bobble

12/24/21, DAY 13 flat light. light drizzle early but stopped. visibility slightly improved. rode from 9AM until 2PM. snow was grippy but the trick was being able to see it. trent was there with his daughters. they were all greeted by coach tom ... the guy that stalks skiers like randy. trent had a nice conversation with him. he learned that in addition to being deaf, he's blind. he can't see snowboarders, he only sees skiers.

12/22/21, DAY 12 rode at lunch. conditions were subpar. buck must have ran snow guns on all runs. under the main chair there were tire ruts from the snowguns up and down the run. at the top of crossroads there was a large frosty mound of ice. there's a ramp for ski teams. milkrun was meh. near the lift tower it looked like rough snow. it wasn't groomed very well. tried olympic. meh. railyard. there were a large mound midway down. sketchy going to lift line with tired tracks. redtail was bad. some ice.

12/20/21, DAY 11 rode at lunch. sunny skies. temps was in 23F but the windchill was 12F. crossroads was good. on milkrun i couldn't maintain an edge without washing out. on my first turn i fell down on heelside because the snow was like small marbles. i didn't bother with olympic. it has two large mounds. it didn't look like anyone skied down it. what? their hours are 9AM until 2PM on christmas eve. copy/pasted from their website. did they change their hours and not update the webpage? i plan on being there christmas eve. i think last year trent and i were the last ones down the hill.

12/19/21, DAY 10 sunday morning. flat light. buck is still blowing snow. my goggles were getting iced over from the snow guns. it was annoying. i had to clear my lenses about every three runs. at times i couldn't see shit but i was able to carve down the run. the cord was actually good compared to previous days. edges held great near center and near lift tower. on skiers right of crossroads it was hard from the snow guns. there was some ski masters race setup on milkrun so i didn't bother riding. ----- there were two new lifties who didn't get proper training. both of them were at the bottom of main chair. the one guy who bumped chairs let us on at 9AM. the other guy just stood there doing absolutely nothing. when i reached the top i noticed there wasn't anyone inside the shack! this went on for more than an hour. no one was manning the shack. at around 10:15AM i saw the woman in charge of ski patrol standing inside the shack on her radio. i just knew she was giving someone an earful. on next trip up i loaded right behind the lifty that was bumping chairs. when i unloaded, i saw the owner of BH sitting in the shack with the lift operations supervisor. the lifty was outside the door. the supervisor gave the lifty a hard time and that he should've communicated with the top. apparently the lifty thought someone was already up on top but he didn't use the phone to confirm. later i heard the supervisor say something about difficult getting people to show up to work. i think it's the supervisor's is partially at fault. how could these people not know their assignments? regardless, i don't think these people are getting any safety training. there used to be daily meetings before the lifts were open. i have yet to see one.

12/18/21, DAY 9 saturday morning. about two inches of fresh powder on top of cord. underneath was icy. ski teams took over half of crossroads. i managed to get two runs where they set up gates. the d-team kids were bombing the runs. at bottom of milkrun they had set up for a race. took a couple runs on it. difficult to maintain an edge because i was bouncing. warners had snowguns blowing. took only one run. it was bad enough with snowgun blowing on my face. the cord was tough to ride. i didn't bother with railyard. redtail was closed for some reason. left early because it was too crowded.

12/17/21, DAY 8 rode at lunch. buck is recovering from wednesday's freaky thunderstorm. we had high winds that blew down our neighbor's pine tree. thin cord on crossroads, icy underneath. very fast. same with milkrun. the south runs were closed due to snow making. i hope they blow snow on crossroads/milkrun again.

it's raining hard right now. thunderstorm in december? my gutters are overflowing. shit... maybe crystal lake will open and i can go paddle boarding.

12/13/21, DAY 7 went riding at lunch. rode crossroads, milkrun. snow was great. the chairlift was watching...

12/12/21, DAY 6 rode from 9am until 12:00pm. conditions were decent but a little soft. under the lift tower the board left deep ruts. crossroad, milkrun, redtail were good. olympic had areas where it was stiff groom. on skiers right there were some rollers that were hard to see from the lift. intimidating on approach. the south chair opened late. warners (warren?) wasn't properly groomed on skiers right. crowds weren't bad otherwise i would've left sooner. as i left there was a long line of people getting lift tickets.

yikes. i heard that afton lines were really bad yesterday. buck was nowhere near as crowded as afton.

12/11/21, DAY 5 burnsville got 14-16" of snow. i shoveled twice, one last night and this morning. the snow was powder but i was exhausted from shoveling the end of the driveway after the plow came through. got to buck early at 8:25AM. ski patrollers had already tracked out crossroads and milkrun. NOOOOOOO!!!! the ticket office told everyone that the lift was officially opening at 9:00AM. i went down to the lift line at 8:30AM hoping i could sneak on. the lifty was new and let me and another skier take two trips up the chair. i took redtail down both times. fresh tracks! good god! the snow was DEEP. good times! on third attempt up the chair the lifty got a call to stop letting the public onto the run. it was about 8:40AM. the ski patrollers started lecturing everyone that the run was closed until 9AM. i said "since you're doing drills on crossroads and milkrun could we ride down red tail or olympic?". seemed like a good compromise. the buck hill civil chairlift marshal came up from behind me and said, "thank you for your cooperation, Bob!". i turned around and this guy had skied up from behind real close to read my name off of the lift ticket attached to my helmet. so, am i on a no-fly list because i snuck onto the runs? the lift line was getting longer as the ski patrollers were doing their drills. some of them were free skiing and not performing drills. meanwhile ski teams were setting up poles on crossroads to divide the run. after 10 minutes they relented and opened early at 8:50AM. i did a couple more runs on redtail. the south chair opened and i went over there. lots of powder. it was all fun. wish i had a powder board. the lines got too long. it was a good time to leave so i left at about 10:20AM. i tried.

why aren't you driving the groomer?

