over the edge with toboggan in tow and then Stefan following on the drag rope, we pulled Stefan completely airborne over the lip. As we cruised into the switch box, we new we had a commanding lead, some teams took minutes to get down that pitch and we just did it in about 3 seconds. Stefan took over in the handles and I grabbed the drag rope and ripped the rest of the way down to the finish through a series of tight corners. Timmy was our victim in the tobo and he was laying on his belly leaning way out to the sides to the keep the toboggan from flipping over as we went around the corners at high speeds . We made sure everyone knew we had won, and that is probably why the next year, everyone took great pleasure in laughing at us as we again trying to blow away the competition. We finished first again in time, but were quite embarassed that we had so many penalties from running over gates, loosing our patient on more than one occasion. I miss those days.

Ethan hanging out with Tony the Toque

So in saying that I really want to help them boost their numbers. If you've ever thought about becoming a ski patroller. Give Carrie Sewell an email or give her a call 462-6440. Or just show up to their first class next Tuesday Sept 16th at 6:30 pm. They will be in room 322 in Marshall D'Avery Hall at UNB. No need to feel nervous these are really fun loving group of people.

August 23rd and 24th we had DH Mountain Bike Race here at Crabbe. It was a huge success.

Marcel Thomann from Ski Wolf launching off the rock drop at high speed.

Group photo of a bunch of racers

We also had a Conquer the Canuck race at the same time. After all the racing was done, Stefan and I headed out in the valley to pick up signs and aid stations from the running race.

Stefan checking out Meteor Lake from the XC Ski trails.

Here is a view of our very green mountain on August 24th.

I'm getting pretty stoked for Harvest Jazz and Blues festival which kicks off today. I'm volunteering Thursday night providing first aid with the Ski Patrol. Linda and I are hoping to take in some shows on Friday and/or Saturday. Can't wait. Hope to see some of you out there!

Cheers

Alive and well

2008-09-07T15:13:00.006-03:00

I'm alive and well, believe it or not. I can't come up with a good excuse for not updating my blog. There is barely a day that goes by that I don't think, I must remember to put this on my blog...I really have to update my blog...but alas, something always comes up or I get lazy or for whatever reason...it doesn't get done.

Tropical Storm Hanna is rolling through so I've got some time on my hands so I read my blog. From the beginning. It was a pretty good read, brought back so many good memories. I get a kick out of all the spelling and grammar mistakes. But then again I guess that keeps it real. Not really keepin' it real, but just real as in authentic and really me and my thoughts. I guess I really should have paid more attention and actually applied myself in English when I went to school. But alas...I didn't, and my wife is constantly making fun of my writing skills. I also think since most of this is just jumbled thoughts in my head, it only makes sense that some sentences don't make sense.

So since we last spoke...er...read...er wrote. Whatever. I was suffering from delusions and missing out on precious powder days due to a broken collarbone. I still think I skied more powder last year. And even with a broken clavicle, I still scored 104 days on snow. Which is not too shabby, especially considering the injuries and the number of days of actually working all day long. But then again, when your office is at the mountain...I guess I get better chances than most. My goal this year will be 120 days on snow.

So yeah, after my last post I took a run 4 or 5 days later then it was every 2 or 3 days and then back to pretty much every day. I doubt my doctor would be impressed.My second day back on snow, skinned up the Beginner Hill down Tippy to Elgees, back up Embrees to the lodge.

Getting a little braver, riding the chair and even skiing bumps.

The dummy race was awesome. Lots of great dummies and even better dummy crashes. Special thanks to Brian and his bar on skis.
We hosted the Fox Subaru Grand $lam invitational which was a lot of fun. We want to host a big time event and Fox Subaru came through in a big way for us.

Airing it over the WRX

Big Thanks to Fox Subaru for helping us put this event on.

The next few weeks I got to hear everyone talk about what idiots we were on closing the mountain on April 6th. I kept telling people that we set the date back in October, and that if the conditions and business levels were there we were going to extend it. I don't know you remember but I am slightly addicted to this sport.

We had some fabulous spring skiing days...

Me, Stefan and Timmy relaxing on a corn day

With the extended season, this meant that I had to dance around my already booked vacation backcountry skiing in Quebec. Since we were closed Monday and Tuesdays, I rented a satellite phone so I could stay in touch and still make decisions.

We left Crabbe on Saturday and drove up in the snow. In NB and most of the way into PQ it was wet heavy snow that was melting as soon as it hit the road. Once we got into the mountains, the temps dropped a bit and the snow was a bit dryer. We stayed in a "primitive" hut for the night and then joined most of our crew in the am for the slog in. It was still snowing and not wearing a backpack since my injury, I packed very smartly to help make it easier on my shoulders. So I headed up early in the fresh snow to get a bit of head start. An hour in I was passed by Pierre and Carole. It was snowing so hard and they were moving so fast, maybe 15 minutes after they passed I could barely see their tracks. An hour after that I was caught by Andrew who like me was nursing an injury, his was a knee injury that he injured about a month earlier at Crabbe. Andrew and I leap frogged each other as we were having glopping issues with our skins. Andrew arrived at the hut minutes before me. I was super stoked to make record time by me. We were soon joined by Stefan and soon after, Rob and Joel. It snowed and we partied into the night.

Enjoying the Cheeseburger picnic.

We awoke the next morning to it still snowing and low visibility. We were nervous about the avi conditions as earlier this year there was a serious Avi accident right out in front of our hut in the exact terrain we were looking to ski. We toured up in the trees following a trail that Gregor found last year. We set off quite few avalanches mostly on purpose by ski cutting once we got back to the chutes. We kept skiing to skiers right in the tree chutes to the left of the S Couloir. The last chute I skied onto, spider webbed and slide as soon as I got out onto the chute but before I could weight it. This scared me as I wasn't in control of it. We soon continued down and it got deeper (thigh) as we got down into the trees and skied through the unsettle debris fields. At lunch we learned Pierre had been swept off his feet and had a telemark ski ripped off his feet in an unpredicted slide that caught up with him. Stefan, Rob and Joel were a little more cautious and spent the day playing in the trees up on the plateau in knee deep mellow slopes.

Rob enjoying the knee deep

You can see my tracks to the right of slides. Scary

The next few days we got to ski conditions from powder to slop as the temps warmed up. We also got to watch/participate in a mock search and rescue of a bunch of hikers that were lost in the mountains. Our job was to be a hut full of simpletons in a mountain cabin. I think we played our parts to a tee. We had limited knowledge for them but did have some valuable info if they asked the right questions. The mock scenario was testing Quebec police, RCMP, Search and Rescue Teams and the Park Wardens. It was a pretty big deal as they must have had 50 or so snowmobiles and even had helicopters in use. We must have been quite a site for some of the police officers, some who looked like they had never been in the backcountry not to mention on a snowmobile. And for them to come across our hut with us sitting out BBQing, taking in the rays and enjoying some beverages on the a must have been quite a site. I'm sure we didn't make things easy on them as we watched them through binoculars getting their high powered machines stuck over and over again much to our amusement. Sound travels in the mountains so I'm sure they could hear our giggling. It also reminded us that when skiing in the backcountry, you must be self sufficient and make a plan of how to self rescue when things go wrong. Help might not be as easy or close by as one would assume. Even in a park full of rescue professionals seemingly.

One of their trusty steeds, I need to get me one of them, actually I think I am buying one of these this fallOur crew as seen by the rescuers

We stayed in touch with Bonnie at Crabbe and learned that with the poor weather on the weekend, we didn't have a good weekend business wise. This was a second poor weekend in a row. The weather for the upcoming weekend did not look good. On Wednesday I checked back in with Bonnie, still no change in the weather, rain all weekend. Stefan and I had chatted about shutting down the mountain the night before if the weather was a no go. It looks like that scenario was playing out, not to mention us cutting our trip short so we could be there to help close things down. I called Leslie and we were both on the same page, that the time has come. So there you have it, that is the story, I made the decision, no one shut it down on me while I was away. It was my decision and as difficult as it was and would be easier to make it sound like someone else made the decision, but sadly it was in fact mine. We had a great winter, no need to spoil it by staying open with not even the season pass holders were coming out to ski. Too bad the weather didn't cooperate, it would have been really something to get to May 4th.

So with a heavy head, it was back to get my skiing fix in the bc, knowing my Crabbe days were numbered. The last day, I was about to just sit back in enjoy the sun and some beverages for the afternoon, when Pierre and Carole came back and said they just bagged the Couloir D'Aigles and Mousekateer Couloir looked skiable. Mousekateer has eluded me for the past two years with it's sketchy ice fall at the steep part, maybe this will brighten up my mood. We toured in across a partly frozen lake (scary in it's own right), nothing like the feeling of falling through a frozen lake with ski gear and back pack on...how long can you tread water? Skinned as high as gravity would allow and then strapped our skis to our packs and started booting up. Pierre was a horse and kicked in a great boot ladder while Carole scampered up behind. I was in pretty rough shape and it took a little longer for me to catch them at the top for the amazing views of my next trips projects.

Couloir D'Aigles (Gregor and I, Spring 2006) goes from right to left in the middle, Mousekateer is lookers left of it, that dogleggs in the middle.

Pierre and Carol booting up

Next trips project, I think that shadowed couloir in the middle has my name on it.

Half way down. You can see the partially frozen lake that we crossed

Mmmm....jump turns

Our skin track across the lake back to the hut

I managed to make it home in time for last day. I was amazed how much snow disappeared during the week I was away. Crabbe got the same 20 degree weather we got in PQ. I was pretty beat up from my trip but still made it out for a bunch of runs. Even rode the last chair with Premier Graham. He told me that Crabbe always offers the best skiing in the maritimes, this guy sounds like he knows what he's talking about. I ended the chair lift season with last chair with Stefan, Gord and Ryan.

So there you have it. One of our earliest opens and latest closing dates in years. We were open 123 days, and had almost 16 feet of natural snow fall on our wonderful mountain. We had the longest season of any mountain in Atlantic Canada. I'm pretty stoked to have these facts and figures attached to my first year as GM. I'd say I'm pretty lucky.

I managed to get a few more runs in before the snow finally melted. I don't think I've ever seen the snow melt so fast as it did this season.

The next few weeks were a lot busier than planned shutting down the mountain. In June I headed off to Gatineau for the Atlantic Ski Areas Association spring meetings. Once every 3 years, we get together with the Ontario Ski Resort Association and the Quebec Ski Areas Association and have a big trade show and education session. Being hosted by the Quebec Association, things are pretty over the top and posh. It was held at the Hilton in Gatineau. We got to tour Calabogie and Ottawa while we were there. We also started planning for our fall Education Sessions which will be held at Ski Wentworth at the end of the month.

Summer went by pretty quick. I managed to go to Fiddles on the Tobique and Canoed the Restigouche. I also had some sort of bizarre kidney infection which meant I couldn't go outside or drink during the two week heatwave we had earlier this summer. That really sucked.

Linda enjoying a beverage on the Tobique

Our campsite on the Restigouche

I've been back to work since the beginning of August we had a Mountain Bike Race and Running Race which I'll report on next time as well as I just got back from the North East Winter Sports Summit in New Hampshire. Lets hope it doesn't take me another 6 months to update this thing.

My Mental State

2008-03-05T15:59:00.003-04:00

It's been a rough week for me. I took last Tuesday off due to the injury. Being a trooper, or an idiot, your choice, I came to work on Wednesday. It was the Kerr Ski Day plus I thought I was going to go insane. The drive over the ridge almost killed me. My clavical was popping and snapping with every bump. Spent the full day here, enjoyed meeting with the crew for Kerr. Got lots of attention as everyone was questioning why I would bother going to Poley. Didn't I know there was no snow in Sussex? But I had my reasons and I crashed and burned so that is the fact I'm living with.

Wednesday was also a powder day, so I spent the first powder of my life, starring out my window watching everyone ripping it up, and hearing the stories of how great the conditions were, and seeing the big smiles on everyones faces. Here is the video from the day... "It's Winter Here"

I then took a bunch of folders and paperwork home with me to catch up on some research....and not drive over the ridge again. So yeah...I took Thursday off.

Saturday and Sunday were almost a living hell (for me) instead of sharing in everyone's excitement with yet again another powder day, I became the center of attention. Kinda puts a downer on schmoozin' but what can you do. It's so tough for me to just to sit idle and not be able to do anything. Well I guess I can still do office work... Here is the video from the weekend..."In like a Lion"

I'm a pretty hands on guy, this year I've groomed, worked both chair bottom, and chair top. I've worked the corral area, I've helped out in the Rental Shop, cooked in the Cafeteria, bussed tables, tended bar, even Ski Patrolled. As I said I'm a hands on type of guy. So to sit on my hands...I mean hand, is just brutal.

Sunday evening, I finally gave it go, and hopped in the groomer to work on the park. It wasn`t too bad. Turning my head to back up the Terrain Park features was pretty tough, but I managed. Finally! That felt so good for my mental health to accomplish something other than paperwork. My shoulder muscles were a little sore Monday morning but it was worth it.

Monday was a rockin' day. Really busy all around, so it went pretty fast. Tuesday not as busy, but my wife is coming down with a cold so I bartended the evening shift for her. Again good for my mental health, but I still felt pretty useless, even though I make a mean hot chocolate.

I've also worked more and more without my sling, mostly just to stretch my arm out. When in public I wear it as more of a caution point so people don't bump into me. I still need the support so I can heal quickly, so I still spend the majority of the day tied up.

I'll continue about my mental health in a bit...

Current Conditions: We received about 3 cms or so of snow this morning, and are now (4:21 pm) receiving ice pellots. Temps are currently at -10. So hopefully we'll walk out of this with mostly frozen precipitation. Tomorrow and Friday look absolutely fabulous. +8 and SUNNY!

This weekend we have Flattop rockin' the Boot which is always a good time. And then on Sunday, the Dummy Race. Build a dummy and get it up here. We're also planning on having a beer garden at the Dummy Race which will be a great time. Here is a reminder of how much fun the Dummy Race was last year!

Coming Soon is a massive terrain park event. Look for more details coming out in the next couple of days. There will be $1000 for first place skier, and $1000 for the first place snowboarder. That should get some interest in the event.

I see Cole now has a blog. I guess imitation is the best form of flattery. He's even using my disclaimer. Kind of funny actually. But it looks like dragging him around Crabbe and showing him the advantages of our boundary to boundary policy has really rubbed off on him. Nice to see. Now if he will just see the light and our superior terrain, he'll be all set. :-)

Now back to my original topic....My mental state.

I woke up this morning and felt pretty good. Well once I got out of bed, because getting out of bed is probably the hardest thing to do with a broken clavical. I packed my ski gear...so I could have a pair of ski pants to wear if needed. My wife asked me why I was taking my gear to the mountain, and I told her I wanted to have all my gear in one place. She smiled. As I walked outside I thought how bittersweet the 5 - 10 cms of snow on my truck was. This will be pow day number 4 since my injury. I then got in the truck and put my seat belt on for the first time in a week. (That isn't entirely true, I've been wearing a seat belt when I'm in the passenger seat) Things are good, the bumps on the Ridge didn't bother me too much. I had breakfast, which I cooked myself because the girls in the kitchen were on break and I didn't want to bother them. Came back to the office, answered a bunch of voicemails and emails. And looked out the window at the snow swirling around. In my head it's a powder day even though I don't think I've ever called 3 cms a powder day, but this is my mental state. I look around my office, my skins are on the wall, my touring gear on the rack. Checked my gear bag, I had everything I needed....

I discretely closed the door of my office. I then layed out all my gear...so far so good. I promised myself, I`d call it off when I feel pain. I pulled my ski pants on...oh how I miss the way they feel. Pulled on a pair of ski socks, those are buggers to pull on with one hand. Grabbed my touring boots. The top buckles were difficult to get started with one hand. But things are going good. I slipped into a base layer top, no problem. (Other than getting out of bed, putting on a shirt is my next most painful experience to my day) Put on a mid layer, with a little frigging and no pain again, things are going good. I then put my injured arm into my shell for the first time in over a week. Zipped it up....ahhhhhhhhh. I then put my sling on, it was a little tight but it still fit. I rigged my radio up in a pocket, through my sling and clipped the microphone onto my collar. Put my helmet on, goggles check. Put on two gloves for the first time in well, you guessed it a week, figured out a way to use a biner to clip my skins to my sling as I couldn't carry a backpack.

I sat down, took a couple of deep breaths. WTF am I doing? This is quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever done. But it needs to be done. I'll go crazy if I miss another "powder day". Got up, grabbed my skis, and one pole. And opened the door to the office, Bonnie questioned me and I told her I had to, I can't take it any more. My radio is on channel one if you need me and walked out the door. I plopped my skis on the ground, stepped into the bindings, such a sweet sound, bent over and switched my boots to ski mode and off I skated so no one else could talk me out of it. It was too late now anyways.

I concentrated so hard on those first few turns and then continued to link short radius turns the whole way down the right side of Daves in the untracked 3 - 4 cms of "powder". Oh my god it felt so good, so quiet, and oh so right. When I got to the bottom, I skied by the corral, past the chair lift, down in front of the pump house. I stepped out of my bindings. Got down on my hands and knees and started putting my skins on. Not quite as easy with one hand as it is with two. Tearing them apart was the hard part. Switched my bindings to tour mode, stood up, switched my boots to tour mode, stepped in and started touring up the Family Trail.

I was so pumped, as I pounded my way up the hill at a blistering pace. (well blistering for me). When I got to the exit of Steve's I finally stopped for a breather. I think continued on at a more moderate pace. Stefan radioed me to check on me as I passed the exit of Pugs. This is the first time I've toured up the Family trail, normally I attack a more direct route, but today I wanted something easy but long. I then realized how much vertical there is from the exit of Pugs to the top of Family Trail. I still made good time up over the mountain. I stopped into the Patrol Hut to de-skin out of the wind. I then continued down the Beginner Hill to the Ticket Office. I was so happy I wanted to scream. But there was a Snow School group right there, and I didn't want them to be scared by a crazed one armed lunatic.

I feel so good now. My lungs feel alive, my legs feel alive, my body feels alive, I'M ALIVE!!!! Even though I only skied Daves Dream, skinned up the Family Trail, and back down the Beginner Hill. I feel like Dykeman does in this pic...

Ski ya on the flip side!

I have an Ouchie

2008-02-26T11:16:00.003-04:00

I had a pretty quiet week last week ski wise. I was really looking forward to racing on Wednesday night, but we were having some pretty serious issues with our website so I ended working on that all night. Got out for a couple runs on Thursday night on a pair of Head XRC`s. Really fast on fast conditions. Didn`t get out on Friday as I had office work to do plus I had to shape the park. Saturday I got out with Stefan, Timmy and Steph Fox. We had stupid fun venturing where others hadn`t. Our only reward was big smiles and laughing at/with each other. Then got to kick back with friends listening to the legendary Flat Top.

Sunday I got to ride next years Burton Custom Snowboard. I had so much fun riding it all morning. After I finished my paperwork and payroll, I went back out a had some more fun on it on it until close. I hit my first rail and the Horn on a snowboard. I can't say how sweet this board and binding system is. Wanna check it out for yourself? Burton Demo day is this Sunday where you can check out Burton's Gear.

Speaking of Demo's. Rossignol will be here on Saturday to help kick off the March Break. So come check out the latest and greatest from Rossignol.

Being the March Break we are also doing something wild and crazy. We are having two bands in this weekend. Saturday is Johnny Crash and the Breeze, Sunday is Big Yellow Barn. It's gonna be fun.

Now onto the ouchie...
Yesterday I was off to Poley. It was a quazi business trip. I met with Bill Anderson, their Operations Manager. We talked Snowmaking, Groomers and just business in general. I met with Jamie Hare, their Risk Manager and discussed Terrain Parks and what not. I got to do one honkin`run with John McNair as he had to go home early. He said he is going to try to make it up Sunday to check out Big Yellow Barn.

Cole Fawcett aka Poley Coley then took me on a tour to "shape my mind". You see Cole and I go back a few years ago, when he took the Ski Patrol course at Crabbe. This guy bleeds Poley Mountain. Probably more so then Poley Bear him(her) self. So we teased each other pretty much ever since. This year Cole has come up to Crabbe on a few occasions and I have been "shaping his mind". He sees the light, he`s not exactly skiing towards it. He understands how much more terrain we have to offer. To the point I think he actually enjoys skiing our terrain up here at Crabbe. Unfortunately he has been one of Poley's biggest cheerleaders (and I mean that with respect), there is no way he is going to change his ways any time soon.

So now was finally his chance to "shape my mind" on his turf. We were joined by Lisa, a cool tele-chica and her snowboarder friend Lucas. We had fun checking out things, the new peak, mostly beginner trails and intermediate cruisers. We played in the woods a bit. The "steeps", did you know Poley has a bunch of double diamonds? I think we use two different scales of trail ratings I guess.

Most of the trails on the far side feed into a beginner trail that brings you back to the lift. Along this trails there are a bunch little jumps and banks that we played on each time we came back around. I came into the jump quite a bit hotter than I did last few times. I was planning on sailing off this thing. Unfortunately there was a rock sticking up at the lip. It stopped one ski dead but it did not release. My skis are both behind me as I'm sailing through the air, I'm rolling the windows ups, doing some sort of variation of the running man. Right ski tip hit first followed by the left and it catapulted me onto my left shoulder. I heard (and felt) it pop. I tried to push myself up off the snow and my shoulder rolled awkwardly. It was extremely painful, I felt the urge to puke. Got up, kind of dusted myself off, Lucas helped me gather my gear up, skied down to the chair, told Cole and Lisa what was up. I took the chair back up, skied down to the bar. Lisa, a nurse practicioner checked me out and agreed my collerbone was broken. She got me some Advil. Cole got me some triangulars and Jamie and Lisa applied a small arm sling (my request). The funny part is Jamie has a broken arm. So here he is with a cast on his arm treating me.

Thank you guys for your patiences and your assistance.

I didn`t know what the treatment was going to be, and was worried about being drugged up and being stuck in Sussex. Being the type of person I am, I sucked it up and drove my truck with a standard transmission back to Fredericton. I have a couple things to say about that...bridges suck, the speed bumps in front of the DECH really suck, and I nothing good to say about the toll gate. How do you get the ticket out of the machine when your left collarbone is busted and you can`t turn your body without sharp shooting pain. Well you sit there, roll down the window and wait for someone to walk within earshot. Thank you to the guy that got me my ticket so the parking gate would let me in.

I then walked in the DECH, great the waiting room is packed. One side has a small child playing with a noise maker and everyone else is coughing and sneezing. Great, I`m going be here all night in pain, surrounded by sick people plus a child with a noise maker....or would I. I waited to see the triage nurse. When it was my turn, the nurse asked me what was wrong. I told her I had a broken clavical. She asks me how I can be so sure. I told her when I run my fingers along my clavical there is a section missing and when I move I can feel pieces floating around and clicking together. She asked me to discribe the pain between 1 and 10. 10 being the worse pain I ever felt. I told her the worse pain I ever felt was the first night after I broke my ribs and rolled onto them and couldn't breath or roll back off them. "So it is somewhere between that and my vasectomy". She took one look at my clavical, went and talked to a doctor.

They then moved me to admitting, then to radiology. They immediately took me in. While xraying me, I see one technician put her hand to her mouth and the other one shuddered. Not a good sign from people who look at broken bones for a living. They let me look at it...yup it's very broken. Back to the ER. Doctor comes over checks out my xray, he agrees...it's "badly" broken. He writes me a persciption, a nurse puts a form fitted sling on me, and I'm back in the cab of my truck 1 hour and 15 minutes after I left it. That has to be a record.

Had an ok Tylenol 3 with Codeine induced sleep until Alex (my puppy) jumped on the bed and decided she wanted snuggle and laid down on my upper arm and shoulder. I think I have a new all time high in pain threshold as I pulled my shoulder out from under her. I then paced back a forth throughout the house while pain mellowed out. I then popped a couple more T3's and moved my pillows to the other side of the bed so that wasn't going to happen again. Alex then crawled under the bed a got stuck...God love her.

