Anyone skiing loon/waterville this weekend?

[Honclfibr]

Originally posted by HBerry
We're heading up to one of em on sunday.

I'd recommend waterville. I skiied loon today, never fucking again on a weekend. I used to ski there quite a bit in high school and I liked the mountain alot, but it seems like it's gotten pretty popular in the last 5 years or so. Their response? Triple parking capacity and jack up ticket prices, but god forbid they add mountain capacity, same number of lifts and trails as I used to ski, just three times the people! I kid you not, it took me 2 hours to ski 3 runs, the damn singles line was all the way up the hill. Of course they have a nice line where you can cut in front if you're in ski school, or a loon employee, or a racer. Fuck them. If I'd paid for a full day pass there, what are they charging, 65? I'd be PISSED. Didn't matter what lift you went to, they were all jammed. And some guys on the lift line were telling me that they've stopped limiting ticket sales there, dunno how true it is but based on the sheer number of people there they're way over capacity.

Anyway my friend julie and I will be skiing waterville tomorrow, if you end up there give me a call, we'll probably be there around lunchtime 'cuz she lives in boston and she's too lazy to get out of bed before 8

[keet]

.......just my 2 cents......compared tp loon,,,,,Cannon is pretty quiet...as far as lift lines and slope congestion..and its prolly a bit cheaper,,,,,if u wanna ski with almost nobody around ski mid-week,,,its sooo much better...i will never ski on a weekend again,,,i learned that lesson at sunday river a long time ago,,,,if u guys happen to ski at cannon someday..i am one of the operators at the detach-"quad" chair....
"keet"/keith

ps...on tues and thurs they offer 2 for one day.....2 tickets for $40.00...i think

[joberly]

Just got back from Sunapee myself. Good conditions and it's only ~2.5 hours from me so I just wanted to go somewhere close.... we should have an NESR ski day.

[Honclfibr]

Originally posted by keet
.......just my 2 cents......compared tp loon,,,,,Cannon is pretty quiet...as far as lift lines and slope congestion..and its prolly a bit cheaper,,,,,if u wanna ski with almost nobody around ski mid-week,,,its sooo much better...i will never ski on a weekend again,,,i learned that lesson at sunday river a long time ago,,,,if u guys happen to ski at cannon someday..i am one of the operators at the detach-"quad" chair....
"keet"/keith

ps...on tues and thurs they offer 2 for one day.....2 tickets for $40.00...i think

Yeah cannon is an excellent mountain, and their two for one tues and thurs and $15 wednesdays for nh residents are excellent! Never been there on a weekend though, how are the lines? Last time we were there on a tuesday, had the whole mountain to ourself! Unfortunately with the whole 9-5 thing weekends are the best option.

I would definitely be up for a NESR ski day, I know it was tried last year but it never quite got together, for some reason the athons draw more interest

[OreoGaborio]

i just got back from Sunday River.... it was pretty kickass.... and it DID literally kick my ass... it hurts

[ancosta]

I skiied loon on Saturday & Sunday. I can't agree more with the sentiments posted re: Loon's over-capacity approach.

The North Peak chair shit the bed for 45 min on Saturday, leaving me to stand in line after everyone else ran to the East Basin chair...figured there would just be 2x the wait if I moved. Sunday the whole mtn chairs lost power for about 5 min.

All I ski there is Flume & Walking Boss, so I am kind of evaluating the logic of re-signing next year to the 2 trails that are somewhat challenging. I will be up next weekend though, but will try Waterville one day.

The other problem is that now that they have a fast quad on North Peak, it totally over-crowds the trails. I never saw so many people on Flume in my life...it's hard to ski a line when you have to navigate around 20 people going at different speeds, sitting on their ass, etc.

The trick to Loon is to get there early early and rip as many runs from North Peak as possible before 11. That is what I did and after 2 hrs of that I was pretty smoked. But skiing would be better if I didnt' have to skip lunch and ski through it just to get a day's worth of skiing.