12/4/22, DAY 4 got to buck around 9:30 AM-ish. parkling lot was full from d-teams practicing on teachers pet. main chair started running around 9:45AM. in order to get to the snow you have to walk across the beach through about 50 ft of grass/dirt. milkrun and 1/2 of crossroads were open. very thin coverage. dirt patches everywhere. icy groom. it was cloudy. i was skidding. couldn't see. most humbling. a couple snowboarders said that they were struggling to hold an edge and fearful of falling down. occasionally had to wait for groups of ski teams to clear the run. around 10:30 AM the sun pierced the clouds. i was able to carve some turns. at 11:00 AM, clouds returned. left 11:15 AM.

lol! that guy was stalking racers on first day. he would start off doing drills, stop midway to side of the run, and stand there watching skiers. after spotting his prey he would ski down to the lift line and start the conversation with "what team are you on?"

she probably thinks she's Lyndsey? makes sense to move to GR but couldn't they fly into Duluth? wouldn't that be shorter drive? (i'm geographically challenged, among other things)

buck always seemed like a weird choice. to host RTTC. was it the abundance of Lindsey Vonn posters all over the place that made them change locations?

11/28/21, DAY 3 arrived early. snow was firm. relatively fast for teacher's pet. good riding. unusually busy for sunday morning. very long lift line formed before the lift started taking people. there were kids taking the rope tow to middle of the run and dropping into milkrun. the run looked rough. it had tire tracks all over. might've been fun on softies. left after 40 minutes. the lift line was extending out to the middle of the run and i have no patience.

11/27/21 welp, got first chair on day 2. surely that means something? i overheard the lifty say that buck tripled their snowmaking capacity. another regular told me that between wednesday and thursday last week that buck pumped 8 million gallons of water to blow snow. that's 12 olympic swimming pools. all the runs are covered in snow. not sure when they'll open. un·for·tu·nate·ly, it is supposed to warm up again. snow was good but i left after 45 minutes. lift lines were too long. it was getting warm.

11/26/21 first day of season. arrived around 9:30AM in parking lot to see a long line that was spilling onto parking lot. i went directly to ski school and got my ticket. i ended up being on third chair when it opened. teachers pet chair was running. snow was okay. it was slow but good to get out. most of the teens went over to the terrain park so lift line went quick. i was there for an hour and left. the lift line was getting longer. when i left, the line to the ticket office had extended out past the chalet where you can walk down the stairs to main chairlift. it was a tad bit long. you'd think it was the line for the beer tent for Buck's Concert series.

has anyone ever had any of their instagrams altered without consent? https://www.instagram.com/p/B6ipRQbgjAf/ i took this photo back in 2019 when the snowboard team from China was in town. their coach was riding ahead of me. the jacket had CHINA emblazoned on it and was perfectly framed in the chair just beneath the hood. it was a cool moment -- its not every day a team from China shows up at your local bump. i scrolled through my photos and discovered that instagram removed CHINA from the jacket. wtf? its bizarre... i'm suprised they haven't deleted my instagram of the two horses having a special moment at sunset . https://www.instagram.com/p/CUd4BrcL-om/

@Bretting14 buck hill has hosted race to the cup. not sure what the plans are for this season. might be worthwhile to check it out if comes back to buck hill. https://www.instagram.com/p/B6Txl7wgTN4/ almost ever racer has a riser on their board. i recall seeing a lot of allflex plates. large percentage of racers had Point 951 boots or UPZ. for snowboards... oxess, kesslers and doneks. for bindings... F2 bindings. there might've been a handful of TD3s. seeing so many high end boards in the ski racks at buck is a strange sight to behold. it's an arms race. you know its bad when China shows up to the local ski hill (from 2019). https://www.instagram.com/p/B5_EO8Xg0Fi/ https://www.instagram.com/p/B5_Ea7lAeX2/ off topic... while looking for these photos, i came across a photo i took of the coach from China. the back of his jacket had China emblazoned on it and was perfectly framed in the chair. for some reason, instagram edited the photo and erased China from his jacket. hard to see but it was definitely edited. fncking lame. https://www.instagram.com/p/B6ipRQbgjAf/ good luck to your racing season. you might see me up at spirit... someday.

sorry to hear the news. where was this storage locker? do they have cameras?

i had my 2nd pfizer and had no issues. i hydrated and just took it easy for couple days.

that's awesome. thanks for correcting me. did you ever go to moon valley?

@mwskiernot sure if this qualifies defunct ski hill but early 1900's there used to be a small ski hill in Savage. the location is Hidden Valley Park but not sure what it was previously called... maybe Egan's Resort. according to historical articles there were two runs. i've been to the park and seen one of the runs but not sure where the other was located. at the south east side of Hidden Valley is a steep hill. i couldn't say what the vertical drop is but the hill is not that long. it would've been difficult to climb back up. there are houses at top of the hill and no trespassing signs. https://www.swnewsmedia.com/prior_lake_american/news/opinion/columnists/history-new-savage-resident-discovers-old-history-of-his-backyard/article_71785d19-f551-5078-b400-b24c8005b5e4.html the fireplace is still standing with a plaque. https://www.cityofsavage.com/Home/Components/News/News/44/1088