I woke up this morning and experienced crepitus for the first time. Not exactly a pleasant feeling or sound. But I'm a pretty cheerful guy and have kept my sense of humor up through this. Here are some funny things people have said to me that made me chuckle.

- After I told the doctor I'm the GM of Crabbe and hurt myself at Poley. - "That's funny...that makes my day"

- Stefan - "After snowboarding on Sunday, and skiing at Poley on Monday, that was ski karma catching up with you"

- Poley Coley - "Poley 1 - Jolly J 0)

- Carrie "OMG...did Poley Patrollers touch you?"

Up to 30 cms on it's way...come and get it!

Cheers!

JJ's Blog - The Picture Page Edition

2008-02-18T14:10:00.008-04:00

I finally got a moment to myself...well not really I'm sitting here updating my blog. But this is good for my soul. I like writting...er typing my thoughts. I find it's a nice release, plus it's cool to hear other peoples comments.

(Making sure there is absolutely no loose snow left on the course)

Since we last spoke, we had speed week, which just about killed me. You can only work so many 18 hour days in a row. But all in all, it was success for the Atlantic Cup, so for that I am proud. Most years they want us to stay as far away as possible from the Horn with the groomer. This year with all the new snow we keep being blessed with, they wanted it groomed as every night, but as soon as we closed, so it would firm up as much as possible by morning. So instead of making our groomer drivers come in when the mountain closed to groom one trail go home get a couple hours sleep and then come back in at 4 to groom the rest of the mountain, it made more sense for me to just stay late and groom it. I must say, B Netting and the headwall of the Horn makes for an interesting obstical to deal with in the dark whether you are going up or down. But by the end of it the week, I had it figured out.

(Where's the Beef)

We also got to cook 91 lbs of Roast Beef for the racers. 91 lbs. Yes Ninety One Honkin' pounds of beef. I think that might be close to a record on our spit. It will cook a lot more, but I don't think we've cooked that much at once yet. It was a lot of fun to cook, plus to see everyone peering in. We should cook beef in the meat machine more often. Hmmm...this is making me hungry.

(given'r)

I have to apologize for missing the award ceremonies but I lost track of time checking out the conditions. Sorry about that...

(Hard at "work")

After Speed week was done, I took two consecutive days off. It was the first time I took two days off in a row since I started in September. It felt good. But being dumb, I took Alex on a 6 hour XC ski through knee deep snow on Tuesday. Not the best way to get rested up.

(Headwall of Harolds, hey were did the rocks and stumps go????)

And then of course we had a powder day on Wednesday so I was pretty exhausted for the rest of the week.

(Tree's made of glass)

After the big ice storm over night on Wednesday night, I was back at the mountain at 4 in the morning to help Fraser with grooming. We had all sorts of adventures that morning with a blown hydraulic hose and then realizing our diesel tank was empty, and due to the roads, our fuel supplier was running late. So basically I drove one groomer while Fraser got the hydraulic hose fixed in Nackawic and by the time he got back and got the other groomer rolling, I was pretty much out of fuel. So he took over with the other groomer which still had a mostly full tank. The fun never ends.

(No normal fitting pants were hurt during this photo shoot, just kidding guys, thanks for your help!)

This past weekend we competed with Snow-a-rama and Winterfest and I think we all did quite well considering the cold temps. We were also audited by our accountant. She left pleased and extremely stoked on Edwin's steak cooking skills. Even mentioned how much better it was than Wentworth's. But shhhh don't tell anyone. Sunday was also Ladies Day which was a fundraiser for Run for the Cure. Radical Edge and Elusive had a demo tent setup, plus there were massages and other activities going on in the lodge.

(Last Tuesday, our last day of making snow)

Snowmaking Update:
Speaking of Snowmaking, we have officially finished making snow. As of today our meter has been read by NB Power, so instead of taking the added expense of another huge demand charge, we are pulling the plug as we do most years at this time. No fears though, over 10 feet of snow has already fallen at Crabbe this year and we haven't even hit our traditionally snowiest months yet!

(The back steps to the office)

Weather Update:
When I arrived at the mountain this morning we had about 5 - 10cms of fresh. However it was raining. I left the mountain at noon and things weren't really doing much, we still had the new snow we picked up over night so we'll be fine. We also had not received as much rain as you did in Fredericton.

(stop it with the damp stuff please)

Today is the first day we were scheduled to be open that we did not open this season. Obviously our school groups were canceled, and I didn't feel too many parents would be driving their kids up to the mountain today, and it's not like Monday is our busiest day of the week with good weather, so I decided to give the staff the day off. We were the first mountain in Atlantic Canada to open on Dec. 8th and 9th. Closed that Monday - Thursday as planned. We reopened on Friday the 14th and have only closed for Christmas Day since. That's right, we were opened as planned for 67 consective days. Wow. It felt really weird sitting at my desk this morning and hearing no clumping of ski boots. I hope I don't have to have that feeling again until April 7th. Here is another interesting stat for those of you keeping score. We were 100% open from boundary to boundary for 40 of those days. That is pretty impressive.

(Hotdog)

I had a pretty cool, feel good moment over the weekend. I had 4 people this weekend who had not ventured into our glades before this year, and after seeing our videos decided to give it go. I'm so stoked about this. I love skiing in the trees. It's always an adventure. It's like being a kid again. Seeing the looks on other peoples faces that have ventured off the beaten path and experienced it, is pretty awesome. Those of you who haven't checked out our glades, you don't know what you're missing.

Well here is a video filmed last Wednesday while the City of Fredericton was essentially shutting down. Enjoy...

All pics and videos by Stefan Billings our Promotions and Marketing Director. Check out more of his work here and here.

It's Been Kinda Crazy

2008-02-02T20:19:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. It seems everytime I go to do an update I get pulled one way or the other. Let see, where did a leave it off. Oh yeah it was the "Big Wednesday" update. Yes Big Wednesday. I still dream about that day. Quite possibly the most epic powder skiing I've had here at Crabbe Mountain. And I am a powder whore. There have only been a couple of powder days I've missed out on since I started work here back in '99. I think only one or two come to mind. We finished things off with a meyheim of a weekend.

Things died down a bit from a biz point of view but from the work point of view things only seemed to get heavier. First off was rebuilding of our kitchen. Out with the old oven/grill, in with a brand new propane oven/grill and a second electric grill. Fun Fun. That was a ton of work, but it meant I didn't get a day off that week. But that was ok, because this is something the girls in the kitchen have needed for many years. I was pretty happy to help make it come true. I also like the fact that we seem to be able to keep up a little better to our big rushes on the weekend. Just think, we still have another thermostat to add to the electric grill, so then we'll really be cookin'.

We also finally fixed one of our lighting strings that has been causing us issues for the past few years. That was nice to finally put to bed. Too bad they couldn't have solved the problem for us in the fall, but frost heaves and underground wiring have a funny way of working sometimes.

I got my truck back at the end of the week. It hasn't caused me any brake issues since. Odd, I thought the problems I was experiencing since day one were "normal".

Then there was the Friday that it rained in all day up to km from the mountain but snowed here all day. Schaweet. Then the next day we got slammed again, only this time things ran very smoothly. The guys at the bottom did a kick ass job. Thanks to Timmy for helping out that day. Speaking of doing a kick butt job, every department up here was short staffed that day and everyone stepped up and delivered. I don't think I could have scripted it better. Thank you so much to our hard working staff.

That Sunday we had a staff party to celebrate the end of the National Learn to Ski and Snowboard week. It was a lot of work for a lot of staff. We learned a lot about the program and how we can improve upon it for next year. It was also pretty fun to have a mid season staff party. A few of use held'r down early into the morning. I was happy to have the next day off.

Richard and I have since built the best park Crabbe Mountain has ever had. Some have said the best Atlantic Canada has ever had. I don't know about that, but it has come together pretty sweetly. A lot of work, late nights, but we're pretty proud of it. Gonna start tweaking things and changing things up a bit this week.

The Wilson's were up last week to check up on me and the mountain. They also got to do some great skiing. On cue, I had it snow 10 cms the night they got here so they could experience Crabbe. It did make having some mandatory meetings a little more difficult to get done. All in all, I got the impression they are quite happy with how things are rolling along.

Took out Steve's tele boards last Saturday super fun. Hope to take them out again soon. Was probably not a good idea to do the day before the Everest Challenge. Speaking of which, that was such a blast. Thanks to all the people that made it happen and also to all the people I met along they way. You should try it next year. It was a lot of fun and good cause, and a great challenge. Next year I'm either going to do it on teles or a snowboard to mix things up a bit. I also did the math I sat on a chair lift for over 4 and half hours. Well, it beats sitting at an office desk all day. Once completed I had to do payroll for our staff and then worked until midnight reshaping our park. The fun never ends.

This week was even more craziness. I won't even get into Thursday. Here's some comic relief for you.

I got in my truck here at the mountain to go do a liquor run. Started as it normally does. Drove to Nackawic, stopped outside the Save Easy. Signed off all our paperwork. Got back in my truck, started it and then drove around to the loading dock. Loaded all the booze into my truck. Hopped back in the cab and went to start it. Nothing. Well something, it was cranking over but it wouldn't fire up. Long and the short of it, ended up having to call Mazda Road Side assistance to come get my truck. I also called Stefan to come help haul the booze back to Crabbe. Stefan got there first, so we loaded him up with as much as he could take. So he headed back to Crabbe to drop off that load while I waited with the other half of the beer and for the tow truck to show up. Of course it gets there before Stefan so I unloaded the remaining booze onto a palet. The tow truck driver says, "hey didn't I pick up this truck in Zealand a few weeks back". You know, it's not a good thing when the tow truck driver recognizes your vehicle. I don't think I'll be keeping it past it's warranty period. Ok back on topic. So there I was, in the dark, behind the liquor store in Nackawic sitting on a pallet of beer. Honestly, one of those moments where you think to yourself....self, when I took this job...this wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Either way, it's a funny story that at least I'm laughing about.

Last night it started snowing a few minutes after we got the last load of booze from Nackawic. We probably got about 10 cms before the ice pellots started around 10 or so. Odd weather -11 and ice pellots. This morning, at opening it switched back to snow. And man did it snow hard. Turned out to be a great day...to bad there weren't more customers here to enjoy it. Their loss!

So there you have it. Hopefully I'll be able to do more updates, more often. I'm sorry about that.

I'll leave you with the park video Richard made.

The Perfect Storm

2008-01-05T20:50:00.000-04:00

Wow...I wonder how many blogs I've started off with a Wow? I'm physically too tired to go check. I had planned on doing a New Years Blog with Hello 2008 kind of like last year. But we had a schedule mixup on New Years Day so I started out working chair bottom and it's been pretty much a whilewind since then. Bill Rogers had the very first chair of 2008. Once we got the staff in and got dug out (again) I headed up to help out at the bar and that is where I spent a good part of they day. Hot Chocolates with Whip Cream were the drink of choice. I getting pretty good at the swirling the whip cream. My first few were pretty scary looking...but still very tasty I bet.

Then it started to snow...and man did it ever snow. I woke up on Wednesday bright and early. I quickly got my snowblower fired up and blew a path out of my drive way. And then off to the mountain I went. First problem was crossing the dam...there was only one lane plowed and the nice people coming in the opposite direction didn't believe in sharing their lane in the least bit so I burried my truck into a snow drift. It wouldn't have been so bad but all the snow landed on my hood and windshield so I had to stop, get out, remove the snow from my windshield because my wipers weren't moving anything. Then back in the cab and forwards...backwards to work my way out the snow drift. The same thing happend on the ridge as well. This time I needed to do a little shovelling to get rolling again. Got first tracks through the Hainesville Road which was first gear with my head out the window, because my hood kept getting loaded with snow.

I thought I had a tough drive to work, until Big Larry told me about his. As he was driving to the mountain, he saw a plow truck coming up behind him so he pulled over to let the plow by. To return the favor the plow guy burried Larry's Car. He had to get out his passenger side and it took a half and hour to get his car unstuck from the snowbank the plow pushed up against his car. Then once he got to the hill he had to wade through knee deep snow to get a groomer to plow a strip in the driveway so he could get into work.

Once we got our staff in, we somehow managed to get the lift fired up on time. I shared first chair with Tim Smith. We decided our first run would be Norms to Tippy to Harolds. And let me tell you it didn't disappoint.

Tim likes to turn, I like to go fast.

I stopped and snapped this pic on Harolds. Tim pulled the first rule of a powder day (there are no friends on a powder day) and left me behind. I don't blame him, I would have done the same.

My next run was to pull the rope on the Chairline so it would be ready to go once the groomers finished up on the Horn. I must say, I've skied in a lot of different conditions at a lot of different places. I don't think I've ever had a run like I had. After my second turn every turn was a full on face shot, to the point my mouth was filling with snow and I was having trouble breathing. In between turns I was wiping my goggles so I could see where I was going. It was epic. Unbelievable. Pure insanity. And I was soooooo loving it. I soon joined up with Stefan, Tim and Leo and we sessioned the rest of the mountain. It was a lot fun letting the boards run in the deep stuff. In places (sometimes entire pitches) it was honest to goodness waist deep snow. Here are a few pics I snapped.... enjoy

Bottomless

Stefan

Tim

BillnZ

Leo

Leo, I'm quite sure powder magazine will be calling for this one.

Stefan

Couple of side notes...I don't remember ever ripping as fast through Steve's Drive Thru as I did over and over again Wednesday. Jamie Willis owes a lot of people a lot of beers. There still no friends on a powder day. No I didn't sell my soul to the devil for these conditions, but if you want to volunteer I wouldn't be upset with you.

Once my body finally gave out on me around 3:30, I had to drive home to pick up Linder and a liquor order. On the way home, my rear brakes decided to catastophically fail, both rear brakes were laying on the axle, brake lines sheared off, brake fluid everywhere, emergency brake cable snapped off. Gotta love frozen brakes systems. Thankfully Lloyd and Diane picked me up and then picked up Linda and lent me their truck for the night so I could get back to work. I ended up taking Thursday off as I didn't really have any wheels. Mazda finally came through for me on Friday with a Rental truck so I was back in business so to speak.

We've been full out here all week. Thank you for your patience around the mountain today. As you know we had a few people here today. We are still working out the bugs of our new corral system at the bottom, which is a little hard to do when it's full from the time we open to the time we close. From what I understand, there are not a lot of happy people with it. We have signs on order and are going to reconfig one more time before we scrap the idea. I personally believe it will make things run much smoother once we have the bugs worked out of it. I could be wrong, but bare with me on it.

Once again thanks for a successful holiday period...I'll leave you with some eye candy.

Goodbye 2007

2007-12-31T07:47:00.000-04:00

So here we are New Years Eve. What a year it has been. The weather was so good to us in 2007. With dump after dump to end last season with more of the same to start this season. We are truly blessed with the snow we have gotten to play in. Wow. This year has been quite a roller coaster ride for me personnally. New House, New Job, it's been a lot of work. But I think it is worth it. I think we are putting out a pretty good quality product. There is lots of room for improvement, and we will continue working towards that. Thank you for making Crabbe Mountain part of your lifestyle.

As I type this it is currently dumping outside. I have to make a run to the bank as we are running low on change. I just picked up change on Friday. Gotta love busy weekends! It just sucks that me being in town always seems to happen on a powder day. So I'm awake, can't fall back to sleep, I know it is snowing, I know the conditions are going to be epic, but alas, I must wait for a freaking bank to open.

Yesterday was a day dreams were made of. It's the reason we all do this. We left the far side of the mountian ungroomed on purpose. As Stefan stated, Powder to the People. And was it ever awesome in the morning. I can't tell you how the afternoon was as my legs had given up by then and I had to do payroll. Either way fun time was had by all.

Conditions Update:
Today we are open 22 of 22 trails. The only exception is the headwalls of Harolds, Norms and Elgees. I can see those possibly opening after this new storm. We'll have to see how things go. I just got off the phone with Fraser, he and Big Larry are grooming out the Far Side so it will be nice and smooth under the new snow that is coming today. We should see about 15-20 more cms of snow when things finish up tonight. Ski Patrol will be putting out some snow fencing in trouble areas to help catch some of snow that may get moved around in the winds later today.

Terrain Park Update:
With these continued snow storms the park features have been not been reshaped in the past few days. My plan was to reshape last night but with the storm coming today it would have been pointless. I will be reshaping everything tonight after we close.

Snowmaking Update:
Snowmaking should hopefully fire up in the next day or two. We have a couple priorities and they will have to do with timing. If they are only firing up for the night they will concentrate their efforts at Chairtop and Chairbottom to build up depths. If it looks like they have a larger window, they will be working on the Ski Out Terrain Park, Upper Daves and Gregs Way. The Gregs Way spur line has been connected and is ready to rock.

On that note, I would like to thank all of our customers for their continued patronage. Have a Safe and Happy New Year!

Check out the latest video by Richard Cote, our Terrain Park Manager

Cheers!

Boxing Day Blues

2007-12-26T12:20:00.000-04:00

I hope Santa found everyone. I was blessed with a very good Christmas with my family. I got a new ski jacket (actually had it for a couple of weeks now), XC Bindings and Boots to complete Linda and my XC setup. We even went out and did laps around the backyard yesterday. I also got some nice comfy slippers. What did you guys get?

It's been a busy few days. We've been sorting out an electrical problem in our Night Skiing Lights that we have been working on since I started back in September. Well it's not that bad. We had a small problem this year. We thought we had fixed it in September as the problem went away after we made the scheduled changes. Turns out when snowmaking started back up and started running the lights at night, the problem had gotten worse. So a bunch of troubleshooting later with our two electrical contractors and we finally found the problem at about 3:00pm on Christmas Eve. Turns out it was a problem at NB Powers end. Called NB Power, they arrived on the scene at about 5 o'clock and we had their end of the problem fixed by about 7 pm Christmas Eve. Not much fun working late on the Christmas Eve, but I thank Mark for sticking around as well as my wife Linder who was stuck here waiting for me.

We kept the groomers off the snow until early this morning to help the snow dry out some. Fraser and Big Lar did an awesome job fixing things up this morning. We also pushed out the snow on the Ski Out which is really nice and soft skiing right now.

Conditions Update:
We are currently riding on 6 trails, Beginner Hill, Ski Out, Daves Dream, Gregs Way, Humes Flume, and the Kings Horn. We start night skiing tonight as well. Most trails are machine groomed/hard pack, and are in much better shape than you would expect. Tomorrow looks like we will be getting some snow which will be nice to see. Right now it looks like 5 - 10 cms or so...it's still early and we'll be keeping an eye on it as it gets closer. They are also calling for Fluries on Friday, Snow on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. Schweetness! We have a terrific base on almost every trail, it won't take much for us to open most of the mountain back up again. In the mean time, come on out and enjoy the most open terrain we've had open at this time of season in many years.

Terrain Park Update:
We still have 10 features out on the mountain. We were hoping to start doing some shaping in the park over the next couple of days. We'll see what the snow brings tomorrow and go from there.

Snowmaking Update:
Zilch, nada....looking at the forecast they might be able to work their magic again on the weekend. Which doesn't sound great but then again with the incoming snow, we might be in the clear anyways.

Check out this old retro video that Stefan uploaded.

Until next time keep the slippery side down.

Getting ready for a Rockin' Weekend

2007-12-20T19:24:00.000-04:00

WOW!

What a storm on Sunday/Monday! We received about 30 cms of snow give or take. Some places seemed really really deep. Check out the video below. I know I dove in head first to get a real close inspection of the snowpack.

Since then, we were able to open up pretty much the entire mountain. We had the Chairline closed because they were making snow on the Headwall of the Horn and hoses were stretched across both entrances. That is done now, so we should have 22 out of 22 trails open going into the weekend. Now in saying that, Elgees, Norms and Harolds headwalls are not open so technically we can not claim that we are 100% open. When was the last time we had this much terrain open this early in the season? We're pretty stoked on the conditions. Yes we are pretty lucky with the conditions mother nature has blessed us with. In fact we got a couple more cm's today which would have been like riding on butter. Unfortunately (sort of) I had to go into town at noon for a Christmas Party (mmm....Chinese Food) and run some errands. I was pretty bummed for not skiing today, but I guess I'll have to get used to the fact that I can't play every day.

Snowmaking Update:
Snowmaking has finished up on the Kings Horn early this morning. Yesterday we had a small slab Avalanche on the Headwall of the Horn. Crown Line were probably about 16 inches deep. Pretty serious stuff considering the weight of man made snow. Luckly our workers were clear of the area when it happened. However it was not unexpected as the boys were warning each other of the fracture lines and stayed clear the area. Once the fracture lines appeared.

Fracture lines expanding.

Avi Debris.

Check out more snowmaking pics on our Facebook Group. In other news, I expect the Premier Race Trail in Atlantic Canada to be open from top to bottom tomorrow. Stoked? The boys have moved the guns to Upper Daves and the Terrain Park and Fraser has been spreading out the snow and grooming it out nicely. I know we mentioned they would be working on Gregs Way. Gregs Way is a spur line which means they have to manually switch the Daves Return line to couple with the Gregs Spur Line. This would require a shut down. So instead we will hold off on Gregs until after we have a shut the system down. Then we can move the coupler from Lower Daves to Gregs. In other words we are progressing much faster that planned. No kidding eh?

Terrain Park Update:
As I mentioned earlier snowmaking has commenced in the Ski Out Terrain Park. You can see the lights are on tonight on the Crabbe Cam. I'll see if I can re-position that camera tomorrow so you can see some progress when I'm back up to the mountain in the am. I just got off the phone with Richard who is putting the remaining skirting and puck board on the A Frame Rail on the mountain. Currently we have 1o features spread out from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the mountain. That does NOT include the Jibs that were built in Diddle Daddle Glades. Needless to say we have the best early season park conditions ever. EVER!

So what are you waiting for? This weekend is going to be prime. We're expecting a good crowd out on Saturday. To prepare for it the Ski Patrol ski packed the T-Bar line and we have T-Bar lift attendants scheduled in for Saturday to help keep the lift lines down so you guys can spend more time riding and less time waiting in line. Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?

Here are some of the projects we are working on....
We are currently upgrading the Disconnects for the Night Skiing Lights that project is supposed to finish up Friday or Monday. Nothing like cutting it close eh? We also have to replace the disconnect on the Patrol Hut as Timmy and the boys have not had any heat in the past two days. Let me tell you, they were none to impressed coming into that Patrol Hut on Wednesday to find no heat the temperature INSIDE the hut was -20. Ski boots are a little hard to put on at that temperature. Luckly Gary moved a space heater to the hut to give the boys a little heat until we can fix the faulty disconnect. We also received our new to us 36" Grilltop yesterday. We are trying to get it installed after the Hill Lights are finished. We would love to have it operational for the Holidays. It more that doubles our current grill space which will be at a premium over the holidays. We've also had some snowmobile issues (nothing is ever easy) this year (I've had two rebuilt in the past two weeks) so I haven't been able to work on the XC trails. We hope to have our loops behind the lodge groomed for this weekend. If that is not enough track set trails for you, cross the road and check out the Slippery Mitten Trails. Brian tells me he was planning to track set his trails today. Sweet and I just finished off Linda and my XC gear. I guess I better remember to mount those bindings!

With that I'll leave you with our latest powder day video. Also if you have trouble getting time off work on the powder days...we are here to help. Click here for your get out of jail...I mean work free card. :-)

Without further delay..."Days Like Today"

I Can Feel It Coming In the Air Tonight

2007-12-15T16:22:00.000-04:00

Everyone is making predictions on what we're getting for snow over the next couple of days. I've heard people as a low at 15 and as high as 60cm. My guess is somewhere around 30. We'll take whatever we can get. I'm pretty excited to see how things pan out. In fact, Stefan didn't ski today to get as much work done as possible, so he could save his legs and log some serious ski time over the next couple of days. I didn't go through the same preparations. I got 5 honkin' runs in today with my buddy Lloyd. Elgees was probably my favorite, however I was still enjoying my little stash on Tippy but a few more people have been enjoying it as well.