Honclfibr - I went up to see Brian & Paul at Feet First. Brian was very good, answered all my questions, and spent a solid 1hr+ analyzing my feet, stance, boot fit, etc. I am getting some orthotics made, having some foam built into my liners to take up extra volume, and boot canting to get my weight more foreward. Can't wait to get my boots back next wknd.

Also - if you need a good ski tuner...Brian referred me to Summit Perf. in Campton. Tim (owner) did a race tune on my GS11s and they came out great. The difference in speed and performance was so great that it was scary. Best $40 ever spent toward ski tuning.

To get me through saturday I demo'd a set of Atomic SX-10s which were pretty nice. Good all around performance ski, shorter radius than my skis, which was fun and soft enough that they took a good beating in the bumps. I think they felt it less than I am feeling it right now

[Honclfibr]

Adam, do you know what the base and side bevels are set to from the factory on the GS11s? I have a pair as well and I was told that atomic sets the base level to 1 degree and side to 3 degrees, just wanted to make sure before I bought a set of file guides...

How did the supercross skis compare to your GS skis on the ice? And at speed, did they chatter? I was back and forth on what to get but finally decided that as a new england ice skater a GS ski would probably be the best match up here

[ancosta]

I'll answer on behalf of 'adam'

I heard similar, that Atomic really sets up the bevels as a race ski from the factory. I am not sure on specifics, but 1 & 3 sounds about right. That is what Tim at Summit set me up to afterwards.

The SX-10s were not bad. I wanted to try the SX-11s, and frankly I am not sure what the difference is between the SX-9, 10 and 11. I would presume they get progressively stiffer and wider turning radius. Brian at Feet First called the Supercross 'basically an illegal SL ski', and it is cut similar to the SL-11s that I ran.

Yeah they did chatter a bit at speed, and sure they lost an edge on the ice pretty easily, but keep in mind they were rentals where the 'tune' is a quick pass on the edges and a cheap hot wax bath.

I really do want to get another set of general F-around skis for the bumps, etc. I am going to do my research and see what kind of bahgins I can find in the spring.

Are you bent on tuning your own skis? If not I'd consider calling Summit Racing. The guy gave me $40 worth of advice while he did $40 worth of tuning work, then gave me a 30% merchandise discount. Definately worth the money.

[Honclfibr]

Andrew and it's in your sig too, I'm a dumbass.

I'm not trying to tune my own skis necessarily, what I bought is a set of file guides and diamond stones so that I can keep the edges sharp after each run. When I first got on the GS11s they held the ice like magic, but after 4 or 5 days on the slopes they're losing a bit of their bite. I did a bit of reading and talking to a few ski racers I know, and they told me that what you want to do is go over the edges with a set of progressively finer whetstones in a guide that will follow the edges that they're set to, and that will keep your edges sharp.

The stones sharpen and deburr the edges without taking off a lot of material, the kit I bought comes with a file as well to actually re-edge the skis but I'm not sure if I want to do that, I'm worried that I might take off too much of the material. I will definitely check out summit when it's time for a full tuneup.

I hear you on the second pair of skis, I could definitely see adding a softer ski for different conditions. Though at this point I'm still learning how to use the GS11 properly, this is my first pair of shapes and I'm still adapting to the wider stanced carving motion that replaces my feet-together skid. It really is amazing how far ski tech has come in the last 10 years though, the first day on these skis I felt like my skiing improved 200%, I swear I can make 3 turns in the space that it would take me to make 1 with my old dynas

Let me know how those footbeds come out, I'm thinking about a pair myself. I can tell you they did phenomenal work on the grinding, when I took the boots out on saturday they were so much better than they had been. My left big toe was still a bit jammed and it was affecting my left hand turns, so I went in after skiing and paul stretched the liner on the spot, now I think it's just a matter of breaking them in a bit.