burke mt march 23

worked in maintinence on friday at burke mountain. spent the morning doing some spring cleaning and organizing hoses and groomer tracks. then helped with cleaning and regreasing the bearing on one of burkes cats. its very important to maintain the equitment at a resort. the better kept something is the more years you will get out of it. this saves money. also things break and need to be fixed. when it rains, it pours. im doing my last day of practicum this friday comming up due to being absent because of a baseball game. which we lost. because we suck.

Burke Mtn

this week was basically getting the park ready to be dismantled. with all the snow melting and this being the last weekend, it was very important to make sure that features were safe and secure in the ground. once wobbely rails were removed, the area where they were had to be raked and made safe. the lips to the rails got smaller every day and the jumps got smaller every day. there was still a lot of snow on the trails for the mountain to be closing. since most of the snow was man made, there is a lot of waisted money on the trails. burke was also starting to pick trash up that people dumped through out the year. steve came down with a couple large trash bags from dashney alone. people are slobs. they dont take care of the place that they enjoy. if the trails wernt cleaned the mountain would be a dirty trash pile and another paradise runed.

Burke

this was my first week at burke. day one i was working in the terrain park. it was a very eventfull day. the night before there was very warm weather and rain so the next day a lot of the rails were loose and there were a lot of ruts in the park. the day was filled with cutting lips and filling in the sides of rails. we would get the wet snow from the woods to use on the rails. fun day and a needed job. parks need to be maintained and kept safe. a good park can bring in more visits and a well maintained park can cut down on injuries. the second day i was in ski school. burke's ski school get a lot of ski lessions supposed to snowboard lessions. burke makes a lot of money in the their ski school. the deal with a lot of LTR and learn to ski lessions. plus they dont pay their instructors very much. they have some good programs but it can be a very hectic stressfull day.

last day at Bretton woods

friday was our last day at BW. had a lot of fun there but glad its over. so happy that i can wake up late and still make it to burke on time. on friday i rode with ben and sean. sean took us on a little tour of the mountain and brought us through some rocks. he also almost killed a kid who was standing in a very not smart place. killing kids while skiing is not very substainable for a mountain. people tend to frown when kids are involved. we also went to the very exciting sledding hill that we had to walk up. after one run of that i was over it. caught a ride back to the mountain in the back of tims pick up truck after he clocked out. enjoyed working the main event the most during my time there. good times were had.

last weekend at BW

i was in hobbits on friday. very nessecary program at a mountain. they make a lot of money giving lessions and teaching kids how to ski. by teaching kids how to ski they are creating future customers. also they give parents a reason to go if they have kids they dont want to ski with. just drop your kids off for the day and ski on your own. hobbits is like a baby sitter half the time. on saturday i was working in the park. i worked the main event competition and had a blast. loved shaping lips and jumps. parks draw people to the mountain. they give people new chalenging terain. they do cost money but i feel they make that back with skiier visits and competitions. i deffinatly feel they would be more substainable of the big jumps and features were made out of dirt during the summer so the mountain would not need to blow as much snow. it would cut down on the options in the park slightly but it would save money.

ski patrol bretton woods

ski patrol was very enjoyable at bretton woods. learned what each call means and what needs to be done to open and close trails. loved the fresh powder runs before the mountain opens to the public. its a very important job on the mountain but its not profitable. the mountain has to pay the patrolers and does not recieve any money in return. however the job does have to be done so it esential to have the patrolers at the mountain. i feel like its one of thoes jobs that has to be had but doent help profit. sean doll was late again on saturday again! ben set off a car alarm first think in the morning on friday. shanagans happened and good times were had.

bretton woods rentals

rentals was very busy on saturday. there are many people who want to ski but dont have their own equitment or forget their own equitment. this is where rentals come into play. they are very substainable. once again sean doll was late. again! they he stole a donute from the bretton woods rental employees. also he slammed the roof box cover on my fingers and laughed about it because he thought it was funny. he almost cut my fingers off. but i was very glad we got to sleep in on friday. i would have died if i was in rentals for 2 days. there was so much to day and it was swarmed with people. fun times in the park after that though.

bretton woods

fun shanagans at bretton woods this weekend. did some good skiing but not as much as i would like to have done. sean doll was late on saturday and messed up our entire day!!!! does the ten minute rule apply outside of the classroom as well as in it? racing zipline was fun and would love to do it again. learned things in guest relations but couldnt do much because i dont work there and dont know the answers to the questions. felt awkward when there was a long line and i kept thinking that if i was in the lne and i saw somebody standing behnd the desk doing nothing i would be very upset and a discruntled guest. kathryn was great and was really fun to work with.thats about it.

burke and loc

burke was sweet today. they got about 4 inches of snow at the base and had a nice whale back to build a jump off of. had a blast. learned a new backflip and am really close to locking down rodeo flips. good day for progression. the presentations at loc were presentations. not going to say they were interesting because i was tired and cold. but they did need to be done. glad the reps from the mountains were there and hopefully i will get to work in the areas that i would like to during spring practicum. i also want to ski these mountains again.

bretton woods

bretton woods is sweet. i was really looking forward to zip lining. it was number 1 on my list for this fall practicum. unfortunatly sean thought it would be fun to take us into the room, make us think that we were going to go zip lining and then punch us in the face. thanks sean. you runied my fall practicum because we didnt go zip lining. but the resort was cool and the hotel was cool. im looking forward to going there in the winter. it will be interesting to see how bretton woods operates compared to stowe.