We currently rockin' about 14 trails and conditions are absolutely amazing for this time of the year. Don't take my word for it, come ski it for yourself.

Terrain Park Update
We currently have the following features from the top down:

Wide Flat Rail - Urban take off
Wide Flat Box
Flat Down Box
Rainbow Rail
Mini Flat Rail
Kids Fun Box - Mini Pyramid
Down Flat Down - Urban take off (Going out as soon as I'm done this to finish setting it up)
Flat Box
Double Pipe Hand Rail - Urban take off

Snowmaking Update
Our snowmakers shut down this morning after finishing up the bottom half of the Horn. With the in coming storm, we decided to give the boys some time off and let their hoses dry out so they can run more efficiently when they set back up. When they fire back up, they will be heading to the Top of the Horn Spur Line. Once completed they will work on Upper Daves, Gregs Way and the Ski Out Terrain Park to finish off this side of the mountain.

Gonna finish this up so I can get home at a decent hour to rest up for tomorrow!

Cheers

Keep on Rockin' in a Free World

2007-12-13T11:36:00.000-04:00

Don't know why but that song is in my head as I type this.

The weekend was a success from just about every level. The tremendous outpouring of thanks, the videos, the pictures, the shear joy, plus seeing everyone back on the slopes, was awesome. Thank you so much for making our opening weekend a success, it sure makes this job worthwhile. We were once again the first mountain open in Atlantic Canada and we couldn't do it without your support. From our end it was a logistical nightmare, but I think we pulled it off. Even though we had snowmaking troubles, got short shipped food at the last minute, it was far better than I had hoped. Thank you again.

I guess I never really finished off my last post. I actually skied the bearing down to the snowmaking shed, where I met Big Larry and our service provider, who quickly reassembled our pump motor and ran a quick test. Since then, we have been making snow pretty much 24/7. The only exception was the small snow storm that blew through the other night which dropped another 10cms of snow. Those are the reasons we like to shut down. :-)

Monday was quite a site up here. I think the majority of staff that actually came in to work seemed like the walking wounded, walking around shell shocked. I was here and couldn't believe how quiet it seemed. Don't get me wrong, the staff that were not here, definitely earned a day off. Most of the staff were back at it on Tuesday finishing up the jobs we pushed off so we could open a week early, like painting floors in the lodge, and shampooing carpets in our buildings. Things like that. I actually took Tuesday off and it felt great! It was my first day off in weeks. I might even take a day off next week. Crazy...I know.

I came up early yesterday with plans of skiing some powder, but got roped into grooming to pack down the newly fallen snow so it would not blow away in the high winds that were forecasted last night. Good thing as it was very windy. It made painting the skirting on the rails last night a little more interesting and challenging.

Terrain Park Update
Tonight Richard and I are going to break down and move the park to various parts of the mountain to free up some real estate on the Beginner Hill. I'll give you a full run down as soon as we figure out where everything is going to placed. I scoped out a few locations, we'll definitely setup at our old faithful location, but we are looking at some more sweet spots to make things a little more fun. Don't forget, Helmets are Mandatory on all Terrain Features. Stefan and I painted the skirting on all of the features that are currently in use last night. Richard is going to try to skirt and put puckboard on our remaining features we didn't have out last weekend, so we will be good to go when our full on park opens.

Snowmaking Update
The Terrain park update flows nicely into this update. The boys were back up and running early Saturday night when the temps dropped enough. They worked on Daves Dream to finish it up and slowly moved the guns to the Flume. They were able to finish the Flume before the storm on Tuesday. They began setting up early last night from the middle cutoff - down on the Horn. It probably won't be open on Friday, but if I was a betting man, I'd say it will be a go for Saturday. Once they finish the Lower Horn they will move up to the Upper Horn spur line and start blasting the top half. Things are looking good.

Possible Trails and Conditions Update
Beginner Hill - Mid Winter Condition
Upper Daves Dream - Thin in places
Daves Dream - Mid Winter Conditions
Gregs Way - A couple of thin spots
Diddle Daddle - Powder
Diddle Daddle Glades - Watch for underbrush
Little Brave - Powder
Glades - Upper Powder, Lower Part is Closed
WarDance - Marginal
Sunvalley Glades - Watch for underbrush
Humes Flume - Mid Winter Condition
Bottom Half Kings Horn - Excellent
Top of Harolds - Marginal
Top of Tippy - Marginal
Lower Elgees - A couple of thin spots but very good coverage

***Please note this is projected list and some of these trails may not open, official trail openings and closings will be ongoing throughout the weekend as conditions change. Please consult crabbemountain.com for up-to-date conditions***

I'll leave you with a video from opening day.

Richard just pulled in so we are heading out shortly. You can see us working on the Crabbe Cam.

Nothing Is Ever Easy Updates

2007-12-07T12:13:00.000-04:00

This blog is all about giving a behind the scenes look into what is goes on at the Ski Area. Well this post is pretty much that in as true to color as I can offer and still keep it PG.

Nothing is ever easy. I think I'm going to adapt that as my new moto. What we've gone through over the past few days has lived up to that. We're making the attempt to give our customers what they want. They have snow in their backyards to they want to come out and have some fun. Sounds easy to do. Wellllll...

Last post I mentioned about a ticking sound in our Water Pump for our Snowmaking system. It was a bearing going bad. No problem, our service provider checked the system over and ordered a new bearing. Said it would be in Thursday. Not problem. Thursday he shows up, takes the pump head off and realizes that there is not one but two bearings in there and the one he doesn't have, fell apart as he disassembled it. So there was no way to put it back together. So he had one shipped in air to arrive this morning. At this point the courior company has misplaced it. Many more pulling my hair out and four letter words.

I'm trying to get another one shipped Air Canada to arrive sometime today or tonight to get it installed. So the long and the short of it, our snowmaking system is down until I can get the bearing and get our service provider to get it installed.

So at this point here is what we are offering this weekend.

Beginner Hill - Mid Winter Form
Daves - Good Coverage for the top 1/3, Mid Third has some thin spots, Bottom Third as some bare spots
Little Brave - Powder
Glades - Powder w/some thin spots

I skied Daves a few hours ago and was able to hold high speed carves from top to bottom. I don't think I would bring your brand new skis. It is still pretty thin as it is Early December.

Terrain Park Features
Wide Flat Rail - Urban Style
Wide Flat Box
New Double Pipe Handrail - Urban Style
New Pipe Drop
Long Flat Box
New Flat Down
Rainbow Rail
Shorty Rail

We are going to try to add a few more features by tomorrow and through out the weekend.

Roast Beef Rail Jam is still a go.

I'll try to give more details as I get them later today, but I do have to run to try to get this bearing problem sorted out.

***Update - 1:15pm***
Just got a call....our Bearing arrived in St. John's Newfoundland this morning! Just Lovely!

***Update - 2:18pm***
We have another bearing on route to an airport in Toronto, shipping to Fredericton via Air Canada to arrive soon...still waiting for flight numbers.

***Update - 6:56pm***
New Bearing flies in tonight. I'm meeting the plane at 11:30. Service Provider and Big Larry are going to install at 8:30am. We'll test it tomorrow and be back in the snowmaking game tomorrow night. Time for a beverage.

After working on the park until 4:30 am this morning and dealing with this over the past 30 hours. I'm a tired boy.

See ya in the morning.

Oh yeah....this is what 157 Burton Snowboards in a pickup truck look like.

***Update - 12:51 am***Bearing did not land in Fredericton, they can't tell me where it is because their call center is closed. It may come tomorrow at noon....or it may not. I bet someone in Nunavut probably received our bearing this evening. They probably have a better chance of getting it than us at this point. So frustrated right now. Going to bed to get a couple hours sleep.

***Update - 8:20am***Our package is now registered with Air Canada Cargo, scheduled delivery is Dec. 10th. Ok we sent man to the moon in the 60's but now in 2007 I can't get a box from Ontario to New Brunswick, using 2 different shippers, paying a premium for Air Service. I called Cargo in Toronto and told him the scenario, mission critical, yadda, yadda, yadda. On hold for a while, and then the guy comes back to tell me it's my lucky day, it will be on the next flight arriving in Fredericton before noon. I'm not holding my breath because I was promised by Air Canada that it would arrive last night at 11:00. Stay tuned!

***Update - Noon***The Bearing has landed! It's on it's way, or service provider is on his way, Big Larry is on his way. The parking lot is packed, people are stoked. Life is as it should be...now if I could just go for a run or two.

Mother Of An Update

2007-12-05T16:22:00.000-04:00

Monday was pretty mellow for the most part all things considering. Just head down hammering. Pro Data was in and fixed some network jacks and ran a new line for the webcam. I then began the painstaking job of trying to make the webcam do what we want it too. Turns out we didn't have the correct firmware, so I went to download the firmware and the internet crapped out due to the storm. No problem we have backup internet now. Went over to the lodge connected to the Aernet Wifi Zone. Downloaded my update, then hooked back up to our network, applied the firmware. Go check the website link, no go, internet is still down. Eventually gave up and went home in a snow storm. Also spent the day trying to get a ticking sound fixed in our snowmaking pump.

On the drive home I got side swiped by a deer. Saw it at the last minute, it ran into my back bumper. Both truck and bambi survived. The rest of the drive home was not much more fun. My trucked seemed to have a magnetic attaction for the ditch.

I got up early on Tuesday and broke trail for the most part getting to the mountain. Had to keep it between 40 and 60km/h any faster and the snow coming up over the hood of my truck got a little too difficult to manage. Ironically I finally met a plow at the Crabbe Mountain end of the Hainesville Road. We then drove the rest of the way to Crabbe doing 30. Grrrr.

As I pulled in the parking lot Stefan txt'd me to tell me he finally shovelled his way down George St. and was now on Regent and on his way. I quickly grabbed my backcountry skis and started skinning up the Terrain Park. Snow was variable a bit of drifting going on but it was good none the less. The then hit up Upper Daves and had a decent run, oddly I was having trouble getting my skis to float, but I had fun none the less.

I then skinned back to the garage and jumped in the tractor and blew a path out the parking lot and back, so the staff could get in the driveway. On the way back to the lodge Stefan made it in. He quickly got changed and we headed back out to do some product testing. We skied the Little Brave and then down onto the Glades. Conditions were pretty sweet. Still pretty soft and we were touching down here and there, even though we were both on powder skis.

Fraser was out on the mountain packing down the base. Larry was at the snowmaking shop with the pump technician. He took a snowmobile down. Nice.

They we started talking....Should we open this week...what's it going to take...would we be ready...it's not as easy at flipping a switch and we're open. Especially when we were still planning on having another week to get ready.

When we got back to the office, the phones were ringing off the hook. We have 4 lines coming in and all 4 lines were lit up. The best I could do was check my messages, return calls and then check my messages, and so on. I did an interview with CBC and the Daily Gleaner. Every call is..."Are you open", "When are you opening", "Why aren't you open", "You should be open". At the same time trying to get the webcam to upload images to our FTP site.

We were supposed to have managers meeting on Wednesday to make sure everybody was on track to get open for the next weekend. We need to make sure everyone is on board. Can we even pull this off....physically...logistically. The phones keep ringing. Stefan is doing more media interviews. Ok lets have an emergency Managers Meeting right now and make a plan.

We sat down figured out what needed to be done, what we could get by with and what it's going to take to give the customers what they want.

Crystal began ordering food and bar supplies. Gary went back to work on the chair. Larry continued to work on the pump. Bonnie got on the phone arranging float money with the bank. Wendy put her team to work tuning rental gear. Stefan and I were on the phones returning messages and doing more interviews. A very hectic week just got even more hectic.

Today I went exploring in a groomer to check out the far side. Lower Elgees looks really nice the headwalls are in pretty rough shape. I see someone tagged Norms, the headwall didn't look like much fun, was it? I finally got the webcam to upload pics but only when it senses motion. We'll keep working the bugs out of. Please be patient, and understanding that it's not my biggest priority at the moment. Getting open for this weekend is, but at least we got it functional. I spent the rest of day fighting with our ISP to fix a problem we've been working on for 3 months now. Not impressed but it looks like I may have made progress today. We'll see.

I still want to get the skirting on the rails painted, prepare for the Staff Meeting tonight, organize the Roast Beef Rail Jam and get us in the position to open. I'm a sucker for punishment...why not.

Snowmaking Update:
Snowmaking started back up and running late this morning, they are working at the top of the mountain to give us a good base for the unload area of the chair. They are also blowing from the bottom of the Flume to Chair Bottom. Once they finish up across the top they are going to start working on the thin areas on Daves with hopes of getting it in decent shape. If we can get to and from the chair we should be able to open up even more terrain. We'll announce what we're opening on Friday at noon.

Terrain Park Update:

That pretty much sums it up. Kind of where we left off last year with our year ending jam. DJ, draw prizes, and fun. Oh yeah, we're going to be serving up Norm's Famous Roast Beef. Norm is going to teach me how to rig up the spit, which is something else I got to add to my long list of things that need to be done by the end of the week. I know, a jam session on December 8th. Crazy huh? Why not add some Roast Beef to the mix...you know you want some.

Well with that I'm off to meet our staff for the 2007-2008 season.

See you here on Saturday.

PS. I almost forgot here is another promo videos. We really need to find some more skiers and riders who like driving through snowstorms to be in these videos.

Bout time I get back at'er

2007-12-02T20:13:00.000-04:00

It's December, so I better get my game face on and start updating on a regular basis. I'll be honest with you (not that I'm ever not honest with you) it's been a lot more work than I thought keeping this thing updated this year. As we get closer to opening day, I can foresee things mellowing out a bit. I know the last few weeks have been hectic. This week week will be pretty nuts for me as well as we'll be hiring all our staff, so going through a massive pile of paperwork is something I can say I'm not really looking forward too.

As most of you know we are now making snow. We had a few logistical issues to sort though before we could fire up earlier in the week but for the most part those issues are now sorted out. We now have a new whole new raft of issues to deal with so the storm on Monday and Tuesday is a welcome sign in more ways that one. It will give us a chance to shut down and work out a few more of these issues.

One a positive note, the snowmaking head we had Lloyd from Ed's Shop on Keswick Ridge build, is working flawlessly. At first it was freezing up a bit, but they put bigger nozzles in and it is working ticketty boo (sp?). With the shut down we will take a spare head back to Lloyd so he can finish the other two heads now that we know it will work. We're pretty stoked about that.

Terrain Park Update:
Richard and I both worked all day Saturday and Sunday skirting and putting puckboard on rails. We got everything done except the A Frame and the Down Flat Down. We also need to add some paint to the new skirting, but we need it to warm up a bit for that. Obviously we're not in a big hurry for that to happen. :-) I will also add that I don't think may hands have been as cold as they have been in the past two days. Nothing like working for hours on end with bare hands, while getting pummelled by snowmaking spin off. brrrrr.

Comp update:
Nothing new to add other than it's gonna happen this Saturday. Joel and I are going to put our heads together tomorrow to lay down the details. I've heard Rails and Roast Beef, might be the title. Generator, Snow System, DJ and tents are booked. I promise to update you as soon as I know more.

Snowmaking Update:
Snowmaking is coming along great. They have guns placed from the top of the Beginner Hill to about the bottom of Upper Daves. Coverage is good, especially on Daves where the wind is working more in our favor. They will keep blasting until the humidity rises too much with the incoming storm. They will probably be shutting down sometime Monday afternoon. At this point we're not sure when they will be back in as we're getting conflicting weather reports for Thursday. One says snow, one says cold, we're not fussy, we'll take either.

Most of my friends are away on their annual fall ski trip to Sugarloaf/USA. I gotta say I wish I was there with them. It's always a good time. I did however get to do turns this weekend. I actually just came in from a test run of the Beginner Hill. The snowmaking whales were pretty fun. Richard joined me for one run before he had to leave to go back to Moncton. Good times though.

Tomorrow morning I meet a rep from Pro Data who will be running some new network lines for us. One of which will be for a our webcam. Pretty excited to finally get it up and running. I wonder what type of trouble we'll have in getting it synced on our site? As I've learned in this business, nothing is as easy as it would seem.

PS. My thought and prayers go out to a really good friend of mine DB. Get better soon buddy!

Thanx

2007-11-25T18:18:00.000-04:00

Thank you for the overwelming support this past weekend. Our attendance numbers were up which is awesome considering the Santa Clause parades in both Fredericton and Woodstock as well as the Hot Shots Rail Jam in Moncton. Everyone seems really excited about the upcoming season which is really awesome. I got to met lots of people and see old friends again. I think the most special moment was when formal General Manager Norm Hull approached me and began questioning me the same way as I used to do to him back in the day when I was patroller. You know when are you going to start making snow? When are you opening? How many trails are going to open at Christmas. It was all in good fun and I hope to sit down over coffee with Norm soon for a chat.

It was great to have all the support of all the booths that made it out and for everyone who came out to join. Once again thank you so much. It makes my job worth while.

Once everything died down after my speech and the door prizes, I got to hang out with some great friends and enjoy a beverage or two and check out some of the videos that were playing on the new TV, courtesy of Wacky's. I was really nice a relaxing.

When I got home my friends Lloyd and Diane were over and served me some delicious tacos. We then settled in downstairs and played the Wii. Too much fun. I was a bowling god last night.

Today we continued working on our Glades. Thanks to Todd, Jay, Matt, Timmy, Calvin and everyone else who joined us. (Sorry I forgot some names). We got things thinned a little further down on Diddle Daddle Glades to the next turn. And then we worked away on another top secret location, located somewhere in the middle area of the mountain. It will pop up on the trail map the next time we publish one. But we can't give up all our secrets. :-) Maybe that will be a little incentive to get more people out helping to make our glades better.

When I got home tonight Alex and Linda were both snuggling in a chair which I had to snap a picture of.

With that, I'm taking tomorrow off...sort of. And will be back at it on Tuesday. Snowmaking should start soon, stay tuned, we'll keep you in the loop.

Cheers!

Flurry of Activity going on

2007-11-22T15:14:00.000-04:00

There has been all kinds of stuff going on around the mountain this week. So much in fact that it had to take a day of crappy weather to be able sit at my desk for any period of time.

Let's see, what has been up since our last chat...We began painting the bathrooms. We're not entirely finished but you should notice an improvement this weekend. I wrote and passed my ski patrol exam over the weekend. Now I just have to find time to do my practicals and re-cert on my CPR. We were at the Shediac Bay Ski Club Ski Show and Shop on Saturday representing both Crabbe and Wentworth. I got to have supper at the Pumphouse in Moncton with John McNair of Outdoor Elements. We had a chairlift evacuation training on Sunday. The changing area in the Ticket Office now has a fresh coat of varnish. Our Rails have all received a new coat of paint and are setup in front of the lodge. The boys have laid hay all around the snowmaking pipes. K-Line has been in to change the bulbs for our Night Skiing Lights. Aernet Wireless has been in to install High Speed Wireless Internet for the Thirsty Boot. Lots of activity. I'll fill you in on the rest at the Open House.

Last night Stefan and I picked up 3 Rails for Wentworth from Richard Cote and delivered them to Kerr Controls to take them to Wentworth. Today, I then picked up 157 of Wentworth's snowboards at Kerr to bring to Crabbe to be tuned on our Wintersteiger. 157 Snowboards are rather heavy, especially when loaded on a trailer driving back to Crabbe in an ice storm.

Soooo Open House. We're set to go are you. We're moving the festivities up to the Thirsty Boot Lounge this year. A little more intimate, a better view and a change. Change can be good, right? As you can see from the picture above the girls in the kitchen have been making sweet trays that will be for sale. It will be your last chance to get a deal on a season pass. Ski Mitt will be selling at 25% off. We have a bunch of door prized to give away including a 2007-2008 Season Pass, plus someone will get to pick to see if it will be someone from Crabbe or Wentworth that will win the big trip for 4 to Stoneham and Mont Sainte-Anne. Should be fun! So come pick up some stocking stuffers, some cheap logo wear at the Ski Mitt, pick up some holiday baking, enjoy some munchies, check out the booths, eat some BBQ, enjoy some munchies, have a beverage but most off all, see all your friends you only see during ski season. I hope to see you here.

Cheers!

First Tracks 2007 - 2008 UPDATE

2007-11-13T13:34:00.000-04:00

It is what it is! I got up this morning to the cheerful sight of a yard full of snow. Will today be the day? I wussed out a few weeks ago on first tracks. I sent a quick txt to Stefan to tell him to bring gear as today may be the day. I got up here early. Things were looking pretty good. A whopping 5 cm base of packy snow. I got a reply from Stefan, his gear was packed and he was on his way.

Around 10 or so Stefan burst through the door. We hummed and haaa'd for a bit and then called it. Today was the day! We quickly geared up. I was kind of bummed I forgot my climbing skins, but oh well, backpack and rock boards it was.
Moi

Stefan

We decided the top pitch of the Flume would have the best conditions or maybe we are both getting old and didn't want to play launch the drainage ditches on Upper Daves. Nah, it can't we're getting too old, after all we are excited about skiing on 5 cms of snow and hay.

I started off, while Stefan video taped. As I slowly picked up speed, I went through that whole diagnostics check in your head. Alright how do I do this again. That first turn is always a little shaky but everything just clicked and we were off to the races. I then stopped so I could get some pics of Stefan and realized the snow hadn't exactly bonded with the glass below and my feet slid right out from under me.

Stefan came down to join me and we took turns video taping and sessioning the top pitch. My first complete run, I rode all the way down to the cutoff below the headwall of the Horn. And I gotta say, conditions were actually pretty good. My next run, I forgot to switch my boots from walk to ski mode. Not the most graceful run I've every skied and ended it with a slow motion roll over at the end. We have it on video so you'll be able to get a chuckle at my mad skillz.

We took a bunch more runs and had a blast. We then hiked up to the top and straight ran the Terrain Park. Super fun and I didn't hit anything. Stefan hit a big rock that threw him for a loop but no real damage done, so life is good.

It's good day of skiing when you're hauling vegetation on your gear. Check out the dead leaves and grass on the end of Stefan's Pole.

Ripping up the POW POW!

Just after we got back to the office and got changed and back to work, Gary mentioned he had to go run the chair for an hour or so to test some newly installed equipment. Too bad we didn't know about this earlier or we could have had lift access first tracks. Either way we had a blast and I can't wait for the next snowfall. Video to come maybe as early as tomorrow! Stay tuned...

JJ's Blog Exclusive: Samsquanch Siting at Crabbe!

***UPDATE*** - 8:30pm

Lest We Forget

2007-11-12T18:17:00.000-04:00

While many of us are enjoying a long weekend, I'm sure everyone paid their respects to our Forces both past and present. Without them we would live in a much different world. Thank you for the work that you do and please stay safe.

Saturday was our first glade thinning day of the year. George and Eric got an early start and took care of Steve's Drive Thru and Pugs Powder. They reported quite a few blow downs but for the most part things were in good shape. Todd, Stefan, Calvin and I went after SunValley Glades and got it cleaned up. There was a lot of underbrush growing in. There is also a new surprise in here. We also talked about making it longer and wider, but that will be for another day.

We then moved down to begin work on finishing Diddle Daddle Glades. We joined Jay and Ryan who were already hard at work. We had some progress, everyone except me worked near the top and cleared out a couple of bad widow makers and worked on a few features.

I worked on the bottom part trying to get a hole punched through at the bottom. I ran into some saw troubles, so I didn't get as much work done as I wanted too. We're going to need a bigger crew to get this one finished before the snow flies. Our next glade thinning day November 25th, which is the day after the Open House. I hope more people can come out and help us out.

My buddy Denis is in town from Calgary for a visit. We went out Mama's to check out Big Yellow Barn. Darryl and the boys rocked the place. It was funny the number of people that approached me to say we had to book them for the Thirsty Boot. I can assure you, Darryl and I have already been in talking about it. Just haven't set actual dates yet. Hope to do that in the next week or so.
The band finished up early or on time by Mama's standards so we hopped in a cab and headed over to the Snoot to visit Mike for a bit and then onto the Diplomat for some early morning munchies. It was a great night had a good time hanging out with Denis again. Gotta make a trip back out west to visit him again sometime.

