bobble

great shot! we drove 10 hours from Minnesota to Cape Girardeau Missouri. i used the Solar Snap app on my iPhone 13. images were not great. some came out okay. the app was hard to use with one hand. i couldn't tell if the image was in focus or not. friend used a DSLR and caught solar flares. it was wild seeing the totality.

3/30/24 early morning soft conditions. they had south chair open. took a couple runs. one area just below the jump line was really soft. on heel-side i dug in hard and almost slowed to a stop. left a respectable trench. no carving. just surfing. crossroads and milkrun were decent. it was great for about 45 minutes, but it started to get rough. on my last run down milkrun i tweaked my back after hitting multiple bumps on single heel-side turn. just called it quits. @bigwavedave could you see yourself doing this? i watched his series. i'm fascinated by his videos. i'll stick to my pontoon on a freshwater lake.

3/29/24 buck reopened because of new snow. i had already gave up boarding couple weeks ago. snow softened around 11am. some fun carving. the main chair was open but not the south chair. lift lines were really long.

2/2/24 mid 30's. conditions not great. warners was soft and sloppy. milkrun was bumpy. crossroads was same. one of the regulars was complaining about conditions. he said that someone who used to work there as a lifty told him that the groomers are going to fast for properly grooming the run. i can't seem to carve anymore. age is catching up.

1/31/24 rode at lunch. i suck at skis most rode warners. did one on milkrun. hard to control my skis. feels like end of season already.

1/29/24 rode over lunch. sloppy conditions. railyard has a jump line. moguls on crossroads.

do you know where in minneapolis? are you downtown or in the suburbs. there aren't any "mountains" in central minnesota. for that you'd need to drive north up to duluth to spirit mountain which is about 2-1/2 hours drive for me. further north is lutsen which is is very nice. afton alps is part of vail. both afton and welch are decent. i like both. obviously better if you can ride weekdays. the weekends can get crowded. and then there are the smaller places like buck hill and hyland hills. not about season passes. this has been a horrible season.

1/13/24 cold... about 8F. new snow. buck has races as foretold by the mysterious gypsy woman. arrived early and was out on the run at 8:45AM. left at 9:30AM. just didn't feel it. crossroads had warmups going on. took two runs and just hard snow. olympic was crappy. there were undulations going horizontally across the run. in flat light it was hard to see. some areas were hard snow. railyard has hard icy snow near snowguns. when you get near the maintenance building there are numerous ATV tracks to avoid. ski coaches were setting up on warners so i didn't bother. at bottom of warners where railyard intersects are mounds of snow from snowguns.

1/11/24 rode at lunch. buck is blowing snow. very cold temperature, around 15F. rode milkrun. difficult to carve due to dips and bumps on the run. snow guns pointed towards crossroads. going to be alotta snow on that run.

good lord... i would hate to have that attached to my front leg riding the chair with high wind!

looks like leo's favorite place to ride made it to reddit...

1/7/24 rode mostly olympic. flat light. fast groom. back is sore. i rode first chair. there was a slight delay. the lifty said there was a problem with one of the chairs. rode up. something about the lift bars. after i reached the top they stopped the chairlift. went to south chair. the main chair kept shutting down for a while. hope it's under warranty. south chair got busy. met up with leo. learned that i'm spoiled riding at buck. ms. bobble ordered a blanket from powder addict of spirit mountain. she wanted to get one of buck hill but didn't like the view of Sunny Acres trailer park appearing on the blanket. she picked spirit because the print fills the blanket nicely, and it does. unfortunately, chateau de big wave dave is missing from the print. https://www.powderaddicts.com/collections/ski-resort-map-printed-blankets/minnesota?sort_by=

1/6/24 rode saturday morning. flat light. rode crossroads. cord was decent but a little fast. seems like skiers left on crossroads is abnormally higher in the middle. races on milkrun and olympic. lift lines were getting crowded. met two softbooters, kai and zt. apparently, they know leo and flatcoke. small world.

1/5/23 rode over lunch. crossroads has sub-par grooming. at the very top are ice balls. there are small rolls parallel to the fall line. hard to see in flat light. i was chattering. olympic ... i couldn't carve very well. redtail was okay but was fast.

1/4/23 rode in evening. almost all the snow guns were operating. crossroads was choppy and busy with ski challenge. warners was bouncy up top, okay at second pitch. railyard had some small mounds. kids were making jumps and walking back up the hill.