There seem to be so few of us that can be found riding together - at least where I live - so I am proposing that anytime 3 or more riders get together we consider it a "Jam". Under this definition we held Elk Jam 2013.1 at Elk Mountain in Northeastern Pennsylvania on March 16th. CrazyBoy-1, krillinakw and I got together yesterday to ride. What a day. For me I would consider it to be epic and one of my top 5 days on mountain ever.
It is still winter at Elk Mountain despite the weather pattern for most of the eastern part of Pennsylvania. Temps were in the low 20 degree Fahrenheit range and never got past 30 degrees all day. About 12:30pm it started to snow flurry, sometimes fairly heavily, and that kept up until they stopped the lifts at 4:30pm. It was a winter wonderland for sure. Snow conditions were excellent - medium to medium-soft corduroy from top to bottom and side to side that got skied off into a consistent and fast surface.
We rode at 2 speeds all day - fast (me) and faster (them). Those 2 guys can rip. My Ski Tracker app recorded a top speed of 54.6 (that is the fastest I have ever gone) miles per hour so I figure CrazyBoy-1 and krillinakw were in the upper 50s and likely very close to 60 mph. I will say that is you handicapped the speeds based on age - say, give me 1 mph for each year older that I am than them, then I my age-corrected speed would have been nearly 72 mph!
CrazyBoy-1 started on RCs, krillinakw started on Hieros and I was on 120 STS all day. They swapped out boards mid-morning with CrazyBoy-1 breaking out BWPs and krillinakw getting to try CrazyBoy-1's 96 Lines - all 87cm of them. He wasn't too sure of what to expect and was expressing doubts on the lift up the first few times. Let me tell you though - krillinakw took to those boards and was ripping the mountain up with them! Those are some wild looking boards - super wide, short and 1970s style striped graphics - I kept expecting to hear the theme to the original Starsky and Hutch television show each time he ripped by me. krillinakw's assessment: "These boards need to get made again." Greco - take note - if you tweaked these boards slightly (let's say to around 94-96 cm) and put maybe a slightly higher tip/tail on them these boards would be winners. Heck - if you kept them spec'd as is and built them they would be winners.
The image that sticks in my mind most from the day is the rooster tails we were leaving in our wakes. 3 different boards throwing off ridiculous amounts of snow. Even better in the afternoon when some fine powder starting showing up on the trails adding a "white smoke" back eddy to the rooster tails. At one point CrazyBoy-1 looked like he was on fire ripping down a trail with this huge plume of white smoke swirling up behind him. Very awesome sight. He has some video footage of it and some of the runs - hopefully he can get that up at some point.
An unbelievable day of riding with 2 fantastic skiboarders. We covered 28 miles and were on the slopes from 9am until they closed the lifts at 4:30pm. We barely made the last shuttle bus back to the car.
It is still winter at Elk Mountain despite the weather pattern for most of the eastern part of Pennsylvania. Temps were in the low 20 degree Fahrenheit range and never got past 30 degrees all day. About 12:30pm it started to snow flurry, sometimes fairly heavily, and that kept up until they stopped the lifts at 4:30pm. It was a winter wonderland for sure. Snow conditions were excellent - medium to medium-soft corduroy from top to bottom and side to side that got skied off into a consistent and fast surface.
We rode at 2 speeds all day - fast (me) and faster (them). Those 2 guys can rip. My Ski Tracker app recorded a top speed of 54.6 (that is the fastest I have ever gone) miles per hour so I figure CrazyBoy-1 and krillinakw were in the upper 50s and likely very close to 60 mph. I will say that is you handicapped the speeds based on age - say, give me 1 mph for each year older that I am than them, then I my age-corrected speed would have been nearly 72 mph!
CrazyBoy-1 started on RCs, krillinakw started on Hieros and I was on 120 STS all day. They swapped out boards mid-morning with CrazyBoy-1 breaking out BWPs and krillinakw getting to try CrazyBoy-1's 96 Lines - all 87cm of them. He wasn't too sure of what to expect and was expressing doubts on the lift up the first few times. Let me tell you though - krillinakw took to those boards and was ripping the mountain up with them! Those are some wild looking boards - super wide, short and 1970s style striped graphics - I kept expecting to hear the theme to the original Starsky and Hutch television show each time he ripped by me. krillinakw's assessment: "These boards need to get made again." Greco - take note - if you tweaked these boards slightly (let's say to around 94-96 cm) and put maybe a slightly higher tip/tail on them these boards would be winners. Heck - if you kept them spec'd as is and built them they would be winners.
The image that sticks in my mind most from the day is the rooster tails we were leaving in our wakes. 3 different boards throwing off ridiculous amounts of snow. Even better in the afternoon when some fine powder starting showing up on the trails adding a "white smoke" back eddy to the rooster tails. At one point CrazyBoy-1 looked like he was on fire ripping down a trail with this huge plume of white smoke swirling up behind him. Very awesome sight. He has some video footage of it and some of the runs - hopefully he can get that up at some point.
An unbelievable day of riding with 2 fantastic skiboarders. We covered 28 miles and were on the slopes from 9am until they closed the lifts at 4:30pm. We barely made the last shuttle bus back to the car.
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