Linda and I went up to Crabbe for a hike on Sunday, brrrr it was cold. We picked up some firewood and called it a day. Alex had a blast and was totally wrote off when we got home.

Today we winterized the barn or should I say rearranged everything in the barn. Moved the tractor to the back, the snowblower to the front. Had a bon fire to get rid of some left over wood and boxes from the move and renos this summer. Another chilly day! :-) Some snow coming tonight.

I'm back up to the mountain tomorrow to start another fun filled week. This coming weekend we are off to the Shediac Bay Ski Clubs - Ski and Snowboard Swap and Show. And then Chair Evac Training on Sunday. Should be a fun filled weekend.

With that I'll leave you with this years East Coast Ski Thriller "Wanderland" by Meathead Films filmed entirely on the East Coast.

Cheers

To Ben Eoin and Beyond

2007-11-07T15:11:00.000-04:00

I spent the past few days in Cape Breton at the Atlantic Ski Area Association Fall Meetings hosted at Ski Ben Eoin. Other than the semi annual meetings, there is also an Educational Series. I brought Jay Sullivan our Snow School Director and Mark Graham our Assistant Operations Manager.

An hour before leaving on Sunday, Leslie called saying that Wentworth (our planned destination for the night) was without power due to Post Hurricane Noel. We decided that rather getting up at 3 in the morning to make our meetings, we would leave as planned and hope for the best. On the way there we passed two convoys of Hydro Quebec Trucks, not a great sign. As we drove through Amherst we tried Leslie again, still no power. Plan B was to crash in Truro. When we arrived in Truro, we were greeted by big bright blue flashes lighting up the night sky and all of the street lights going out on the highway. Not a good sign. Leslie still didn't have power, and all the hotels were booked, so we continued on. We crossed the Causeway into Cape Breton shortly before midnight and found a place to stay, The Skye Lodge. We woke the lady up that runs the place (oops), who didn't seem to impressed with checking us in but did so anyway. We then polished off a couple of beverages before crashing for the night.

When we awoke the next morning, realizing we had plenty of time, we drove back across the causeway and had a delicious breakfast at the Big Stop. We then continued our journey at a relaxed pace. We arrived at Ben Eion an hour early so we kept driving to go find the Delta in Sydney. Mission accomplished. Got back to Ben Eoin as the rest of the crews were arriving. Members from Brookvale, Poley, Wentworth, Martock, and Ben Eoin were all present.

We got down to business pretty quickly with the General Meeting. We discussed ASAA promotions, agendas and what not. We got a review of our stats from last year from Sylvain Audet which was very educational, as well as a quick presentation from the head Randall Kennedy, Passenger Ropeways Inspector (Lift Inspector) from Nova Scotia. For those who don't know Nova Scotia is on the cutting edge with their Lift Mechanic program and Randy is a key to this.

Soon after Mark and I headed out the join the rest of the Lift Maintenance and Ski Patrollers and we went over Chair Evacuation procedures at each of the mountains and gave pointers and took notes on what others did that we liked and didn't like and how we can all improve our systems. Very informative. We then rejoined the Business Meeting still in process. We got a briefing from Michael LaMothe from CSIA and Dan Genge from CASI before breaking for the day.

Fast forward to the Delta, we're all checked in and then joined everyone at the Cash Bar and Dinner, which was fabulous. We got great news that Marble Mountain crew had finally arrived after being delayed on the ferry during the storm. Leslie introduced me to the Anne and Shannon from Marble. Anne, GM from Marble said she recognized me from our Videos. I was pleasantly surprised to know that she had seen them. We sat with Cathy from Poley, Leslie, Andy from Martock and Mark from Nifty Promotions. Mark, Andy and I had great discussion about park maintenance. Thanks for the great advice and conversation guys.

Soon after dinner we were kicked out for the banquet hall, and headed upstairs to the Crown and Moose, there we did what most people do at conferences and partook a couple of beverages, a few laughs and lots of great stories. I hung out with Jamie and Nelson from Poley for bit, as Nelson questioned me about our blog, and then hung out with Shannon, Anne and Cathy. Cathy from Poley wussed out on us and crashed early. Soon Shannon said he was heading off to bed. I started to give him a hard time about giving in early, but then he mentioned he had been up since the day before due to traveling in the storm. I figured that was a good enough excuse for me. Also I'm going to need a tour guide when I head backcountry skiing at Gros Morne in the next year or so. We eventually got kicked out the bar and headed up to the hospitality room and ended up hanging out with a mixed crew from Wentworth, Martock and Ben Eion. Jay had pulled pin earlier in the night, I gave up around 1:30 am or so. Mark was still having a good time when I left.

Everyone seemed a little show the next morning. I would have overslept, but Jay gave me a wake up call. I mistakenly set my alarm for 7:30pm. Oops. We were running about 15-20 minutes late due to waiting for breakfast. We were a little worried about being late but arrived at the same time as everyone else except Poley who was there about a half an hour early or should I say actually on time. We soon broke off into groups, Lift Mechanics had a meeting with Randy and then we went over developing an apprenticeship program to help keep a steady stream Lift Mechanics getting qualified so that we don't run out of quality trained people. I'm quite privy to what goes on behind the scenes of a ski area and even I was blown away by how in depth these programs go, I think someone from the outside world would be flabbergasted. While Mark and I were at the Lift Mechanics Seminar, Jay was at a Snow School round table with all of the Snow School Directors present, going over retention of Instructors, how to recruit more instructors, uniforms and what not.

We broke for lunch and then we had a round table discussion on Terrain Parks hosted by Mark Fisher of Nifty. A lot of good ideas went back and forth as all of the major terrain park designers from Atlantic Canada were involved. Thanks guys.

We then hit the road, Mark slept across the seats in my Golf for a good part of the trip home, he complained his stomach felt sour...I wonder why. The rain hit hard and heavy from Moncton - home just to add insult to injury. I want to thank Jay and Mark (who was quite a trooper, especially on Tuesday) for partaking in the meetings and we will use many of the ideas we came up with to make Crabbe Mountain a better place to both work and play.

Now it's back at'er, getting ready for the Glade Thinning on Saturday, the Shediac Bay Ski Show next weekend and the Open House the week after, basic day to day operation stuff. So many things to get done, so little time.

Stefan tells me it was snowing at Crabbe on Tuesday. Yeehaw!

Cheers

First Measurable Snow!

2007-10-30T10:34:00.000-03:00

I got home late last night but made sure batteries and cameras were ready to go ,and colder weather gear was packed. I was set. Slept well, very well.

Linda got up around 6, and said everything was white. It didn't take me long to fly out of bed and let Alex out to play in the snow. She was a little timid at first walking over to the deeper snow on the lawn and cautiously putting her paws down in it. Then she took off running and jumping for joy. It was like watching her become reacquainted with an old friend. I know her and I are so much on the same level. I quickly showered and got ready to go to "work", kissed my wife goodbye as she sheepishly just shook her head at me.

I took this pic of our patio furniture on my way out to my truck, thinking to myself, it's been a few years since I've skied in October.

Raced as best I could to the mountain, heading straight to the top. There was more snow at my house then at Crabbe, oh well. There is about a cm here, enough to make Gary's job a little tougher working out on the mountain, but not enough to slow us down any up here.

Didn't bother with skiing, it was a little bony and not really worth wrecking a perfectly good pair of rock skis for. I'm starting to question my dedication.

As I type this and wait for "hi speed Internet" load my pics, the sun is shining and snow has pretty much melted but it was a great site to see, with more to come! I'm stoked, are you.

Ski ya later!

Twas a good swap and a great weekend

2007-10-29T16:39:00.000-03:00

My weekend started on Friday with setup for the swap. I had my truck filled with rental gear up to the top of the bed rails, plus plus the tent, the lights, the season pass computer, all our paperwork etc etc etc. It didn't leave much room left for me. Stefan and I setup for the most part, Jay met us there for a bit but then had to leave to take a shower???

We started to hook everything up and quickly realized that our phone line was dead...again...this year. So I called our local phone company and they dispatched someone a couple of hours later who came and hooked things up. I'm not going to mention names here, but every year we have to hook up a phone line, it's a hassle as the local phone company doesn't understand why we need it, why only for two days, why I get so upset when it doesn't work, and why I get even more upset with they forget to disconnect it after we are done. All this for connection charge, and a full months service, but c'est la vie.

Tim Smith helped me get our rental gear sorted and added into their inventory. And everything went smoothly from here on out. Leslie arrived around 6 or 7, right after Stefan, Jay and I had finished eating supper. Sorry Leslie. She did however give me a hard time for forgetting our price lists which came up again and again. By the end of the day our knees and backs were killing us but when we tallied up the days sales it made things worth it. We then retired to Duncan Young's place for beverages and munchies (mmmm yum...thanks) before heading home to bed.

Got up early, but still didn't get to the swap until 8:30, made a quick coffee run for our crew and we were good to go. Before they opened the doors I took a quick stroll down the isles hoping to find some tele gear. Nada. Oh well maybe next year.

The line up went from the front doors to the end of the building. Diana and Bonnie joined us and man were we busy. After lunch, Bonnie and Diana called it a day (thank you so much for your help). Leslie left soon after but was still giving me the gears about forgeting the price lists (Yeah I know you reminded me as I was packing and I still forgot them. Stefan and I held'er down as they say and Jay came back and gave us a hand tearing down and loading my truck back up. It was great day, sales were good. I got to meet lots of people and everyone I talked to was so positive about the upcoming season. I'm very stoked too.

I got home around supper just in time to change into my costume. Linda's costume absolutely ruled. She made it her self. We then when to Lloyd and Diane's to begin our night of party hopping. We then took off for Kevin and Tanya's Annual Halloween Bash. We stayed there for a few fun filled hours and then it was time to head to the next party back on Keswick Ridge at Ethan and Rebecca's place. Again what a great time, got to see some people I hadn't seen in a long time. Thanks to Linder for carting us around and getting me home in one piece.

I was a little slow moving around on Sunday morning around, my joints hurt from standing on the cold concrete floor for the past two days and I'm sure the festivities from the night before didn't help my cause much. Did some work around the house and then headed up the mountain with Alex. Unloaded the left over gear from the swap, did some paperwork and then had a great mountain bike ride with Nick, Amos, Ethan, Kaelen, Jason and myself. Ethan was still in his spiderman costume from the night before. I wasn't really dressed for the cold wind so I called it quits a little early. Alex had a blast and didn't move all night.

I'm taking today off, if you want to call it that. I've called the mountain twice, talked to Leslie for an half hour or so, picked up a new camera for the mountain, updated the website and now I'm writing this. So I guess this is what a day off is like.

Tonight we are supposed to see some flurries, nothing to get the boards out for only a cm or so which likely won't accumulate but I'll try to be up early to see if I can get some pics for ya. In the meantime I'm going to leave you with this little adrenalin rush. It's not snow related but it is very....WOW!

Think Snow!

Swappin'...yes indeed...we're swappin'

2007-10-26T15:55:00.001-03:00

Well here we are at the Annual Crabbe Mountain Race Club Equipment Swap. Things have been going pretty smoothly at our end. We had troubles with our debit line (again this year). I called on 16th to get it hooked up. I guess in the end it doesn't really matter when you call, it's still not going to work when we get there.

Lots of gear coming in, there is some really nice XC skis that would look really nice in a corner in at home. Unfortunately my wife probably won't go for that...again...this year. Lots of bikes and stuff as well. Come on down tomorrow morning bright and early for the best gear at the best prices. If you have some stuff you want to get rid of, get it here by 9:00 tonight.

We have booth setup. You can buy Early Bird Season Passes, Stocking Stuffers, Super Value Cards, Sign up for Snow School Programs, or buy some Crabbe Mountain wearables. That's right, we're having a logo wear blow out, hoodies, vest, jackets, T's, Baby T's even some funky Camo hats. Don't forget buy your Season Pass before November 24th for you chance to win a trip to Mont-Sainte-Anne and Stoneham. Speaking of which they have a booth setup this year as well.

Last night I fooled around with our website a bit, I added a video to the main page. In the next few weeks I'll be added a video page as sort of archive, much like our photo gallery. I'm pretty excited about it. Also don't forget to sign up to our Facebook group, Crabbe Mountain - Official.

On that note I gotta run. I'm currently sitting in the parking lot typing this as Free E-Zone does not work in the Capital Exhibit Center.

Toodles

Things are starting to heat up...I mean cool down

2007-10-15T12:15:00.001-03:00

It's been a whirl wind few weeks for me since we last spoke. I've cleaned out my desk at my old job, been training the new person which will make my new job much easier. Imagine only having to work 1 more than full time at a time. I'm excited, and so is my wife.

Lets see, what has been up since my last post. I rode my bike from Crabbe to Zealand on the Trans Canada trail with the Crabbe Mountain Race Club in their first annual bike-a-thon. A good time was had by all and I won a really cool prize. Speaking of biking, I made it down to Wentworth for their Festival of Colors. Connor was my tour guide. I had a blast, too bad I couldn't stay the whole weekend. So much fun. Other than that, it's been planning and fixing and organizing and planning and fixing and organizing, repeat.....

Things are coming along fine. The boys finished rebelting the last track for our groomers, and judging by the track pattern in the driveway, they have one groomer now up and running. Maintenance is coming along on our buildings, ski racks have been stained, the rental shop and ticket office have a fresh coat of paint. Some small reno projects in the lodge are on going. So everything is good on that front.

Bonnie and Diana have been in getting the season passes entered in our system and the ticket office is cleaned up. I guess the girls didn't like the idea of me storing my mountain bike behind the counter. Who knew.

We have some Glade Thinning Days coming up. As you know our glades were awesome last year and we'd like to improve upon them, maintain the ones we have and add more terrain if at all possible. Let me know if you are interested.

Ski Swap is upon us. Now is the time to clear out your gear closet and get rid of the old stuff and fill it with new stuff. I'm hoping I will have some room for my personal stuff in my truck. Wendy and Sassy just loaded my truck up with Rental Snowboards, skis and boots that we are selling off. It's amazing how much a pick up truck load of ski gear weighs. I still have to load the pop up shelter, season pass computer and what not in there. Gonna be a slow trip into Fredericton tonight. I can already picture the look on my wifes face as I bring home more stuff than I take to the ski swap.

We'll have our Early Bird Pass sale on the go this weekend as well. Plus you can pic up your season pass, sign up for our snow school programs and all that fun jazz. If you forget how good the skiing was last year watch this video and see if it brings back any memories on the conditions.

Yes we had a pile of snow last year, and the Farmers Almanac is calling for an early and big snow year so don't be disappointed, buy your pass now and get ready for a fun filled winter at Crabbe.

For the park rats, Richard has built some new rails for us. Stay tuned for pics soon once I get them skirted and painted. I'm pretty stoked to get things up and running. Speaking of which we are tentatively planning a jam session very early season. Stay tuned. Also thought I would send some props to Aaron "P-Nut" Johnson who is gracing the pages of Snowboard Canada in the Who's Next section. He mentions working for the Crabbe Mountain Snow School in there as well. Congrats!

With that, my phone will not stop ringing plus I gotta get this truck load of stuff in town. See ya at the ski swap tomorrow. Oh yeah here are the hours...

Friday noon - 9 drop off your gear.
Saturday 9 - noon Sale and Swap.
Saturday 2 -3 pick up your cheques.

I'll be looking forward to meeting many of you. Don't be shy!

It's Been Awhile

2007-09-20T11:48:00.000-03:00

To be read in the key of Staind

Long time no see. I guess that is kind of my fault. What a minute, it is my fault. It's mostly been because I've had a summer to remember, but one I don't want to relive for a while. New house...new job...stress...

We spent the spring trying to buy houses in the Keswick Ridge area. That didn't work out so then we started looking at land. We found what we thought was the perfect lot, so we put our house on the market, as soon as that happened the land developer got sketchy on us and started changing things around so we walked away from the deal. Then our house sold in 4 days so now we were faced with being homeless in 30 days. Gregor offered us his place to rent if we needed it, for which I am thankful. So we went out looking at houses in different areas and found one in Upper Kingsclear. Two days later it was ours, well the banks really. It's nice it's got a water view, it's about 2 clicks to Woolastook Park, which just so happens to be one of Alex's favorite swimming and mountain biking places. So after moving and doing renos (which still aren't quite complete) in the heat wave this summer it's been a never ending battle and I haven't been out on the bike much at all. Alex is still stoked over the huge private back yard though. So yeah in a little over a week we list, sold and bought a house.

Ok enough of that stuff, you are probably more interested in the new job. Leslie, Gregor and I met in the spring to discuss the position. Leslie promised to get back to me in July. After a few heart wrenching delays, we started negotiations and came to an agreement in late August. So here I sit. Like many of you, I've been an arm chair General Manager for many years. Always quick to criticize their mistakes and know how it should have been done this way or that way. After working here for many years I've learned that there is a whole lot more going on behind the scenes. It's not quite as easy as throwing a switch and we're open. Plus, let's face we are not exactly in the thriving market (I hope to change that, wanna help), and our market if far from massive. However, we as Crabbe skiers are a dedicated bunch and know what type of gem Crabbe Mountain can be. But to operate a ski area as a business, retain staff and to provide the best possible product of our clients is definitely an uphill battle at times. I am excited to be in this position, but at the same time, I don't think overwhelmed is the right word, but challenged might be a better one. It's going to be a fine line to walk but at the end of the day, I know we will offer the best possible conditions and on top of that Crabbe Mountain boasts some of the best terrain in Maritimes.

Updates
Our maintenance crews have been hard at work since early August getting there annual chair maintenance completed. They have also completed an annual grip test. They are now working at bushin' the pitches when it's nice out and working on installing new track belts on the groomer when it's not so nice (the floor of the garage is covered in track bolts right now. Seriously it's amazing how many bolts are in a single cleat. Plus there is a ton of other maintenance items to be looked at when you have a dozen buildings siting idle all summer long.

Two weeks ago Jay Sullivan and I attended that North East Winter Sports Summit in Bretton Woods, NH. We had a lot of fun eating at the Red Parka (a must for any ski fanatic) on the way there. Once there, we got to check out the latest and greatest gear and technologies as well as taking seminars on everything from managing your electricity consumption, lift maintenance, snowmaking technologies, marketing, terrain parks, risk management, climate change, snow school, to you name it. There was even a session on how effective blogs can be as a marketing tool, we didn't go to that one. :-) At night we were treated to one of the best firework displays I have ever witnessed in person. I guess that is the price you pay when the firework company is showing off to all of it's potential clients. All in all, we learned a lot, and came back with tons of ideas. After we finished shopping in North Conway we were both hungry. Neither one of us are big Mickey Dee's fans but decided to hit up the Drive Thru anyways. There, we were introduced to Nugget Fest. 20 nuggets for $3.00. To quote Timmy "JUDAS!" Yup, I'm glad they don't have that special up here. We decided to hit up LL Bean's in Freeport around midnight, after all, it is open 24 hours. Once finished, we hit the road and headed back to the border. I'd like to thank Redbull, some wacky techno and ZZ Top cranked to the max for getting us home safely. I think I crawled into bed around 5:30am.

I'm now going to open the floor to you on things you would like to see to make Crabbe Mountain a more special place to play this winter. Where can we improve, how can we make things better? Please forward you comments to gm at crabbe mountain dot com or post a comment at the bottom. I'm not making any promises but I'll see what I can do. :-)

This is my second time typing this, so I'm going to head out for a quick bike ride and then head into town to run some errands. I'll leave you with Powder Whores latest Hooray for Snow.

Stoked??? Look for more regular updates coming soon. I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

The Patch

2007-05-22T19:02:00.000-03:00

As you know the weather was pretty much a downer all weekend long. Stefan called me sunday morning to see if I was interested in some turns. Why not. Cabin fever is killing me. So we went in search of snow at Crabbe with my other trusty ski partner Alex. We found several patches. Alex loved it rolling around on the snow, sliding downhill on her back. The best one we found was next to tower 8 on the Horn. We had fun just being kids and doing laps on 200 foot patch of snow. If you must know, I didn't inflict any damage to my skis, I'm not sure how Stefan made out. Fun times. More pics coming later in the week. So here we go..."The Patch"

Yesterday Linder, Alex and I when out to Lloyd, Diane, and Tia's house to celebrate Linder's birthday. A good time was had by all, Linder is hurtin' today.

Here is a link to some Fredericton Ryan Leech videos.

Ryan Leech Therapy

2007-05-20T10:21:00.000-03:00

It's been a while. Things have been pretty nuts in my small world since we last talked. I've skied Crabbe twice since we got back from the Chic Chocs. The first time with Stefan, and then a two weeks ago I skied most of the Flume. I met up with Jay Sullivan, Ryan Bartlett, and Adam Mix. We took skied on the Horn from the air bump to the last cut off. It was nice a refreshing. Stefan was up last weekend but could only find some patches. We were thinking about going up when it snowed the other day, but we didn't get what we were supposed to in town so we aborted that dawn patrol mission, I think I regret it. I miss skiing. I'll post some pics in the next few days while I get caught up.

My personal life has been really tough lately. Linda had a cousin pass away two weeks ago and then my grandmother passed away on Mothers Day. It was tough. She lived a very good life, and touched many people. I hope I can live my life and the way she did.

Yesterday Ryan Leech was in town signing autographs and putting on a demo at Officer's Square. He's in the middle of a cross Canada tour to junior high schools and bike shops across Canada called Trials of Life. Linda and I went to check it out. We were bummed Eric didn't hand us a ticket for the bike they were giving away. I think Linda needs a DH/Free Ride bike. Anywho, Ryan did some amazing tricks on his bike. I'm quite sure he is not human. For a warm up he was doing side hops over a high jump bar. Think standing high jump except he is on a bike from a balancing standing position and then jumping side ways over the bar. He started at about a foot off the ground and finished with the bar higher than his handle bars. Amazing. He then did a bunch of stuff on his various boxes and rails. My favorite was when he bounced on his front tire and turned on top of a high box. Really cool stuff. He also jumped up onto the roof of the trailer. And then the crowed encouraged him to go higher. So he jumped from the roof of the trailer up onto the roof of the pavillion. He then rode up to the top and balanced on the peak. Amazing to see in person. He finished off balancing and rideing across a bar narrower than his bike tires.

Here is a link to his show he put on in Whistler which is basically the same show he did here in Freddy Beach except he rode up onto a roof top here in Fredericton. Link. That is pretty much his show.

Great time, very postive role model for kids and all round good guy. In the world of it's all about me professional athletes it's refreshing to see someone who is positive and trying to make a change in kids life. Keep up the good work Ryan.

Here are a couple of shots I took with my camera phone.

Climbing up the Roof

At the top

Dropping in

Back down to the top of his trailer

On the balance bar

Closer look at the bar.

Further proof Ryan is an Alien.

Later this week, I'll post up a bunch of write ups and pics from the last month.

Cheers.

The Trip

2007-04-30T23:16:00.000-03:00

Right off the bat, I'm not getting into details on where we were. If you know where we were, great, I'm sure it's a special place to you too, so please keep it too yourself, the world needs more off the beaten track places. If you want to go, get some gear, and come talk to me, buy me a drink or two and we'll talk.

I gave up count em, TWO, (2) Sugarloaf Trips to go on the The Trip. Timmy gave me grief and I gotta say it truely hurt not join them. In my mind, I missed a lot of friends, a lot of good times and great memories. But the trade off was for 6 days I got to play in a dreamland where the biggest stress was where to ski next, and what to eat or drink next, with 8 friends, some of who I didn't meet until after we slogged 12.5 clicks into the mountains and they arrived at our backcountry hut. We all bonded instantly over good conversation, great food and cheer, not to mention a playground beyond words, all at our finger tips and no one else for 12 kms.