2nd day at stowe

second day at stowe was tough. we raked leaves for a couple hours. it was work that needed to be done but it still sucked. theres got to be a better way to deal with it. anways, i guess its a job for your low paid employees, college students, or who ever will do it. once again would have liked a voucher pass for the maual labor that we did. or even some sandwiches for lunch. new lift was cool to see. it came out very well and looks great. never new how they did their tests until i saw them using the water jugs. clevar because it simulates movement that a reg person would do. must suck to fill and unload the buckets of water though.

burke

long short day at burke. put 162 pads on the chairs. that lift sucks, im so glad they have a new one. i never went to the top of burke because of that damn lift. just to damn long and cold. i guess season passes are up signifigantly because of the new chair they put in. many people complained saying great mountain, great people, when you get a faster chair i will come back. guess the mountain new what they had to do.

Jay Peak

jay was cool, and it was very cool to see the indoor water park. its interesting how much they are adding to that resort when they cant handle a huge crowd and many people do not make the drive up there. it reminds me of sugarloaf. a great mountain in the middle of nowhere. but the hard hat tour was sweet and i wish i could afford to vacation there. interesting that they put the outlets in upside down to code. i would have figured that a brand new building would be built excatly to specs with nothing overlooked. also, kindof a brainfart with how they did the plexi glass in the hockey rink. you would think they would soften up the boards and make the glass easy to change instead of having it sealed with gaskets.

cannon mountain

the ski museum at cannon was pretty cool. i saw the one at vail colorado as well and that one had a lot more things. the thing that stuck out the most to me was the M1 Grand. i was so upset that they had the gun disarmed. its a shame and a crime that they ruined a peice of history. the gun is so pretty and gracefull. they wood work was beautiful. that gun should be in the hands of an enthusist who will love it and put rounds through it. im declaring shanagans on cannon mountain. that M1 Grand diserves better.

Burke

havent blogged in a while. just thinking about the new burke lift and the master plan for burke mountain. i think the new lift is going to improve the mountain greatly. i know that in the two years that i have skied burke i have gone to the top very few times. i used to hate going to the top of burke. that old fixed grip lift was awful. froze my ass all the way up and to took so long. i just wanted to jump off of it half the time. the new detachable getting to the top in 6 minutes is going to be great. the master plan for the mountain looks great as well. burke is a good size mountain. 2000 verticle isnt bad for the north east. if they can develop the base they can turn the place into a profitable vacation spot.

Stowe

Stowe was cool today. it was interesting to see the new lift going in. could have looked at it a lot more if we had more time. very neat experience seeing everything in the middle of construction. the manual labor later in the day could have gone a lot faster if we were supplied with more tools. dom went to town and was like a robot. would have been fun to handle some of the heavy machenery. wish it didnt rain and wish we could have gotten a voucher pass for the work we did. it not like giving our class voucher passes is going to make stowe go out of business. im declaring shananagans on stowe!

sunday river

i was talking to mike today from ramp snowboards and skis. he used to work for rosonal and decided to start his own product line. he started by taking the best featurs from skis and combining them to make what he thinks is an ideal ski. he said what he thinks is important in a business is to take a stance. mike said that companies need to define themselfs. he would compare his boards against any other boards on the market. he thinks the industry is following trends and follows them closely but some older riders still prefer camber so he felt it was important to make some regular cambered boards. cool boards and he wanted to work a deal with our school, 40 percent off skis and 25 percent off of boards.

thursday

my project dealing with the lyndon state outing club is marketing them. they really have nothing to market other than night skiing. since we are using the outing club as our class room i think it would be sweet if lyndon state college took over operations there. they could invest in some snowmaking and a groomer. then they could teach the ski resort majors every aspect of the mountain on there own ski area. they could teach snowmaking, grooming, lift matinence. tey could even turn the outing club into a sort of dc mountain lab type place. they would get the business from the college students to keep the place running and free labor. iv noticed that a lot of kids want to go into terain park disign or matinence. they could get hands on experience and let there minds run wild with whatever they can create and test it themselfs. also it would give them much more in the field experience.