I had a great TR in my mind but Stefan's Video blew me away, so I'll let the pics to the talking. I hope you enjoy...

Stefan (Smiley), Rob (RR or RobRox), moi, Gregor (Some Good) day one

Stefan, Moi (Playing with snow), and Gregor enjoying the huricane force winds.

Rob gives a thumbs up as his pole straps demostrate the strength of the wind

Rob, Gregor and Stefan make their way across one of the plateaus, destination natural glades.

Andrew and Pierre arrived in the middle of the night, animals!

Last years project. Gregor and I bagged Couloir Des Aigles (middle)

This years Project, Gregor and I bagged S-Couloir (middle)

Caroline and Pierre hooking us up with some grub

Supper time

Home Sweet Home, Pierre shows off his big sticks.

Caroline, the Two Pierres, Rob and Andrew harvested corn chowdah all afternoon in this bowl

Gregor showing me how it's done. If you look closely, you can see where I ragged dolled through the snow in front of him, and yes that is my ski in the bottom left, and no it's no longer connected to my boot. I love snow!

MMMM...Donuts!

Gregor, Pierre and Andrew switching back to skin mode.

Stefan skinning up the back bowl, yup that is debris in the background.

No lifts, only slow speed quads.

Deep thoughts by Jolly J, "Life is Good"

Rob (Melrose, Mass.), Pierre (Edmunston, NB), Moi (Fredericton, NB), Caroline (Rimouski, PQ), Pierre (Bathurst, NB), Andrew (Bathurst, NB), Gregor (Crabbe Mountain, NB), and Stefan (Fredericton, NB)

Now without further delay. This is by far the best piece of work Stefan has done yet. All I can say is WOW. Here we go...Caribou Conspiracy

Bonski

Reality Bites

2007-04-25T18:58:00.000-03:00

So I'm back to reality, I have three mailboxes here at work. All three were overflowing. Not to mention a couple hundred emails, and couple dozen voice mails on two phones. Ouch. I guess I'm being punished for having too much fun while I was away.

I'll do up a proper trip report when I can get a minute to gather my thoughts. Got back Friday night. Skied Crabbe with Stefan on Sunday. We skinned up the Chairline to see if we could do it. We could but it was a lot of work. We didn't switchback it either. Machines we are.

Here is a teaser pic, I promise to spill the beans soon.

Stefan, Gregor, et Moi

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

2007-04-13T08:31:00.000-03:00

Finally getting to posting the Jam Session Pics from March 31, 2007. If you are in the pic or know who the photographer is let me know and I'll put credit where credit is due. I also see the latest video from Bon Ski Productions is up, so I'll save that for the end.

Last Saturday, Linda and I went Cross Country Skiing in the woodlot. It was nice and relaxing. When we got home the sun was shining so we setup the lawn chairs in the snowbank on the deck along with Alex and enjoyed our own Apres Ski. It was super nice.

Sunday we were back at Crabbe as I had to file ROE's for my patrol staff. Alex and I took a run down the glades, it was sweet, still not a bare spot to be found. Linda hiked down and met us in the Flume Terrain park. We then stopped by the office for some work and then skinned up to the hut. Another amazing day.

Wednesday I went back up to Crabbe with Alex to clear out my locker so I can pack for my Chic Chocs trip. We took a run down the horn, still no bare spots and actually very little melting. Although we didn't get out until around 7 and the hot sun during the day had created quite a sun crust. The Last pitch of the Flume was scary. I wonder how much more snow there is up there today with this new stuff. Shame I can't got up, but I've got a date with my wife tonight and seeing that I'm leaving tomorrow morning....

So with that, here are the Jam Session pics.

Rider: Brodye Chappell
Photo: Michael Valk

Rider: Cody Vienneau
Photo: Michael Valk

Skier: ???
Photo: Michael Valk

Skier: Jason Fitzpatrick
Photo: Michael Valk

Rider: Richard Cote
Photo: ???

Skier: Jay Sullivan
Photo: Michael Valk

Rider: Richard Cote
Photo: ???

Rider: Richard Cote
Photo: ???

Skier: Robert Young
Photo: Michael Valk

Rider: Richard Cote
Photo: ???

Skier: Cody MacKay
Photo: Michael Valk

Skier: Gregor Wilson (nice shirt)
Photo: Michael Valk

Skier: Brandon
Photo: Michael Valk

Here is Bon Ski Productions lastest flick from Sugarloaf/USA dubbed "Boomauger Boogie". Great job, I now know why he hasn't been able to come over so I can train him how to use an Avi Beacon. If I get burried in an avalanche and he can't find me...this video is the reason why. :-) Enjoy!

I will have a ton of pics, and a Trip Report when I get back and maybe a video or two, to share.

Cheers

Good Friday

2007-04-06T19:14:00.000-03:00

As stated in previous blog entries, the reason Crabbe is closed was the lack of customer support over the past two weekends it was decided to shut down for the season.

Disclaimer: If you are still bitter about Crabbe not being open click here because you may find the following images disturbing.

With the snow coming down in town hard yesterday, I gave Gregor a call to see how things were going at the mountain. Said easily 20 cms down and coming down hard. I had already promised Linda, I would spend the weekend with her but we decided that I should take Alex skiing at Crabbe twice this weekend. I also still have a ton of paperwork to finish up. So drive up in the storm and get a run in with Gregor before he and the crew head down to the Loaf. He said he wanted to save his legs so he only had one run in him, and then come up on Saturday. Or wait and come up in the morning after the storm and get it at it's deepest and then see if the storm on Sunday comes through. I chose door number two.

I got up this morning. Linda got Alex so excited it was beyond funny. She cried at the door for about an hour. We jumped in the truck and drove to the mountain by 10:00. The snowbanks were big enough that I parked on the road. First thing after climbing over the snowbank I realized there was a lot more snow than there was in town. I quickly geared up and I decided first run would be the Flume. It was light and dry and oooh so good. Deep enough I couldn't hold my speed to the second pitch. I took a measurement by flipping my ski pole upside down and it was well over a foot, I'm thinking somewhere around 40 cms and still coming down. Saweet.

We stopped at the bottom of the last pitch were Gregor had cut over from the Horn. His tracks were still visible down low. Alex was having a ball in the snow. It was quite a bit heavier down bottom.

We followed Gregor's skin track back up (thanks). Up the Flume...

Into the Flume Terrain Park

Up Embrees and the Upper Glades.

This is where Gregor skinned up a track a snowboarder had left the day before. Thanks for straight lining for the most part, it made for a great skin track. I wonder who that was. They should get a split board.

We stopped at the Patrol Hut so Alex could get a drink and met up with some guys from NB Power that were checking out the main lines heading down to the Snowmaking Shed. They weren't dealing with the deep snow very well and called it quits.

We then skinned up to the top of the mountain and checked out Flume Chute as we skinned to the Horn.

Peeled of the skins and dropped in on the Horn. Alex had a tough time keeping up so I got to take some pics of her as she followed my ski tracks down.

That's when I saw something really bizarre.

We then skied down the last pitch and posed for a pic.

We then cut over the Flume and ascended up the same route we did previously.

Once up top we hit up Upper Daves and stopped by the Office.

Then continued up the Terrain Park and called it a day. I'm sure this isn't even close to what the boys down at the Loaf are experiencing, but it was probably my best earn my own turn days at Crabbe yet.

I'll put up Jam Session photos soon.

Cheers.

Karma...part two.

2007-04-05T10:52:00.000-03:00

As I look out of my office window over looking downtown Freddy Beach to see great big flakes filling the air. I can't help but think about all the people who stayed home last weekend to start getting ready for summer, by raking their lawns and putting out their patio furniture and not coming up to play in the sun and snow with us last weekend. Karma man, it's karma.

Tuesday night was our Staff Party for the mountain and all I can say is what a great time, with great friends. Most of us put up with a lot of stuff while working at the mountain for a job that for most people only lasts 4 months of the year at best. So to see everyones smiling faces and all the pics that Gregor put up on the big screen was awesome. We really do have a great family of employees. Can't wait for next year. Thanks everyone.

Yesterday Timmy was an absolute machine on tear down. Normally it takes us two days to tear down for the Ski Patrol and we did it in one very long day. Timmy did 95% of the work, so thanks a bunch on that. I don't think it would be much fun out there today hauling in ropes, signs, fences, boo and pads in the wet snow. The skiing would be good though. :-)

As for elsewhere on the mountain, the lodge is almost all put away for the summer. Maintenance crews have broken down and/or boarded up most of the mountain. The terrain park has been flattened. Gates are going up around the property today. Thanks for a great year guys.

It's too bad we didn't have the support over the past couple of weekends to keep it open for this weekend as it looks like it would be golden.

As promised in my last post, here is the video that Stefan put together on closing day called "Postcard". I especially like the photo montage at the end.

To everyone (not me) heading down to the Loaf this weekend, they just got 2 feet with another half a foot on the way. Enjoy. Gregor has been taking great delight in letting me know how great the skiing will be, while I stay home and get reacquainted with my wife. Yes, I will miss out on one hell of trip.

I'll probably have another post up over the weekend. I hope the Easter Bunny finds everyone.

Cheers.

PS. 9 days till we leave for the Chic Chocs. Stoked!

What a Season!

2007-04-03T10:01:00.000-03:00

It started of slow, but we got at it early. We were the first to open on December 16th and amongst the last to close. Starting at about January 16th and then January 19th, conditions got incredible. We offered the some of the best conditions on the East Coast of Canada and for a good part of the season to boot. This was the year we got the snow back. We brought park kids from all over the Maritimes in on opening and closing weekends. I'm not going to gloat over other hills as I do believe in karma, but when the skiing is as good as it was this year, I'm stoked to call Crabbe Mountain my home. What a blast!

I want to thank all of our customers who came up and had fun with us this year. Next year should be even better. If you want to save some dough buy your pass now at the Super Early Bird price. Or you can be like many that didn't buy this past year, and ended up standing in line for lift tickets on powder days. I guess that is your choice. I want to send a big thanks out to all my friends and extended Crabbe Mountain family for all the great times and memories I'll cherish for years to come. Stefan sums it up pretty good in his latest video "Postcard". He ends it with a nice photo montage of his view of Crabbe Mountain life.

***Unfortunately, there was an error so he will not be able to reload until sometime tonight. So I guess this is be the pre-release review. ***

Conditions were awesome for closing weekend, but I think I can pretty much spell it out like this. This weekend it was announced that it was our last weekend to be open. So people should know it's the last chance to dance. We had the Memorial Race on the Horn, & Jam Session in the Terrain Park on Saturday. You couldn't have ordered nicer weather. For those that were here know how big the lift lines were. It's sad but it's true, it call comes down to dollars and sense. (pun intended).

I have a bunch of friends heading down to the Loaf for Easter weekend, but my boss says no. :-( I understand because a week later I'm heading off to the Chic Chocs for a week. I'd still like to get a Tuckerman Ravine trip in as well. I guess I gotta save some pennies.

This blog thing was kind of an experiment that I proposed to Leslie, Gregor and Dave on our trip to the New England Ski Area Summit back in Sept. They were kind of unsure on the idea, (as was I to be honest) but gave me the go ahead and see what happens. I'm overwhelmed with it's success. Everyday I have people come up to me and ask me if I'm Jolly J and how much they love the blog. The behind the scenes information and accurate conditions seems to be favorites. The ultimate comment came from Leslie (the President of Crabbe Mountain), who said she checked in all the time to see what was actually going on behind the scenes. I've got a bunch of ideas on how to improve it, so we'll see where it takes us. Us, as in me and you, as I believe this is a two way street. It's a great place to provide feedback from you as well. Either in the comments section or by email at ski patrol at crabbemountian dot com. I'm going to keep the blog up and running for the summer and plan to update it regularly. Keep checking back, for up-to-date info on the mountain, and what I hope are some fun adventures. Stefan has planned to keep the videos coming. I'm trying to talk my wife into letting me buy a helmet cam...so far it's a no go, but I'll keep working on that. I've got a ton of Jam Session photos that I've got to throw up, maybe later this week when I get a few more minutes.

While we wait for that check out a future Bon Ski Production Star. Gregor sent me these two clips of a 7 year snowboarder named Patrick from Australia. I'd say the force is strong in that boy!

Once again, thank you and keep checking back for more updates!

Have a great summer.

Lets send her off with a BANG!

2007-03-30T16:50:00.000-03:00

Weekend looks to be shaping up just fine. I'm gonna make this quick. Tomorrow is the Memorial Race. Registration is between 8:30 and 9:00 racing starts at 10:00. There is a Jam Session in the Park starting at 1:00pm. We've got the sound system ready to go should be a good time. It's also dress up day, retro, halloween, crazy hats, you name it. And we finish off with the Crabbers Bash. Sunday is all about the snow so come out and get some.

I'm heading up shortly, I've got to pick up a generator and some stuff at my house on my way up. I plan on meeting Richard and Joel to finish up tweaking the park so it's prime for tomorrow. We did a refresh on Wednesday night. Here is the video that Stefan put together, that kind of shows what it's like grooming the park at night. I like the part where I'm pushing snow and all of a sudden you see it all rolling down the back side of the jump. The other think I learned is we sound like total hicks, especially me.

I'm sooo stoked for the weekend. See you up here.

Friends and Family

2007-03-27T19:47:00.000-03:00

I realized something dropping into Elgees on Sunday, skiing with my friends Stefan and Gregor. For once we didn't "fight" over who went first, and we stopped and socialized on the way down. I always say there are no such thing as friends on a powder day (until you reach the bottom of course but it's still a race to get back on the lift) but on a corn snow day it's all about your friends. It's nice to shed a few layers, work on the goggle tan, and wave to people you don't know just for the sake of having fun. And I can't forget playing in the hero snow. So I'm dedicated this post to my friends.

First off I want to congratulate my buddy and ex Crabbe Mountain Employee Extraordinaire, Walter Squires on his marriage over the weekend. You see, since Wally left Crabbe he has been living the dream flying helicopters out in BC. Along the way he found himself a beautiful bride.

Cute aren't they...Now in true Walter fashion...

Snowball fight!
Wally's at the business end of this one. Way to go guys!!!

I thoroughly enjoyed skiing without a jacket, pack and radio on Sunday. Besides feeling naked and realizing just how much room there is on a chair lift. I got to ski a ton of runs with my friends on hero snow. Here another video that Stefan put together called "Harvesting Corn".

Super fun day.

While checking out East Coast Mountain Bike today, someone post a link to this article on Pro DH Mountain Bike Racer, Eric Goss. Now your gonna ask what does this have to do with Crabbe, besides the fact that he grew up just outside of Freddy Beach.

Mountain Bike Snow Cross head at Crabbe closing day a few years back.

And Eric mentions driving to the Tremblant Canada Cup Race with Johnny (former Crabbe Mountain Rental Shop Manager) in the Dodgy Van and mentions John and his brothers. I've got the chance to ride with Johnny and his brothers and all I can say is. HO...LEE.

Next on the agenda is this coming weekend. Lets finish it off with a bang folks. We're throwing a huge jam session in the park, Sound System, Prizes, etc, etc... more details to come on this. Plus Saturday is dress up day so come dressed up in something, retro gear, halloween costume, whatever. Maybe Gregor will break out his really really retro gear. It's also the Annual Memorial Race which reminds me I should probably tune my skis, wait a minute, I haven't tuned them yet this year, why start now. And to cap off Saturday night it's the Crabbers Bash. You must have Positive Vibes and your Season Pass or Lift Ticket to get in. Sunday will be a hang over day but be sure to come on back up for final turns of the season at Crabbe. Coverage and Conditions are still great, check out the above video again if you don't believe me.

I mentioned the Memorial Race earlier. Please keep in mind that even though this is a fun race, bad things can happen, so be careful. Just ask this guy. Make sure you've got your sound turned up. The Announcer deserves an award.

"That guy needs a hug!"

What's your excuse for not being here?

2007-03-25T12:27:00.000-03:00

What an awesome weekend. BBQ's, Tail Gate Parties, Corn Snow, and basically just fun in the sun. This morning I got up early and was joined by Edwin, Norm, Uncle Larry and Gregor as we cooked the staff breakfast. Mmmmm, I love Normy's sour dough pancakes, with Kanock's maple syrup. Mmmmmm.

The Dummy Race was huge yesterday. Thank to Jay Sullivan for making it happen. Hope you enjoyed. The only thing we need for next year....is more dummies, start planning you dummy build now.

Lots of smiles, sun burns and goggle tans out there today. I'm going to join them and so should you.

Cheers.

Dumbies...bring it on

2007-03-24T08:22:00.000-03:00

Last night Gregor and I constucted Barney Stick Man. He's the ultimate in engineering and constuction technological marvels. We then went out and built the course on Upper Daves. It's got a 4 - 5 foot big air jump. This is going to be fun. I'm currently trash talking the CSPS to get them to enter something or someone. :-)

It's been a busy week for me. You would think with no night skiing would mean less work which would mean more time to get things done. For some reason not the case.

This weekend is going to be one for the memory books. A perfect weekend for enjoying the sun, working on the google tan and harvesting some corn. If I can't have powder at this time of year, give me corn baby. (But keep snowing in the Chic Chocs please).

Hope to throw some pics and maybe even a video or two up before the weekend.

Cheers.

It's partly my dogs fault...yeah that's it.

2007-03-18T13:51:00.000-03:00

Everyone was supposed to get together on Friday night for Open Mic Night and dance for the snow gods. Unfortunately Darryl couldn't make it cause he needed to get some sleep before driving the boy to a cancelled race at Poley. So lets start by blaming them. Alex hurt her leg and Linda didn't want me to leave her home alone while she went to pick up Josh at the movies. So I was home caressing Alex, I didn't get to leave a little after 9. I had to make a stop on the way up and rolled in the parking lot at 9:45 to see all the lights in the boot were on, not a good sign for a party. I walked up stairs and besides Gregor and the two bartenders cashing out. There was Mr. Kevin Breau, his brother and Rock Pile. So lets just say we didn't get much for dancing in, although Kim was nice enough to sell us a few brown weights. Shortly after we shut it down, it began to snow. See Ullr was ticked cause there wasn't any dancin' so he waited until everyone left before he started working his magic. Oh yeah only about 20 - 25 people showed. Those that were here are off the hook, those that weren't (me included), shame shame shame.

I crashed at Gregors after a few more brown weights and good conversation, with plans to get up and session the pow in the morning. Quick weather check before I hit the sack, high winds, light and dry and dumping hard. About 5 minutes before my alarm went off @ 6:15, I heard ice pellots on the window. Darn. Drug myself out of bed, drove one of Gregor's smoothies into me, and headed to the mountain. Not the snow depths I was hoping for but what can you do when no one danced?

I quickly changed into my AT gear, threw on the head lamp. Did a quick weather check on the laptop and realized my desk as actually moving because the wall it leans against was taking the brunt of the wind. Yeah it was windy. I hit the glades first thing. Had a great run but had to stick close to the trees as the middle was a bit scoured down to the old snow. As I cranked hard to stop out onto Daves Dream, not realizing it had been partially groomed, I cartwheeled out across the trail as my skis were sideways in the soft snow and then hooked up as I hit the groomed snow. Kind of funny but it cleared off a nice patch so that I could put my skins on to start my journey back up. Fraser stopped and offered me a ride but I need to get into shape for the Chic Chocs so I politely declined. I made pretty good time, Fraser lapped me twice with the groomer.

All in all, I bagged first tracks on the Glades, skinned up Daves and Upper Daves, helped Gregor and Fraser Groom T2. Some huge 4 foot drifts at the top, the crappy scrappy scoured snow in the middle. And I got first tracks in Pugs and the Pugs to Steve connector trail. Had some nice runs on the Horn before breakfast. We had freezing rain for the majority of the day. Did a run with Stefan, just as the rain started. We met up with Darryl in the Lodge who pulled out the guitar and we had a quazi sing around. The rain picked up so we closed her down around 5.

I totally expected to get the call this morning, but it didn't ring. Got to the mountain around 7:30 or so to meet Big Larry and Fraser who had just come in from grooming. They basically told me, where it's good it should be real good, where it's wet, not so good. Got the low down and headed out to start setting up the mountain.

Family Trail is not for beginners today so I decided to close it with plans that Pugs could dump out on it. Tippy has a pond at the cut off to Norms and a river running down the headwall. So that made me close Harolds, Pugs, Steves, and Tippy. Chair line is in rough shape with a ditch running down the middle so it's closed. The entry to Diddle Daddle is closed as well. Not too bad considering the rain. There are quite a few wet spots around that mountain that we are hoping will dry up or freeze up tonight and we should be able to open more terrain tomorrow. It's been snowing off and on today and the skiing is actually really good. The Official Ski Patrol Thermometer is currently stuck zero which is has been all day. Might go out and check to see if it's frozen stuck.

I often get asked why we have this as a rule or that is a rule and why we don't allow this or don't allow that. Our rule, No motorized vehicles on the ski hill, you would think would be self explanitory.

I guess not. This message goes out to everyone that parks at the top of the mountain. PLEASE DO NOT DRIVE YOUR VEHICLE OUT ONTO THE SKI TRAILS. There is enough room to park up there with out driving out onto the trail. I know it's nice to test out that fancy smancy AWD Traction Control System or show off your SUV, but you drag salt, dirt and other crap out onto the mountain, not mention the damage it causes, plus it ticks off people who have to ski out around your car. If this continues to be a problem we may have to lock the gate up top.

With that, I'm heading out to do some runs.

It's Not Over Yet!

2007-03-16T12:48:00.000-03:00

Environment Canada is calling for up to 35cms tonight. Let's hope it fissles off at the end and we can miss some of that rain that's suppose to follow it up. One thing to prevent this is to start dancin', Ski and Snowboard boots are a must, and it's open mic and wing night tonight in the Thirsty Boot. Should be a good time with the snow falling. The only casualty so far with all the warm weather appears to be Diddle Daddle. This snow should remedy that though.

Here are a couple more submitted photos. These were taken Wednesday in the Park by Alex "teebs" Brown. The famous Colin McGregor from the comments section is the rider.

Speaking of park, I don't know if there is much sense trying to refresh tonight with the storm coming. Might be best to leave it and wait and see on Saturday night. I know it needs some TLC, I just don't want to do more harm than good.

Now for a little comic relief. Last week Stefan gave me the camera and got me to ski down Diddle Daddle. Man the whoops were huge. So here goes, Look out for the Whoops.

See ya tonight!

PS. COME ON MR. COTE, WORK YOUR MAGIC!

Old and New

2007-03-12T13:23:00.000-03:00

Yesterday was a wacky day all around. It rained a bit in the morning and then cleared up for a beautiful day in the afternoon. Ethan and I kicked back on the deck to work on our goggle tan for a bit. Ironically as beautiful as the afternoon was it was pretty dead. Those that were out and about had a good time. Too bad to those that missed it. In between our Internet being up and down I was able to answer an Ask Jolly J question (Can't tell it was still raining when I wrote that). I also added some links as well, check them out.

Bon Ski Productions
Tele Tips
Newschoolers

On Friday night I crashed at Jenny and Gregor's. They showed me the Fredericton Ski Club's Scrapbook which was loaned to them by the Willis Family. Check out the cover...

Pretty cool, the cover is made of wood. I really want to sit down and spend some time reading all the news clippings and what not, to learn a little more about the history of the mountain. We do have quite a bit of stuff online but this book should really help out putting some of the pieces together. I flipped through and found a picture from a newspaper article of my Grandfather and my Uncle George. Super cool stuff. I also spied this old trail map.

Here is the trail name list in case you can't see them clearly

1. Big Pappoose - Novice (Current Beginner Hill)
1A. Little Pappoose - Novice to Intermediate (Grown Over)
2. Little Brave - Intermediate (The Top is still used the Bottom is Grown Over)
3. Humes Flume - Intermediate to Expert
4. Old Squaw - Intermediate (Current Lower Glades)
5. War Dance - Expert
5A. Little Tomyhawk - (Part of the Upper Glades)
6. Bunny Hollow Trail - (Current Maintenance Trail behind the Lodge)
7. Malacite Trail - (Current Flume Chute)
8. Big Chief - Intermediate (Current Lower Tippy Canoe)
9. Tippy Canoe Traverse - (Tippy Canoe to Elgees Cut Off)
10. Peace Pipe - Expert (Grown Over)

I like how half the trails don't exist anymore. Well they do actually but they are really grown over. We found a bunch this summer while building a mountain bike trail.

Here it the latest video that Stefan put together titled "Elevation 1325". It turned out pretty good seeing that neither one of us were really on for the day.

Hope you enjoy. Welcome to everyone from Nova Scotia visiting us for their March Break.

User Submitted

2007-03-11T07:54:00.000-03:00

It's been a wild couple of days. Started to post on Friday, got swamped at work and when I got to the mountain our internet connection in the hut was down. :-( Either way since I last posted, I added a mini wall ride to the park, I hope you like.

Yesterday Stefan and I went exploring we brought the camera with us. For the morning we were kind of off, and couldn't ski a decent line if our life depended on it. Should make for some decent bloopers for the blooper reel at the end of the season. We then took a break in the sunpit, had a Redbull, and went back at'er. We ventured off the beaten path a bit and took advantage of the Open Boundary Policy. In our adventures we managed to find some untracked knee deep pow and I'm on Rossignol B3's.

Current Conditions: Showers, but it's letting up and supposed to quit, and the sun is supposed to shine this afternoon. Snow is going to be soft and the skiing and riding should be killer. Official Ski Patrol Thermometer is sitting at +2.

Here are some pics that Jake Bryden and Jordan Kenny took March 1st and sent in earlier this week. Enjoy

Andrew Dacres sessioning our new mini Wall Ride

Brendan Ferris catchin' a lil' air off our mini Wall Ride

Jake Bryden on the Up Rail

Andrew Dacres on the Up Rail

Jake Bryden on the Flat Box Rail

Jordan Kenny Method Air

Jake Bryden Safety

Got some pics you would like to share, send em in!

I'm out to go open the mountain and then I'm gonna go grab some breaky, care to join me?

Video killed the radio star

2007-03-06T20:18:00.000-04:00

Don't have much to say except for here is another cool video filmed today on the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire, where they hit wind chills between -80F and -100F today. Brrrrrrr!

Cool stuff, litterally. How about sliding on a flat surface with 100mph winds

And because I'm still stoked on the video Stefan did for me. I'm posting it two days in a row. Hey it's my blog so I guess I can do that. :-P

Do you have a cool video or some pics from Crabbe that you want our little world to see. Email me at skipatrol at crabbemountain dot com

Cheers

A Weekend of Epic Porportions

2007-03-05T11:42:00.000-04:00

Wow what a kick off to March Break. Friday night was insane, couldn't ask for better weather on Saturday and Sunday and to cap it off Sunday night we got hit by snow squal after snow squal. It was surreal.

Yesterday, Stefan dragged me around the mountain with his camera to make an "It's all downhill from here with Jolly J" video. The boy is becoming a regular director. Quite funny but we had a blast and I owe him big time for the results. I can't wait for the out takes clip! It was so much fun.

Thank again Stefan!

The bus is running everyday of March breaks so kick the kids out of the house and drop them off at one of the drop off points on your way to work, so they can get some fresh air and have some fun outside.

Park Update: Refreshed all features last night. Everything looked sweet with the new snow. Started to put the c-rail out. Spend an hour preparing the site for it. Drug the rail down to where it was supposed to go. While pulling it up by hand I torqued it too hard and blew out a section of plywood. Nice. So I then used the groomer to spin the rail around so that it would still be useable and a leg falls off. Now I'm really ticked in the process of hauling it back to the garage I FUBAR'd it. Please keep in mind that this rail was made with really soft metal and hasn't been used in a few years. This is probably why it litterally fell apart in my hands. So that is my excuse why there is no c-rail out today. Not impressed one bit. (Bracing myself for and onslaught of complaints from angry young jibbers) Next refresh will be Wednesday night when I plan to refresh everything again, move the kicker rail and setup a mini wall ride. Hopefully things are not as eventful as last night.

So if you don't think the conditions at Crabbe are good. Watch the video again. My body tells me the skiing was that good this weekend.

See you soon.

Best Conditions Ever?

2007-03-04T13:14:00.001-04:00

I don't know about that, but man the conditions are sooooo sweet. Yesterday morning Gregor and I were lucky enough to get up early and start "working" on getting the trails open by checking as many as possible. We bagged 4 before 9am, don't worry we earned it, we did skin back up... As as a public service we broke trail on the connector between Pugs and Steves...you're welcome. Here are some of the pics.

Sunrise baby

Thanks to Gregor for taken those pics of me while skiing behind me. Now the next sequence is supposed to be a nice sunrise sequence, except I kind of hooked an edge out and ruined it. Oh well, at least I recovered though.

Gotta love it. Conditions are really amazing right now, make plans to get up here. Yesterday was a day dreams are made of, 20 or so cm's of fresh, beautiful blue skis, warm spring temps, thanks to everyone I skied and rode the chair lift with. What a great day.

To top it off Linda and Alex came up and I got off early and we went Cross Country Skiing. It was Linda and Alex's first time, and they had a blast. I guess I didn't waste my money when I bought Linda a brand new pair of XC skis for $20 from Radical Edge at the ski swap.

Last night we had some light showers followed by some snow. For the longest time it was raining at the bottom and snowing up top. But no worries, it's been flurriing??? off and on for the better part of the day today.

Tonight I hope to start plunking some more rails in. I'll also touch up things as well. Stefan just dropped in, so I think I'm going to join him for some turns.

Terrain Park Picture Update

2007-03-01T14:12:00.000-04:00

Tonight is Student Night brought to you by The Fox and Capital FM. It's going to be a blast. $5 Lifts and Rentals. Sweet Deal, I'll see you up here.

Richard and I worked until 2:30 this morning on the park. Richard is a shoveling machine! Thanks for the help. The park looks great. Gregor just sent me these pics.

Bottom half of the "park"

Showtime Booter

Middle Jump

Flat Box

Flat Down

Hand Rail

Showtime Booter

Up Rail

Wide Box

What are you waiting for?

The Happiest Skiers on the Planet

2007-02-28T18:38:00.000-04:00

I found this video on T-Tips the other night and it cracked me up. These have to be the happiest people in the world. I don't think I've ever heard that many happy people skiing powder. Usually you see the big tell tale grin and the odd whoop and hollar over in the distance but this is taking powder day fun to a whole 'nother level. It was filmed at the Telemark Ski Festival at Mont Comi - Feb 16th to 18th. They just received 50cms of fresh snow so it's no wonder they are having such a good time. Crank up your speakers, I guarantee you'll be smiling!

We'll be working on the park after close. Wish us luck.

Tootles.

March Break Cometh

2007-02-27T08:23:00.000-04:00

Holy Crazy Comments batman. The comments section was a little wild yesterday. A couple were from a few days ago that I found in my junk mail box. I'll have to keep and eye on that. I'm really digging these "Ask Jolly J" comments. These could become really fun. If I get enough maybe they will make a weekly post. Could make for a good time. So if you have some fun or even serious questions post them in the comments section with the title Ask Jolly J. I'll save the best and post once a week.

We're kicking off March Break with a bang, along with the Fox, Fredericton's Best Rock and Today's Best Music, Capital FM with what could be first annual Student Ski Night. That's right Five Dollar Lift Tickets, Five Dollar Rentals. There will be radio personalities and promo vehicles on the mountain, should be a great time. Come on out and help us kick off March Break in fine fashion! We'll have to set up a race course and get Freddy Mack and Doyle to duke it out for ski hill supremacy!

Looks like there is snow in the forecast. All 4 weather websites we follow are calling for snow on Friday! Come on Mr. Cote, work your magic and make it snow! We're counting on you! Let's all help Mr. Cote out and get the ski and snowboard boots on and start dancin' like no one is watchin'!

Cheers!

A couple of daze off

2007-02-25T09:50:00.000-04:00

As you know I've been complaining about being sick lately. Well it finally caught up to me. I put the pedal to the metal on Friday knowing that I was more than likely going to be down and out for the weekend. I got as much work done as I could.

Now I got to admit in the past 4 or 5 years the only full weekend I think I have taken off was 3 or 4 years ago when I took an Avalanche Course from Chauvin Guides, and then two years ago, Stefan and I flew out west to meet up with our buddy Denis in Calgary and hit up Nakiska, Sunshine Village, Lake Louise, Kicking Horse, and Fernie. So when the doctor told me to take the next two or three days off work or else, I had mixed feelings. I feel really guilty for being forced to take this weekend off. Being a race weekend it always pushes the patrol by keeping us busy so I'm a little bummed not being able to help out and for making other patrollers to pull up the slack. So to those that are working this weekend. Thank you. I also gotta say today being the first day I've slept in since well before Christmas it did feel nice even though I'm still feeling quite ill, but no where near as bad as Friday and Saturday so maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Friday I got quite a bit of work done after racing finished up (which was really exciting to watch) Gotta love the Super G! After the race I got to go out and groom the Horn which included taking out their speed jump. It's the first time I've got to groom the whole Horn. Oh yeah, speaking of the Horn, Richard LePage, Coaching Education Director for Alpine Canada (yes I said Alpine Canada) told me the Horn is one of the best training runs he has worked with. He said it has everything, steeps, blind turns, roll overs, flats you name it. Perfect for training. I guess that's why they call it the premier race trail in Atlantic Canada. Pretty cool hear him say that while he was riding shot gun with in the groomer on Thursday Night while we were touching up some ruts. I told him before he leaves I hope he gets a moment or two to go play on the far side. He said he hoped too.

After I finished up on the Horn I began digging out the rails on the Dream. Went really good actually, except for all the dirty looks I got from skiers and riders. Thanks to Gord and Jillian for helping me out by keeping people away from the groomer while I worked.

I then moved the hand rail, flat box and uprail to the park. I did as best I could, will still require some hand shaping. I don't know when I'll be back in the groomer as I've got to get over this cold first. Hopefully I'll be good to go by mid week.

It looks like I missed out on a beautiful weekend.

Speed week is upon us

2007-02-22T18:02:00.000-04:00

So how is your week going? Mine has been up and down. As most of you know, two weekends in a row we've had groomer trouble. Different problems, different machines. So to answer the questions in the comments sections I am doing what I can, when I can, to get the park finished up.

Linda and I have been thinking about buying a new house. We found what I thought to be the perfect house. We got pre-approved on Tuesday. Called the home owner (it's a private sale) on Wednesday to schedule another viewing. She said it would have to be at 2:00 this afternoon as their son was in town and they had plans for the rest of the week. No biggie, Linda and I took the afternoon off, we arrived at 2:00. Spent over an hour going over everything to make sure we were both happy. As we were putting on our shoes, I turned to tell the home owner that we would like to put in an offer pending an inspector, before I could open my mouth the home owner tells me they have already accepted a conditional offer pending finances. ????? It would have been nice to know this before Linda and I took the afternoon off to go look at it. We were both a little ticked, but what can you do. Who knows maybe the financing will fall through or maybe we'll find something else.

I'm now on my third cold in a month. Each one has been different this one seems to be sinus related. First I had some kind of throat infection, then swollen glands in my neck and now a sinus cold. I've got the body aches and everything. Maybe my body is trying to tell me something. The fun never ends.

As most of you know, Speed Week is upon us. The Race Club hosted a Speed Camp Monday - Wednesday. Today was Super G training, tomorrow is Super G Racing. Saturday and Sunday are GS Races. The Horn will be closed during the races but should reopen once they are completed late afternoon. So come cheer on your favorite racer or racer wannabe on what looks to be beautiful weekend!

Tonight I'm going out in the groomer after close with an official from NB Alpine to work on their race course, once that is done I'm going to start moving rails up to the park. I hope to get a few moved tonight and then see what I can do tomorrow night.

Wish me luck, it's been almost two weeks since I've had any groomer time.

Grrrr

2007-02-17T07:59:00.000-04:00

So much for wishful thinking. I didn't get to do any work in the park last night. The throttle cable let go in one of our groomers let go and they are waiting for the part to come in, so the other groomer was in use all night. So I spent the night working on Crabbe's computer network. I'm not sure when I'll get to work on the park again. Grrrr.

It is absolutely beautiful outside right now. Time to get in gear and get up here. It's going to be a beaut.

Current Conditions: Packed Powder! Official Ski Patrol Hut Thermometer is currently sitting at -10 and rising. See you up here.

Our liftee Mikey given'r
Photo: Master Corporal(MCpl) Stephen McKinnon, CFB Gagetown

Everybody's working for the weekend

2007-02-16T08:56:00.000-04:00

Now that I've got Loverboy in your head for the day, if not read the title again. I'm going to keep this short and sweet and leave off with a little eye candy at the end.

This weekend is going to be epic...off the hook if you will. Could be the best weekend in the past 3 years easily. The snowpack is in great shape. (Deep!) Conditions are amazing. We are open 100% from boundary to boundary. And we're looking at Sunny Skies and highs around -3 both days. Get up here and start it off right, tonight is Wing Night & Adult racing. Unfortunately Open Mic Night is cancelled. I'm sure Jenny will still be serving up a ton of tasty wings, I know I can't wait. And this Sunday we're doing something new, Family Day. No need to say more, just get up here and enjoy. These are the conditions you've been waiting for!

Terrain Park Update: All features will be refreshed and retouched tonight. And I'm going to start moving the Handrail, Flat Box and Uprail to the park tonight. I'm going to start with the Handrail and work down from there until I'm too tired or out of gas.

Snowmaking Update: Snowmaking is now shut down for the season. We budget for 3 solid months of Snowmaking. For every NB Power billing month we throw the switch we are immediately charged a demand charge that runs several thousands of dollars on top of what as you can imagine is a rather large power bill. We are charged this once a month so we budget for 3 of these charges per year. We make snow at every chance we can from the day our meter is read in November until it is read in February. Some years we make snow right up to the hour our meter is going to be read. But enough of the ski hill geek stuff, what I do want to say is the boys did an amazing job this year. They were short staffed for a good part of the year but still did us proud and made top quality snow. I don't think we could have offered better conditions based on what mother nature dealt us than what these boys provided for us. My hat is off and I raise a glass to you. THANK YOU!

Eye Candy...

Can you say holy crap! Love the shot at the end of him standing at the top with his board in his hand. Really helps give a scope to what he accomplished.

Keep it between the ditches!

Karma UPDATEDX2

2007-02-15T09:22:00.000-04:00

I've really been lucky this year with timing powder days pretty good and getting pretty stellar conditions. Will that trend continue.

The plan was, last night to go to bed early and get up early bag a couple runs before I had to be to work in town all day and try to beat the forecasted drizzle. Throw V-Day and Josh wanting to watch Casino Royale into the mix, I didn't get to bed early. Set the alarm for 3:30, got up at some point there after. Alex and I jumped in the truck to begin our adventure a little after 4, in the rain.

As I drove down my street I realized the City had plowed the bottom of the hill, good for them but they didn't sand or salt so with antilocks screaming from the time I reached the crest of the hill, I slid out onto the Woodstock Road. Not a good start but at least there wasn't much for traffic. Made good time out through Mactaquac, got freshies on Rocky Road but of course met oncoming traffic. The Ridge Road was half plowed, on my side for a change. Roads were decent until Zealand where I think I was third tracks, very difficult driving especially where someone decided to spin donuts on one section with a wheeler. I can picture it in my head how much fun that guy was having. Seeing I was having trouble maintaining anything that resembled a straight path, I pulled off early and took the Hainesville Road. Got first tracks, the truck was working hard to get through it but no real worries, much easier than playing the tire rut/dodge the wheeler tracks game on the highway.

Continued to break trail till I got to Dwight's house it started to snow and then I followed a snowmobile track the rest of the way to Crabbe. Turns out Big Larry took a snowmobile and stayed at Dwight's house, as he knew the roads were not going to be plowed so he wouldn't be able to get his car up the access road. Good call, still funny driving a truck and following a single snowmobile track up a road.

Got to the hut, realized I forgot my keys and the duffel bag with my ski socks and head lamp battery. Woke the guys up who were sleeping inside to get them to unlock the door for me, to avoid a nasty drive back home. Quickly changed and grabbed my old spare headlamp and set off for the glades.

First thing I noticed is I didn't beat the rain there was a decent crust under the new dust but nothing too difficult. Second thing I noticed is that this old headlamp sucks compared to my new one. Third thing, skiing breakable crust in the dark is not all that easy. Especially when you throw trees, moguls and drifts into play.

Managed to have a pretty good ski down although I took my time. Plus I stopped at each pitch to give Alex a rest and to catch my breath. As we were coming down the Lower Part of the Glades we could hear a groomer heading up Daves. Skied all the way down to Chair Bottom to put my skins on. It was funny as Gary had the chair going on diesel to make sure things didn't freeze up with the freezing rain. If you've ever ridden the chair on backup you know how slow it is. That is when we are running it at full RPMs. Imagine how slow it is when the engine is idling. Put it this way I was there for a few minutes before I realized it was moving.

Just as I clicked back into my skis Big Larry showed up and offered me a ride back up in the groomer, before I could say no, Alex had already climbed into the cab. Well I can't argue with that logic. Hopped in and got a free ride to the hut. Alex seemed to enjoy it as well. She just curled up on my lap.

As I was contemplating another run, I realized my headlamp was no longer on my helmet. Maybe I dropped it when I got out of the cab. Went out and checked...no dice. Must have dropped it at the bottom. Even though the headlamp sucks for skiing it's still a good headlamp for camping and other things, so I decide to do a run back down to the bottom to go fetch it. This time I took Flume and cut over to the Horn sans headlamp. I figured the lights at the bottom would make the ski down the Horn a little easier. Nope, they take away all depth perception as your eyes keep focusing on them. I get to the bottom, no sign of the headlamp. Must be in the groomer.

Put my skins back on and skinned up the Horn under the downhill side of the chair towers. I could pass at least two chairs between towers that's how slow the chair was moving. Each time I stopped the snow would stick to my skins and it would be a real pain to get moving again. I crossed over around tower 6 or 7 and started up the Flume as Big Larry came over the horizon. As I waved my ski pole in hopes he would stop and I could retrieve my headlamp. He waved back and kept going. Oh well, maybe next pass.

As I crossed the freshly groomed stuff this is were I ran into real problems with snow sticking to my skins. I couldn't keep them clean. It was real struggle up Embrees and Upper Glades. I felt like a mountaineer above the Hilary Step on Everest. My skis weighed a ton, with about 3 inches of snow stuck to the skins for the majority of the ski I got no glide what so ever, plus breaking trail, up hill. Not fun. Alex was a big help as she realized walking on the tails of my skis is easier that wading in deep snow. She has to learn to unweight alternate legs if this is going to ever work out.

As I approached to top of the glades I just missed Big Larry again. I got to the hut and gave him a call on the radio, changed and on his next pass he gave me my headlamp. Alex and I hopped back in the truck, and while I'm scraping my windows, the plow goes by, however it wasn't too big of a snowbank. The roads home were great, I got second tracks back through the Hainesville Road. And again the rest of the drive was uneventful until we hit the old Trans-Canada it was really rough going but got home at a decent hour, showered while Alex conked out next to Linder, and I was to work by 9. Not bad.

Current Conditions: I would say Crabbe got around a foot snow. It's hard to tell as the wind had moved it quite a bit. Put it this way, driving through the Hainesville Road my bumper was grazing the surface of the snow. They got very little rain but there is a slight crust that is easily skied. This snow should really help the Glades and Headwall of Harolds. Not sure what the winds did but here's hoping. I probably should have been up about an hour earlier and I think things would have been prime. I might have even remembered my keys and boot bag I left on the kitchen table.

I also forgot to take my camera skiing with me, but got on pic of my truck in the parking lot to show how deep the snow was. I'll post it later today.

***UPDATE***2:02 pm

Howdy,
Here is my update. All ungroomed trails are excellent for experts. Cautious riders/ intermediates may have trouble with thin crust layer. Steve's and Harolds Headwall were the best skiing I have had at Crabbe yet. Must have just done 5 laps over there.
Only groomed trails are between Horn and the Lodge.

The pictures are; Self portrait of Harolds Headwall, Jason Sullivan (Harolds), and John Lim on Diddle Daddle. I may not be able to speak tomorrow but it was worth it.

GW

Thanks for the update Gregor! Here are the pics...

Gregor taking a self portait while skiing the Headwall of Harolds.

Photo: Gregor Wilson

Jason Sullivan taking air on the Headwall of Harolds

Photo: Gregor Wilson

John Lim hitting up Diddle Daddle Glades
Photo: Gregor Wilson

This is karma in the truest sense as I sit here in my office. Have fun up there boys...

***UPDATE***3:27pm

Kyle Jones enjoying Diddle Daddle Glades
Photo: Gregor Wilson

SD-3 & 4 - DP-4 for me

2007-02-13T08:23:00.000-04:00

First off I want to show off some really nice pics Josh Nunn took in our park. I find the colors are amazing. Here are my favorites. Go his site to enlarge to get the full effect.

Rider - Richard Cote
Photo - Josh Nunn

Rider - unknown
Photo - Josh Nunn

Rider - Marc Gagnon
Photo - Josh Nunn

Rider - John Wagner
Photo - Josh Nunn

Rider - Nick Roy
Photo - Josh Nunn

Check out his Flickr site, lots of great pics. I spent about an hour checking them out yesterday.

Speaking of yesterday. Last night I put the Kids Rail and the Kicker Rail on Daves. They both need some shovel work. They are right after the Rainbow and the now buried Kids Fun Box.

Looks like we have a storm a brewing. Get those ski and snowboard boots on and start dancin'. Also now is good time to start coughing at work. Looks like this one could be a two day sickness. I'm hoping for Dawn Patrol on Thursday morning. I asked Alex this morning and she is going to pencil me in.

Lets just hope the roads don't end up like this little video that Stefan sent me.

Tootles.

Still Alive

2007-02-11T08:54:00.000-04:00

Came up Friday and patrolled and enjoyed some wings...and some more wings...and even more wings. MMM...wings are good.

After sweep, I went out in the groomer and moved the new box a little higher up so it would sit a little flatter. I hope you like. I rebuilt both take offs on the jumps, reworked the sides of the flat down. I then moved onto Daves and started fixing those features up. About half way through, my tiller wouldn't come back up...or it came up really slow. So I bolted for the garage. I didn't see a leak, but I was out of hydraulic fluid which meant I couldn't use the blade or the tiller. I called Big Larry (at 1:30 in the morning). He told me, no worries he would be in around 5 and check it out. Got to bed a little after 2:30 and Big Larry called a little before 5 to ask for a hand.

Between the two of us we found a crack in one of the hydraulic hoses, underneith the cab. Took us a bit to get that pulled off. Fraser took it to Nackawic to find someone to fix our faulty hose as we had a spare of just about every size but that one. Of Course. And also these things always happen on a weekend just to keep us on our toes. Larry and I hopped in the other groomer and took over where Fraser left off. Soon it was time for me to start getting the mountain ready open. So if you were wondering why we were a little late opening the far side. Now you know.

I got off work really early seeing that I worked all night and didn't get much sleep. I did get to do a few runs with some friends. Lloyd and Dianne (back from Kooba), and the Kileel's. Good times were had by all. I hear Flattop absolutely rocked the Thirsty Boot last night. Too bad I missed it, but my bed was calling.

Today the mountain looks to be in great shape. Being a Sunday I'm sure we won't be that busy so grab your boards and get up here. Currently we have a beautiful blue sky, it's chilly the Official Ski Patrol Thermometer is presently reading -15. Winds are calm and we're looking at highs around -9. Sounds like a good ski day to me! My pick of the day brought to you by the Ski Patrol Snowmo, Elgees!

Get up heah. (A la New England accent), I'm heading in for breaky!

Getting ready for another great weekend

2007-02-08T20:50:00.000-04:00

It's been a rather quiet week for me on the Crabbe front. It's been to total opposite in my alter ego life, however I did come up Tuesday Night and installed the puck board and some skirting on the new rail that Richard Cote built. It's about two feet wide and 24 feet long and is currently sitting near the top of the park. More on that later.

Today is the Annual Kerr Ski Day, which is also a good time. They have lots of fun and we get left overs. By left overs, I mean left overs of the fest that they have. Norm comes up and cooks up his infameous roast beef on our big rotisserie. All I can say is mmmmm....bark. It doesn't make sense until you try the bark. More companies should do this for their employees and customers. What a great way to have a good time and build that team effort with your fellow employees or customers. Or at least break the monotony of winter and come out and have some fun for a change.

This weekend we start it off with Wing Night and Adult Racing. Then on Saturday we've got Flat Top rockin' the Thirsty Boot. According to the website there will not be any cover charge. ???

Friday night I'm going to try to get someone to patrol for me so I can add some more features to the Terrain Park. I'll also be doing some much needed maintenance to the existing features after we close. I'm going to move the new box a little higher up in the park so it is a little flatter. I got and email today that made little to no sense about some changes that needed to be made in the park. It is all so clear now that I took a rip through the park. My, how things change in a week.

Current Conditions (not that they make much sense as I have to do sweep in about 10 minutes, so I wouldn't plan on coming up tonight, but just to prove I'm on somewhat of the ball...) clear, chilly, but the snow is super sweet. The Official Patrol Hut Thermometer is currently sitting at -15 and it's dark out. :-)

Snowmaking update: The boys have guns Daves, Flume across the top and Flume Chute but will be shutting down sometime tomorrow so things will be groomed out perfectly for the weekend. Have a good weekend off guys, you deserve it.

See you up here!

Good Times

2007-02-05T12:21:00.000-04:00

With snow

Close up.

Photo Credits go to Kenny Norman, who captured the above shots of what looks like an angry moon, rising over Crabbe Mountain on Saturday night. If you have some cool pics you would like to share, email them to me at skipatrol at crabbemountain dot com Please include when and where the pic was taken and who took the picture. I'll post the best pics.

Wow what a big surprise on Saturday morning. I'm still jonesin' about it. Saturday night I got off work early, thanks to Red, who started early so I could leave in time to go see the Banff Mountain Film Festival hosted by the UNB Rock and Ice Club. While the films were all awesome, the temperatures inside the theatre made things a little uncomfortable. Linda was one number off winning a free pair of hiking boots. So close yet so far away. I really need new boots too. I was told the next day that the host from the Festival is actually one of my loyal readers, which is pretty cool. It gives him a reminder of being home. For what it's worth, the Film Festival reminded me of being in Banff so go figure. Welcome. After the show was over, Gregor and Jenny joined Linda and I at Boston Pizza for some Thunder Mugs and Munchies. Capped off a very large day! Oh yeah and my Flames came from behind to beat Jenny's Canucks! HA! Redemption.

Yesterday was a little tough getting up after skiing and working hard all day and then going out on a big date and all, but nothing I haven't done before. Conditions on Sunday were stellar once again. My pick of the day would have to be Lower Harolds. It's just that good. I noticed lower Glades was getting skied off. Kind of a shame as Upper Glades are sooo nice. Might be a good idea to hit Embrees and ride out to the Flume or Daves or just enjoy the adventure. I like adventures. I also got to ski few runs with my buddy Stefan. And he summed things up by saying "These are peak conditions" As good as conditions are I'm still hoping for more snow. :-)

Snowmaking is back online. They are working on Daves and the Flume building more base and refreshing things. Tonight they will move up to the Beginner Hill and Across the top of the mountain eventually moving to the "Flume Chute" . They are also going to try and build some stock piles at the top of the mountian as well. Keep up the good work boys.

Terrain Park update: As I said earlier I put a quick coat of paint on the rail that Richard Cote built and donated. I'm going to pick up some plywood and hardware on Tuesday and get it skirted and placed in the park. I'm also going to try and get the c - rail skirted and get it out on the mountian but no promises there. Hopefully I can get some people together to help me lift the big A Frame up so I can set it up as well. So hopefully they will all or be rideable on the Wednesday.

Cross Country Trails Update: Gregor is going to groom a bunch of the trails today. I tried to get out on the weekend but didn't have any luck with everything else that was going on. Conditions should be near perfect.

I'm going to leave things on a sad note, Cape Smokey may be closing it's doors. I sure hope they can get things turned around. I also hope to someday ski there. I've driven by several times in the summer and it looks like a lot of fun. It's the only mountain in the Maritimes with more vertical drop than Crabbe.

UY!

WOW

2007-02-03T13:32:00.000-04:00

What a morning. Easily 10 cm's pushing 15. Where the heck did that come from? Must have been all the snowdancin' going on at Open Mic Night last night. I got first tracks on the Chairline, Horn, Headwall of Norms, Tippy and Lower Harolds, and got second tracks on Elgees, Norms, and Tippy. Not bad for a Saturday! Our Crew this morning consisted of me, Diten, Colby and Greg. Good times Boys, Gooood times.

Gonna keep it short as the skiing is just waaay too good right now. Everything is open except the Headwall of Harolds. The Family Trail is even open but it could be a bit marginal for a shakey beginner. We've put a Marginal Sign up at the top. Careful in Pugs and Steves there is still some stuff lurking below the surface. But I thought it was good truckin'

Big thanks to Diten for breaking trail most of the way on the Connector from Pugs to Steves. I took the lead for the last tail end of the way but Diten definately took the brunt of the work. Thanks man.

Terrain Park update: We built up the middle jump big time last night. She is looking pretty sweet now. We also put in the Flat Down. I need to get some bodies to help lift the A Frame up as it's a little heavy for the small crew I had helping last night.

The Sun is shining it's currently -2 on the Official Ski Patrol Thermometer, with some light lingering flurries. Beautiful.

Catch ya next time.

Under the weather

2007-02-02T08:15:00.000-04:00

Cool pic that Gregor took the other night.

I've been really sick all week. I started to come down with it on Tuesday and was pretty much out of commission the past two days. Thankfully some of my co-workers filled in for me and covered for my patrol shifts the past couple nights. I feel much better as I sit here and sip my peppermint tea. I'm still coughing up toxic waste but at least I don't feel like I'm going to die any more. It does feel pretty weird as I haven't been at the mountain since Sunday. That has to be a record for me.

Looks like we have some flurries and some light snow in the air for the next day or two. That is going to make the skiing and riding super sweet over the weekend. Snowmaking shut down yesterday afternoon to take the weekend off as the temps and humidity were going up and they have been working 12 hours on 12 hours off for a couple weeks straight now. Good for them to get a few days off as they have been doing an amazing job.

Tonight when I finish up here in town I'm heading up to jump in the groomer and start attacking the Terrain Park again. Sounds like I have some tweaking ahead of me. My plan is to build some more stuff, but will work on getting the features we have in great shape first. I also have to build a series of rollers for the snow schools big costume day tomorrow. I'm thinking Greg's will be the spot.

Speaking of tonight, it should be a good one. Wing Night and Open Mic in the Thirsty Boot. I got to go to the last one and it was a very good time. I'll be dropping in for wings tonight while I'm out working in the park when I need a break. I think Adult Racing starts tonight as well unfortunately I won't be able to partake tonight as work comes first.

Gotta run and get caught up here at my other job. We'll talk soon.

Bee You Tea Full Deh

2007-01-30T12:28:00.000-04:00

Sorry I haven't put an update up in the past couple of days. Our internet went down at the Patrol Hut on Sunday and yesterday I was totally swamped. I ended up crashing at 8pm. Plus I'm coming down with a cold. Not Good.

I just got off the phone with Timmy. He tells me temps are getting better and better and the conditions are awesome, so what are you waiting for...get up there.

Snowmaking has moved back to the East Side of the mountain and they are adding snow to the Ski Out Terrain Park, Daves Dream and the Flume. Look for them to do a refresh on all major trails on the lodge side of the mountian before heading back to the far side.

My new plan for the Terrain Park is to start shaping as we get closer to the weekend. I'm sticking with adding the Flat Down, A Frame and a third jump. I am also going to finish up the middle jump. I'd like to have all of this done by the weekend.

Speaking of weekend. This one should be a beaut. They are calling for Snow on Friday. Get your Ski and Snowboard Boots on and start snow dancing, lets try and turn this into another biggie. Friday night is the return of Adult Racing, Wing Night and Open Mic. Should be an awesome time. I wonder if the Hub Cap Valley Race Team can retain it's title. Start the weekend off right at Crabbe on Friday night.

I am also going to be building a small play area for the Snow School's costume day on the weekend. We're thinking about building a bunch of rollers on Gregs Way for the big day. Should be a lot of fun.

Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

Cheers

It's Showtime!

2007-01-27T09:39:00.000-04:00

Showtime Booter - 01-27-2007

Park constuction is going slower than planned. The snow has the consistancy of concrete so it takes quite bit to get it dug up and broken up so I can work with it. I currently have two jumps and a starting ramp built. The first jump still needs some hand shaping which will be done today. We still have 5 features on Daves as well. So all told, we are up to 7 features. Sunday night I'm going to build another smaller jump, and setup the A Frame and the Flat Down. Next will be to move the rails from Daves up into the park. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Current Conditions: Get that cold weather wax on and give'r. Awesome carving conditions. The Snowmaking snow on Elgees is sooo soft and definately the trail of the day. Seriously it's that nice. Everything is open except the Family Trail (not enough snow) , Headwall of Harolds (not enough snow), and the Headwall of Norms (snowmaking guns across the trail). The Official Ski Patrol Thermometer is currently sitting at -17 and rising.

Snowmaking: Currently working on Tippy, Norms, and Elgees and they are kicking some serious butt. It won't be long before they jump back on the Lodge side of the mountain refresh everything on this side.

Speaking of Snowmaking. Thursday night the boys had some problems. They had a gun on Elgees and the hoses stretched tight. As Sassy was moving it, it fell over. Due to the cold and the leverage it ripped off two hydrants. The Water from the water lines was shooting up 100 feet straight up. We haven't found the Air Hydrant yet. Keep your eyes peeled if your in the woods. The boys shuter down quick and hauled everything down to the snowshed to keep things from freezing up (Keep in mind it -24 out). They fixed the hydrants and were back in action shortly. So what have we and when I mean we, I actually mean you and me, learned from this. Snowmaking equipment can be very dangerous. Please make sure you stay clear of the guns, the hoses and the hydrants and give the boys lots of room to work. They thank you for that.

Today we have the boys from Burton up with the latest gear for you to try out and we have Becky Banks in the Boot. yeeehaw.

See you out there.

Park Construction begins tonight

2007-01-25T09:00:00.000-04:00

After three glorious days of mid week skiing, we're still rocking a ton of open terrain. I believe everything is open except the Family Trail, and Harolds Headwall. I think the Ski Out is open but it will be closed tonight. Upper Dave and Gregs are now open as well as they have been coated by our Snowmakers.

Snowmaking finished up on the park yesterday morning and I got Fraser to groom it flat to help get the water to drain out of it. The plan will be to build mostly jump type features overnight tonight. Let them setup and then tweak tomorrow night so they are good to go for the weekend. I'm going to leave the the rails on Dream for the weekend and will begin moving them to the park Sunday after close.

Conditions are great looks like another great day maybe a little cooler but hey it's January and we haven't conditions like this in years. So what are you waiting for.

Snowmaking has moved to the far side. I believe they are working on Elgees but I'm not 100% as I haven't been up in a few days.

Last night Linda, Alex and I went for a hike through O'Dell Park and saw the coolest slide at the sliding hill. This had to be the worlds largest crazy carpet. It was easily 6 to 8 feet wide and 10 to 15 feet long with handles down both sides. They had about 15 or 20 kids and adults piled on it and let me tell you with that much weight, it hauled @$$! It was awesome. I want one. I said to Linda that then I would need to find 15 to 20 friends to ride it with me. She said if I had a sled like that you would have no problem finding 15 to 20 "friends".

See you out on the mountain.

Dawn Patrol # 2

2007-01-22T08:48:00.000-04:00

Saturday morning Gregor and I were up and on the mountain at 6am checking out the conditions to see what we had to work with for opening new terrain in the morning. So we grabbed our skis, skins and head lamps and set off. We skied the Headwall of Norms over the Tippy over to Lower Harolds and had a blast. We skinned back up Elgees and crossed over to Tippy and then bagged the same run again as it was that good. At 8 I had to jump on the Snowmo and start getting mountain ready to open. Gregor bagged another run or two. I thought I'd share some pics of Gregor out "working" in the dark. It's a tough job, someone has to do it!

Heading back up Elgees

Crossing T-Bar #2 at the bottom.

Today we're looking at a beautiful day and we may see fluries or snow as the week goes on. Get those boots on and keep dancin'

Snowmaking should continue on Gregs, Upper Daves and the Ski Out Terrain Park.

See you out on the Mountain.

Thank You

2007-01-21T09:54:00.000-04:00

First off, I want to thank everyone for their patronage and patience yesterday. I understand the hardships that most went through yesterday and I want to thank everyone for their positive outlook and for those that helped out.

Yesterday started with such promise. The most snow we've had in a few years. Beautiful Blue Skies. We knew you guys would be out in full force so earlier in the week we got the T's put on the T-Bar to help with the line ups. We started digging out packed the T-bar line on Friday. Continued Saturday morning. I ski packed the top part where it is too steep and deep for the snowmobiles to access safely. Ski Packing isn't as much fun as the name implies. Think side stepping down the mountain in boot top to knee deep snow. Yup tiring. As soon as that was completed we fired it up. I went in to grab breakfast. As our busiest day in the past two years kicked into gear. Just as I finished breakfast, I got the call the chair had gone down.

Now first and foremost I don't want people to think that I'm trying to make excuses as I'm not. Just thought I'd like to fill everyone in on what happened and how we responded.

Our T-Bar was running for the first time in two years and I believe only the second time in three years. It's difficult to train staff with yearly turnover and the fact that you actually have to have snow in order to train staff, which we only got the day before. Only 1 lift attendant was working that had actually loaded people on the T-Bar before. We had our entire lift staff on duty. We brought in our second maintenance guy. Both Maintenance guys were working on the lift with the electricians to replace the Contacter that had failed. The electricians were here within an hour of us making the call. Ski Patrol was spread very thin responding to accidents and trying to keep people from jumping on the line half way up, as this can cause a derailment. They were also dealing with assisting people at the loading ramp, informing people at the top of Daves of the situation. Our ski instructors were busy looking after their young students and they setup a small race course on the beginner hill to help keep people entertained. They also helped at the Pony Lift by plugging the safety gate back in, constantly. Much like our staff having a T-Bar learning curve, so were our customers. Many were forced to ride the lift for the first time. Lets face it, pretty much everyone on your first time riding a T-Bar had troubles of some sort. It is especially difficult for snowboarders. Did we learn something from yesterday. Yes we did. We are going to try and improve on things. Yes we are.

Once again I want to thank everyone for there patience yesterday.Turns out one of the brand new parts we had installed this summer as part of our preventative maintenance had failed. Not impressed.

One positive was the trails weren't crowded! Another bonus was how fast Larson's (our electricians) got our chair back in operation. These guys are good. It was still an amazing ski day, most people still had a blast just an interuption in the middle of it.

Today we are looking at a cold and windy day. The Official Ski Patrol Thermometer is sitting at -17 and it's breezy but far from unbearable. It's actually quite nice. Snow Conditions are great so please read my previous post on How to Stay Warm. Everything is open except, Ski Out, Headwall of Harolds, and the Top of the Family Trail. Snowmaking resumed last night and are currently working on Upper Daves, Gregs Way and the Ski Out. The Ski Out is closed as we have guns on both sides of the trail and there are hoses everywhere.

I've also been out Grooming the Beginner Cross Country Trails. I've dragged them all, but due to the snow being soft they only got quazi track set. I'll drag them again the next time I'm up. I've also groomed Big Red to the Power Lines. I've tracked Twisty K to the East West Road with the snowmobile as well. And speaking of Snowmobile Trails, it's now open from the bottom.

Once again, Thank You, see you soon.

Why aren't you here? UPDATED

2007-01-19T15:28:00.000-04:00

????

That's all, I'll talk to you later.

Gone Skiing, yes, it is that good!

***UPDATE*** 7:00 pm

This is what you missed. I want to thank Gregor for taking the time to stop mid run to snap these awesome pics. The first sequence is yours truely.

I saved the best for last. Timmy ripping it up.

I honestly believe we'll be 100% open tomorrow. The only exception may be the Headwall of Harolds and the Chairline but well see how we things work out over night. Don't miss tomorrow, today was easily the best powder day in 3 years. It's still coming down so what do you think tomorrow will be like. I'm going to get teased for this, but the conditions are SWEET!

SD-2

2007-01-18T19:11:00.000-04:00

Soooo, did everyone start faking coughs around the office today? I don't know about you, but tomorrow I think I'll be coming down with a bad case of powderitis. It's probably going to last the weekend but will subside as the weekend goes on. We could be getting up to 30 cms of snow over the next day and half. So that makes tomorrow SD-2 (Sick Day 2). Wow, what a turn around for two weeks ago when we had to close due to crappy conditions. I totally expect to opening just about everything up once the snow starts piling up. Be sure to check back here or the Crabbe Website. Then again if the skiing is as good as I'm hoping, I probably won't be coming in to update my blog. But you never know, I suppose I'll have to stop to refuel at some point in time.

The Snowmakers decided to call it a day earlier this morning as the pond was getting low due to the amount of water they have been drawing for the past couple of days. So seeing there was a storm coming and they had finished the horn they shut down a bit early. Next stop the Terrain Park. Fraser was to spend the day grooming out the snow and we're expecting to open the Horn from top to bottom this evening.

We actually had a good crowd out last night, thanks in part to the UNB bus of hard cores who were up for the evening. I was impressed with how much freshies I was still able to find last night. I'm sure today was awesome with a bit warmer temps.

So you think it was cold here the last couple of days. Check out this video.

Probably take a while to build the base our snowmaking crews have made but it's pretty cool that you can take boiling water and instantly turn it to snow. Very Cool...er...Cold.

On a note that hits way to close to home. I'd like to send our thoughts and prayers to the workers that were injured yesterday at Poley Mountain while working on fixing a problem with their chairlift. We hope for a fast and speedy recovery to those involved and hope to see Poley back in operation sooner, rather than later.

On a more positive note put on those ski and snowboard boots and get dancin'. Bring on the snow!

Cheers.

BTW: Tyson...Finally, this is the one!

How to stay warm

2007-01-17T18:00:00.000-04:00

Socks, it's all about the socks, and bunch of other stuff.

Most of you probably got that nice shock of Arctic air this morning when you stepped out of the house. I, for some perverse reason enjoy the cold, even the extreme cold. I personally believe it's part of being Canadian to be able to deal with extreme weather adversities but then again, maybe that's just me. I think it's mostly because I tend to stay warm and I dress for it (duh!). So here are my tips to stay warm and actually enjoy being outside on Arctic days like today.

Head.
Under my helmet on the coldest days I where a micro fleece balaclava or head condom as we call them on the patrol. And yes I said it, under my helmet. Not only is it safe, but a helmet is probably the warmest hat you will ever where. When you buy a helmet or goggles make sure they have a nice fit so you don't get the dreaded gap. This will lead to many an ice cream headache not mention if you have a really big gap it will leave some nice wind burn marks across your forehead. Don't be gapper, try your helmet and goggles on before you buy.

Upper Body
It all starts with a good base layer. A good poly pro, micro fleece or synthetic base layer is my weapon of choice. On really cold days I'll put a good mid weight fleece over it, then top it off with a heavy fleece and wind proof shell. The layers will help create air pockets that your body will warm up thus keeping you warm. Sticking to articles with good wicking properties will keep most of the sweat and condensation away from your body and also will keep you much warmer.

Hands
On the coldest days I wear a pair of Mitt Shells with a Fleece Mitt Liner. This allows my fingers to work as a team to help keep each other warm instead of segregating them and making them work on their own.

Lower Body
Again much like the Upper Body start with a good base layer, poly pro, micro fleece or synthetic. On really cold days I add a pair of fleece pants (I'm not wearing them today), and then a pair of wind proof insulated ski pants (I'm just wearing a shell so do as I say not as I do).

Feet
Socks, it's all about socks. On a cold day I change my socks several times. This helps you take the dampness away from your feet thus keeping you warmer. Even on the coldest days your feet sweat. Another idea is to try a sock liner under your ski or snowboard sock to help wick moisture away. And don't forget to change your socks. I can't stress this enough.

So Ditch that cool cotton T-shirt. Cotton kills. It holds moisture and the whole idea here is to get rid of the moisture or at least move as far away from your skin as possible. For more advice stop by your local shop, I'm sure Radical Edge and Ski Wolf can give you even more advice. The Ski Mitt @ Crabbe usually has a decent selection of base layers and mid weight fleeces so maybe check there on your next visit. Another idea if you are prone to cold hands or feet is to try hand or feet warmers. I find the hand warmers are a little to warm for me, but feet warmers are just what the doctor ordered on a day where I'm going to be spending a lot of time standing around outside in cold Arctic temps. Both the Ski Mitt and Ticket Office have them for a couple of dollars per package.

Current Conditions: Excellent. Awesome carving on the groomed stuff and There are still freshies to be found on the Ski Out. The Official Ski Patrol Thermometer is sitting at -20 but the winds are light. We are hoping for another storm on Friday. If we get any decent accumulation I can see the far side opening up. I could be wrong but if I was a betting man that is where my money would be at. Unless it's a huge dump I have my doubts on the Family Trail. It's going to need a pretty good dump of snow to open. But again...I could be wrong

Snowmaking Update: The boys are hammering the Upper Horn. You should see the size of the piles. Amazing what Arctic temps do for snowmaking. The challenge now is keeping things from freezing up as the water is really cold and the Upper Horn is a spur line. So we aren't able to monitor the return water temp as the water does not return. We use it all. So the boys have to really pay attention to how much water they are using. The current plan is to keep blasting the Horn until they are forced to shut down on Friday. I can see that open Friday or Saturday at the latest. When they restart they will be heading to the Ski Out Terrain Park, Upper Daves and Gregs Way.

Happy Birthday Update: Happy Birthday to our very own Sasquatch! The birthday boy is out moving guns as we speak.

Until tomorrow, keep it between the ditches!

Dawn Patrol for me - SD - #1 for you UPDATED

2007-01-16T11:58:00.000-04:00

Knowing that I had meetings all day today, there was no way I was going to be able to call in sick (like they would be believe me) or take the day off, I decided to go for Dawn Patrol with Alex. The Plan. Get up at 4am be at Crabbe by 5am get two runs in by 7am be home for 8am and be to work for 8:30. Well things started off as planned. Alex was super excited to come with me. We made good time arriving at the mountain at 5:05. First run was down the Glades to check things out. Looking pretty chipper for someone who doesn't drink coffee

Oh yeah, the new headlamp works great. Thanks Ski Wolf. Alex and I had a blast. Things were a little scratchy down bottom as you could tell there was crust under there, but all things were good. We stopped above the last pitch. We could hear coyotes having a party off in the distance. Alex stayed pretty close from here on in.

We stopped at chair bottom where I put my skins on and skinned up Elgees, across Norms and up Harolds. Coverage was decent but the grass and the tire ruts from the tractor made my planned descent of Norms to Tippy to Harolds not seem like a great idea. Plus the fact that skipping breakfast was catching up to me, I decided to abort this run as it might not be the safest thing to do with the sketchy conditions in the pitch black. Maybe that is why they didn't open the far side up today. As we climbed we could hear Fraser grooming the Flume.

We skinned all the way back across to the PH. Put the skins back in my pack and sampled the Upper Glades once again. I took a bunch of pics of Alex and our tracks on the way back up. I checked out Little Brave on the way back up and it had the deepest snow we found on the mountain. I quickly put away my gear, left some notes in the book for the guys, and left Crabbe at about 7:30.

The Drive back in took forever as there was a vehicle driving 50 whether there was bare pavement or not. You would think with the line of cars stringing back from Dam to probably Zealand this driver would pull over and let everyone by, but I was mistaken. So based on that I was a few minutes late for work. Grrrr. Probably should have left Crabbe earlier.

I have a ton more work to do today so I'll update when I get a chance. Until then enjoy the pics.

Evil Alex says, "Lets go already"

Alex and her new best friend, SNOW!

Alex and I making tracks on the Upper Glades

Frosty

***UPDATE*** 5:35 pm

Stefan sent me these with these comments, "Man Jay, we haven't seen light dry powder like that in a couple of years at Crabbe! After cranking out a ton of turns this morning... i'm sitting here at my desk... thinking... it seems like it was all just a dream. Them i saw my reflection in my office window... nahhhh. Still wearing my <> grin! :) It was all real!" .

Enjoy, I know I did.

Top of the Horn

Chairline

The Best for Last, Upper Daves

Do you have some pics you would like to share, email them to me at skipatrol at crabbemountain dot com

Now that's what I'm talking about

2007-01-15T06:12:00.000-04:00

What a great weekend. Thanks to everyone who came out and made this a successful weekend. I all started with a great skiing on Friday with and unexpected 10cm of snow. We opened up the middle pitch of the horn for some ungroomed fun and games. Wing night was delicious, can't wait for next Friday Night. And they we had a really good crowd on Saturday. Flat top rocked the place and the skiing got better as the day went on. Sunday started out slow as usual. I guess you people didn't get my hint on it being the best kept secret, but soon we had another good crowd in and the skiing was excellent. I met a crew of snowboarders for Moncton that were quite happy with the condition of our Jib Park and were stoked with what we had setup. They were in Stoneham last weekend and they said our setup was just as good. Thanks guys I hope the videos turn out good. Our snowmaking crews have making a pile of snow on the Lower Half of Horn. Everyone had good vibes going on and I got to ride the chair with a bunch of really cool people. Once again thanks, we needed that.

I just got off the phone with Big Larry and they are still blasting away on the lower horn. They are laying down a real think coat so they don't have to come back to refresh later. Look for them to move the guns up top later today or tonight. I wouldn't expect the Lower Horn to be open today but tomorrow sounds like a good plan. Once the Horn is done they will be moving to the Ski Out Terrain Park, Upper Daves and Gregs Way.

Speaking of tomorrow. Tomorrow might be SD#1 (Sick Day #1) for many people in the region. We're looking at somewhere around 10 -15 cms of Snow starting later today. That should allow us to open some natural terrain, no promises but we're keeping an eye on it. Remember fake coughs all day today to help sell your sick day tomorrow. :-) I'm kidding...Seriously tomorrow should be good. I may see if the G-man is interested in Dawn Patrol in the morning. I know I am.

I have a huge project due this morning so I gotta run.

Cheers!

Whatta Day!

2007-01-13T16:37:00.000-04:00

Wow, what a day! Things were a little scratchy this morning but have softened up nicely. The wind have changed direction which means the cold temps tonight. Snowmaking crews will be in tonight. No worries cause we've got Steak Night tonight and I can't wait. There is nothing like a mouth watering BBQ Steak in the winter. Plus you can check out the great sounds of Flattop who are currently rockin' the Boot.

We had a great crowd up here today, which was great to see. Saw lots of smiling faces which was also great to see. The Sun was shining. What a beautiful day. Should be another good crowd out for night skiing as well, which is just what the doctor ordered.

Big Larry and Kanocks where in today doing some maintenance on the compressors and getting all the hoses and guns ready to go for tonight. I'm not sure where they will be. They'll have a few guns on the Flume and maybe the Horn as well. It won't take much to get the bottom of the Horn up and running. Giddy-up!. It also looks like the boys will have a nice window to work with as well. Maybe even a little snow on Tuesday. Whoo hoo.

Current Conditions: Getting better as the day goes on. The Official Patrol Hut Thermometer is currently sitting at -8. We may have some snow roll in later tonight just help freshen things up.

I went out and packed the Beginner Cross Country trails behind the Lodge with the snowmobile to help build a bit of a base. I did the same to Diddle Daddle as well. Things are looking better and better it won't be long before we open up a few more trails. Another snowfall or two will do it. Sooo keep those snow dances going and don't forget to wear your ski or snowboard boots.

So I'll leave with some park pics. Sorry for the flat light but it was snowing this morning when I took these.

Rainbow and Kids Fun Box

Bottom Section

Urban Style Flat Rail

Rail Box Flat Rail

Up Rail

Way to go Snowmakers! UPDATE

2007-01-12T08:50:00.000-04:00

I got to the mountain last night and was thoroughly impressed with the conditions. They aren't the best conditions we've had all year but they are far far far from the worst. Daves is where it is at, as it's in better shape than the Flume because they have been concentrating most of the guns there building a huge base. But the Flume is still definitely good. The Website might not get you excited about the conditions, but I'm telling you this kid is stoked.

Last night after close I rebuilt the take offs and landings of all the terrain features. It was really tough as they just moved the guns a few minutes before I got there. They still had a gun above the Rainbow so there was little I could do there. I'll be refreshing them all again tonight after close.

Don't have plans for the weekend. Conditions are great, Temps are going to be great, Weather is going to be great, plus on Saturday we've got Flattop playing in the bar. Too bad I'm working as I love hanging out in the Thirsty Boot when these guys are up here. They always put on a good show. I'll have to poke my head in from time to time to check it out. And of course the best kept secret of the weekend is turns on Sunday morning. You can expect the best conditions and no crowds. See you up here!

There may or may not be Friday night racing tonight. I understood that it was supposed to kick off tonight, but there is nothing on the website or snowphones so I have know idea. I can't get a hold of anyone today to confirm one way or another, and I work here. So for the time being, I don't know. When I find out I'll let you know.

Or maybe the confusion is with the picture of the day saying that Norm is our GM. I guess I missed that announcement as well. Maybe that is why Gregor isn't answering his phone this morning. :-) Or maybe I'm just out of the loop.

Snowmaking is currently on hold. They shut down sometime overnight as the temps and humidity went up. We should see them back on the mountain Saturday or Sunday night. If you see them around the mountain this weekend, make sure you stop them and say thanks. The boys have been doing an awesome job!

That's all I have right now, I'll be up at the mountain this afternoon and add an update as I learn more about what is up!

***UPDATE*** 3:30pm
It's been snowing up here all day. Maybe 10 cms or so on the ground and it's still snowing. Not bad for the forecasted 2 cms. I wish we always got 5 times the amount of snow forecasted. With the new snow we decided to open up new terrain. Seriously. It's not much but it's something. We opened up the middle section of the Horn. That's right from the second cutoff just above tower nine, to the last cut off. I told you it wasn't much but they are still sweet turns. Conditions are awesome. Get up here!

I finally got the word on Friday night racing. It's a no go for tonight. Wing night is still on though, I believe. I think I may be partaking in that.

Oh yeah, I saw the bartender try and jump a ditch on her second run ever at Sunny Crabbe Mountain. She didn't make it. I think she be owing Timmy and I something. Nice smile and wave though.

Cheers

Nuthin' but pix

2007-01-11T12:36:00.000-04:00

Timmy and Gord sent me these this morning. Click on pics to see full size!

Snowmaking on the Flume

Snowmaking on Daves

Snowmaking near the jib park on Daves. I'll reshape tonight.

Norm out tearing up the Flume

Ka-nocks adjusting his gun

Back in the Saddle

2007-01-10T19:46:00.000-04:00

Snowmaking started overnight last night and made some progress resurfacing the Beginner Hill and Daves Dream. They didn't make a whole lot of progress today but it made more cents to leave the system up and running till the temps drop this evening. Things should be running pretty good tonight.

We will reopen tomorrow. I'm not entirely sure what the conditions will be like at this point but things should be decent with the new snow from Monday plus the newly made snow all tilled in together.

I just got off the phone with Big Lar and Sassy, and they tell me they've got about an inch of fresh and it's still flurrying (new word, hey if Enviroment Canada can say Flurries at times heavy, I can use flurrying). They are hoping the clouds break soon so the humidity can drop they can put bigger nozzles in the guns and start making some real snow. Snowmaking will continue on Daves and then up onto the Flume. It looks like we may have some more snow coming over the weekend it's looking borderline so keep those snow dances going (with ski or snowboard boots on) and lets hope one of these turns into a big dump!

I'll post an update as soon as I hear about the conditions in the morning. Who knows maybe I'll even get an updated picture. I will will rebuild the terrain features after close tomorrow night.

An Update...finally

2007-01-09T19:15:00.000-04:00

Yesterday sure was a sight for sore eyes. I had it worked out perfect. Work my butt off all day at my day job, and head up to Crabbe to do run or two in the fresh snow to check out the conditions. I called Gregor, he was game. Ran over the Ski Wolf and picked up a mountain bike light system as my old headlamp just doesn't cut it. Got back to work to realize I'm big time behind. Around 3 o'clock I spoke with Gregor and he said it had changed over a little after noon up there. Buckle down Jolly, just cause it's raining doesn't mean it's going to suck. Next time I looked at my watch it was 6:00. By the time I finished up my project it was 8:00 and Gregor had emailed the the snow was the consistency of elephant snot, so I decided to abort. Good thing as I was quite tired. So that is my excuse for no update yesterday. Sorry.

Today I was at the Microsoft Launch for Vista, Office and Exchange 2007 at Empire Theatres. Cool stuff. I learned that I need a couple new computers and a new budget. Lunch was catered by the Happy Baker.

Once that was over, I picked up Alex a Linda's work, came home, changed and headed to Crabbe. Gregor had warned me that there was quite a crust, but I'm a crash and bang type of skier so I'm not worried. As I pull in the parking lot at the patrol hut I realize two things. One I forgot my keys which means that I won't have access to my skis, Two that the new snow has a a thick death crust on top. I drove down the lodge hoping someone would still be around, no dice. So Alex and I went for a hike. There is one Groomer pass down the mountain which I though was sort of odd but it made for easier walking. Just as I crossed heart break ridge I realized why. I looks like the snowmobile were having a tough time climbing up the mountain with the new snow slowing the up and them digging down to the slick surface below. We sat on a chair at chair bottom as the sun went down. It's odd being down there as after dark with not a soul around. As The Roots would say, it "Don't Feel Right".

After a bit, I flicked on my new light and hiked back up Daves stopping to check out the rails. We hiked up the Snowmobile onto Big Red for the remainder of the hike. Alex was pooped for the drive home, it's funny watching her try to curl up in the front seat of my truck.

So here we go, what you've been waiting for.

Current Conditions: 10 cm or so of new snow coated with a death crust on top. No worries that will groom out nicely. Things are thin underneath, but that snow was just what the doctor ordered. There is a bit more snow at the mountain than there is in town. (It's not the knee deep snow I dreamed of last night) There were flurries in the air when I got there but they didn't last long. Snowmaking may or may not be in tonight, however, snowmaking conditions will be marginal at best. If not tonight then they will be in tomorrow night. We plan to reopen on Thursday. Looks like more snow this weekend. Lets start those snow dances. Make sure you wear you ski or snowboard boots when you do this.

I also want to apologize for my tone in my last two posts. Sometimes all this bad weather and stuff can get to me. Especially when you are doing everything you can to provide the best possible conditions we can. Sometimes it makes it feel like your hard work is all for nothing. Thanks again for all the positive feedback.

Daze Off :-( UPDATED

2007-01-07T13:30:00.000-04:00

The phone rang this morning at 5:30 am. Nothing good comes from a phone call at 5:30 in the morning. It was Gregor, telling me what I had pretty much guessed. We were closed today. He was up checking out the mountain and said there were quite a few bare spots, which we do have a small stock pile of snow near chair top. We could use that to fix up across the top but there were still numerous bare spots on the Flume and Daves. We could open with marginal conditions or let the snow set up by keeping the groomer off it and stay closed. I agree with the decision. After two or three days of warm temps and rain, bringing the groomer out on the mountain before the snow sets up just destroys the snow pack. It's something we only do when we absolutely have too.

So I got to sleep in which actually felt really nice. I got another phone call from Mr. Kevin Breau at 8:00 he was at the patrol hut and didn't sound one bit impressed about me not calling him to let him know we were closed. I thought he would have checked the website and Snowphone before leaving Fredericton. I guessed wrong. I probably owe him a brown weight for that.

Current Conditions: As you know we are closed today and may stay closed for a few days. Check out the forecasts and see if you can decipher anything from this stuff.

There is 16 degrees between the Fredericton Environment Canada forecast and the Millville Weather Network forecast. I could use a number of 4 letter words but I won't. If this was summer and there was 16 degrees difference that would mean the weather could be +32 or +16. This is a huge difference or how about +16 and Freezing. How can we make sound business decisions on this rubbish? In other words we can't. We may have marginal snowmaking conditions tonight, which we will take advantage off it they actually occur. We have marginal conditions but could open. There is actually a CASI course going on as we speak so it's not all that bad.

Traditionally the Monday and Tuesday after the Christmas Break or dead. Would they be busy this year. With the weather of the past few day, I doubt it. If the Weather Network forecast stands true with 15 cms of snow and no rain, we will probably reopen tomorrow or the next day. If not, the plan is to stay closed until Thursday as Wednesday Night is looking like a decent snowmaking night. These plans are definitely subject to change, so please keep checking back for the latest and greatest.

Being a ski hill we are constantly being criticized with the decisions we make. If we were open today, people would be complaining about the marginal conditions. We are closed and people are complaining that we are not open because it is a nice day. What is the right direction? We decided to stay closed, preserve the snow, save some money, and focus on rebuilding the snow pack at every opportunity we are given. Are we making a poor decision? I'm not sure, you tell me. If we had 4 feet of snow right now, we would look like genius's. Heck, the mountain could pretty much run itself. But when you run into these types of weather challenges what decisions would you make if it was your business. How can we improve? You tell me.

***UPDATE***

As of 4 pm The Weather Network and Environment Canada are now within 5 degrees of each other. This is something we can work with. Looks like it's going to be a northern storm track which is good news for Crabbe. We're hoping to get 15- 20 cms out of this bad boy.

Think Snow!

Soggy Bottom Day UPDATED

2007-01-06T08:30:00.000-04:00

Well...right now it's raining. Not hard or anything, just a steady depressing rain. On my ride up from the Garage to the PH, I noticed clackety clack in front of the lodge and at the top the Beginner Hill. Everything else is pretty soft. They didn't groom last night and didn't really have to. It would have just made a mess anyway.

Current Conditions: Rain, it's supposed to let off and even stop later today. I'll keep you posted. The Official Ski Patrol Thermometer is +5. We're expecting cold summer time temperatures today. I'll let you know later what the trails are like.

***UPDATE***
There are thin areas on both Daves and the Flume please use caution. There are also quite a few dirt seed sightings here and there. The website might be little misleading this morning using the words great and SWEET.

***UPDATE***
We will be closing at 4:30. There will be no night skiing tonight. I closed 2 of the terrain features:

Rainbow - no take off
Urban - dirt on the landing

I'll try to get those fixed up tomorrow.

***UPDATE***
We are now closed due to chair problems. By the sounds of it they now have the problem fixed, but we are staying closed for the day anyways.

Today will be one of those hut days. I'll try to post something a little entertaining after breakfast.

Oh yeah, I'm famous now. My pics from yesterday ended up on Global TV news last night. I won a Global Backpack. STOKED! If your nice, I may even let you touch it.

HO-LEE Cr@p

2007-01-05T08:48:00.000-04:00

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. I had a really busy day at work. Worked through lunch, expecting to leave early and still worked late plus I left my laptop there.

So how was your drive into work this morning? Here are my pics

Ho-Lee a Transit Bus off the road, well at least there is a tow truck and a cop car there.

Never mind, the Tow Truck is smashed into the City Bus

Gilbert's Spring Water in the ditch with a truck resting up on it's side. Calvin didn't look one bit impressed. Neither did the two cars in the ditch in front of them

I'm missed these two on the way by but got them in the rear view

It looks like one car is sitting on top of the other

Police and Sand truck to the rescue, scratch that...they are in the ditch too.

And the scary part is these are just a sample. There were more cars in the ditch but they got boring after a while. Plus I was having trouble taking so many pics and running into the car in front of me. I thought the road conditions were fine, but then again I was in 4X4 in first gear most of the way in. I heard there is a car in a house on Graham Ave. I hope no one got hurt this morning.

Last night, I did get a bunch of really nice runs in. Conditions were Granular and Skied off, but the sides were nice, so I did old school short radius top to bottom and got an awesome leg work out. I got to ski a run and ride the chairlift twice with Karen who was out on Teles. What a cool chic. Her hubby Matt, daughter Ava and her are moving to Oregon in February, but for now they are living on the mountain at the Davis's Chalet. Very cool

Had a much more uneventful drive home last night than I did the night before. Wednesday night a deer hit my truck. No seriously it hit me. I was almost stopped and it ran into the side of my tire. Long story short, I'm upset because I not a big fan of hurting animals. But after about a hour and half of going from laying to sitting to standing in the middle of the road, it finally hobbles off to go lay in the field. I checked last night and it wasn't there and there were not any drag or foot prints from DNR that I had called earlier so I can only hope it is doing ok.

Current Conditions: Looks like a damp one, the skiing will be good, butts will be wet. Should be nice and soft, just drive carefully if you are heading up. We're looking at cold summer time temps today and over the weekend. However they are not calling for too much rain which is a good thing. We can handle a steady rain, and warm temps. Heck we can probably handle it raining hot water as Dwight would say. What we probably can't handle is torrential downpours for hours on end that we saw last year week after week. To help combat this, one of the summer projects was to work on improving drainage on our trails. We laid hundreds of feet of culverts and dug hundreds of feet of ditches to help divert water both in the summer and winter. Let's hope this paid off. At this time I'm not singing doom and gloom as the forecast looks like it has improved and I don't think it is out of the questions for us to survive this. Lets hope in improves even more. The other odd thing about this weather event is we are not going to have a flash freeze afterwards which is bad for snow making but good for letting the "Snow dry out" which will mean less clackety clack on the mountain. If you are heading up, tonight is Wing Night and Open Mic Night which should be a good time.

As usual I will try to keep this blog as up to date as possible with what is going on up there.

In the key of H

2007-01-03T20:21:00.000-04:00

I don't have a whole lot to talk about today so I'm going to do my blog in the key of H. Ever watch CSI Miami? This is my impression of Horacio (sp?)

Today....was...a beautiful day. The Sun...was...shining for most of the day. Yes....there was...a lot of people. But...it wasn't too crowded. Rumor has it...the right side of Daves...is where it is at. Interesting. So...what are you doing...tomorrow? If I were you...I'd be here. The temperature...is going to be nice.

Tonight...after the mountain closes...I bet...some features are going to get moved. Indeed. The rainbow and fun box...are going to be moved...to a new...location. Greg...why don't you...give me a hand. We...are going to try...and open up...more...room...at the top...of the Beginner Hill.

Now...I need your help? If you...happen...to park...at the top...by the Aliant tower. I...don't see the need...for you...to park in the middle...of the trail. This...makes a mess...on the trail. It...makes this area...too narrow. You...also...take up room...that snowboarders...like to strap...into...there snowboards. So...please park...further back...in the parking lot. Thank you.

Ok...this...is getting annoying. I'm...going to stop now.

Snowmaking Update: I don't really have one, and I don't see anything happening in the near future on the snowmaking front. It was too windy with marginal conditions so the boys didn't come in just to see what little snow made, end up in the woods.

That's all I got for right now.

See tomorrow.

PS. I'm eating Crow today (well not really, I had a BLT and fries) as the Flames lost last night. Grrr...

Clowning around on the Flume

2007-01-02T16:54:00.000-04:00

Me, Jay from Ski Wolf and Greg out clowning around in the freezing rain last night. Photo credits go to Stefan. We had a blast doing laps on the Flume last night. Snow Conditions were awesome, nice and soft and with a little new stuff on top. Deeeelicious. The only downside was my goggles kept freezing up and my butt got a little damp riding the chair. Probably could have dug one of these out my locker, but I was having too much fun. Come to think of it, the Ski Mitt might still sell them. Handy little rigs, if I would have stopped skiing to go grab it.

Yesterday, it started out as ice pellets and then turned to snow for the afternoon. It changed over to freezing rain a little after supper and then drizzle around 8 or so. When I left, the mountain didn't loose any snow, and I doubt they lost much, if any at all.

I talked to Timmy earlier today and he tells me conditions were great again this morning. They were in the fog, but it was snowing quite hard. Got a cm or two out of it. Hey don't knock it, we'll take what we can get. Temps are supposed to drop tonight, down to around -8. I would imagine Snowmaking will be in, but I could be wrong, it's going to be quite humid and with the high winds, it's going to make what little snow they can make, difficult to get to land on the trail. But then again, looking ahead it doesn't look they are going to have too many opportunities for a bit, so they will more than likely take advantage of what little chance they have. I expect they will continue to work on the Lower Horn. It's getting pretty close to open.

Don't forget to kick the kids out of the house, the bus is running everyday this week and little fresh air will do them good. Click Here for details.

Attn: 50/50tobackside: Sorry I haven't got any pics of the park up yet, I was planning on changing things up a bit but haven't. I'm up again tomorrow night so I hope to snap some pics for you.

My Flames vs Jenny's Canucks tonight. Jenny, I'm sorry but your team is going down, even if you do put whip cream on my hot chocolate. :-)

Welcome to Jolly J's Twisted Life

It's been a Slice

Party Animals and the Non Party Type Animals

Big Projects

Rock and Rollin'

Alive and well

My Mental State

I have an Ouchie

JJ's Blog - The Picture Page Edition

It's Been Kinda Crazy

The Perfect Storm

Goodbye 2007

Boxing Day Blues

Getting ready for a Rockin' Weekend

I Can Feel It Coming In the Air Tonight

Keep on Rockin' in a Free World

Nothing Is Ever Easy ***Updates***

Mother Of An Update

Bout time I get back at'er

Thanx

Flurry of Activity going on

First Tracks 2007 - 2008 ***UPDATE***

Lest We Forget

To Ben Eoin and Beyond

First Measurable Snow!

Twas a good swap and a great weekend

Swappin'...yes indeed...we're swappin'

Things are starting to heat up...I mean cool down

It's Been Awhile

The Patch

Ryan Leech Therapy

The Trip

Reality Bites

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Good Friday

Karma...part two.

What a Season!

Lets send her off with a BANG!

Friends and Family

What's your excuse for not being here?

Dumbies...bring it on

It's partly my dogs fault...yeah that's it.

It's Not Over Yet!

Old and New

User Submitted

Video killed the radio star

A Weekend of Epic Porportions

Best Conditions Ever?

Terrain Park Picture Update

The Happiest Skiers on the Planet

March Break Cometh

A couple of daze off

Speed week is upon us

Grrrr

Everybody's working for the weekend

Karma ***UPDATED***X2

SD-3 & 4 - DP-4 for me

Still Alive

Getting ready for another great weekend

Good Times

WOW

Under the weather

Bee You Tea Full Deh

It's Showtime!

Park Construction begins tonight

Dawn Patrol # 2

Thank You

Why aren't you here? ***UPDATED***

SD-2

How to stay warm

Dawn Patrol for me - SD - #1 for you ***UPDATED***

Now that's what I'm talking about

Whatta Day!

Way to go Snowmakers! ***UPDATE***

Nuthin' but pix

Back in the Saddle

An Update...finally

Daze Off :-( ***UPDATED***

Soggy Bottom Day ***UPDATED***

HO-LEE Cr@p

Nothing Is Ever Easy Updates

First Tracks 2007 - 2008 UPDATE

Karma UPDATEDX2

Why aren't you here? UPDATED

Dawn Patrol for me - SD - #1 for you UPDATED

Way to go Snowmakers! UPDATE

Daze Off :-( UPDATED

Soggy Bottom Day UPDATED