Brownski
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2020
I’m not good at planning ahead so I’ve found myself leaning towards the hills that don’t require reservations. My first choice for Sunday would have been Song but there’s a negotiation process involved with getting my 14 year old on board. Shawnee is about an hour and a half from my house. I knew it was going to be crowded but figured we could deal.
The line for the detachable quad was already huge so we got on line for the double double. There were people on the right hand lift but while we were on line they must have had some kind of mechanical problem because they stopped it and started loading the left hand chair before getting the other one moving. While we were waiting we watched two girls on snowboards jump off the lowest chair on the stalled side and crawl back to the line. Probably not the smartest thing in the world but I certainly sympathize. Sitting on a chair that’s four feet off the ground and not moving is very frustrating.
They got it moving while we were riding the other one up but just unloaded it and shut it down. Weird thing about this set up is that both lifts share a top shack. It doesn’t look big enough for two operators. I’m sure that’s fine.
We skied the trails under the double until they opened their second quad and then went over to that side. The maze was set up in a way to let patrollers scoot around it and get ahead of the line. It was obvious where the line started but they hadn’t put a patrol/ski school sign up. There were some kids using it to skip the line and they just happened to pull up as me and DangerBoy got to the loading area. One of them tried squeezing his board in front of my tips so I looked down and just said “The lines back there. You shouldn’t be jumping ahead of all those people.“ The kid said he is there every day and started telling me who his dad is but we were on the chair before he could finish. My son was like “Why are you arguing with eleven year olds? It doesn’t matter.” I conceded the point.
I saw this guy. His gear is probably over twenty years old but I bet he was having as much fun as everybody else that was there. God bless him.
His pants were even tucked into his boots.
It was crowded but we found some trees to get into. We spent a lot of time this way.
Another unique thing about Shawnee is that they have “slope security” for some reason, separate from the ski patrol. I would love to hear what led to this decision. Something bad happened in 1986 maybe?
Of course they are the natural choice for mask patrol, a thankless job I’m sure.
Which is good because as we got towards noon, it got somewhat crowded.
There were plenty of regular patrollers around too. All hands on deck for the holiday I guess.
I wasn’t thrilled with the crowds but we stayed outside the whole time so I wasn’t too freaked out by the experience- can’t report on what the lodge was like inside. DangerBoy enjoyed himself but admitted that traveling a little farther might have been worth it. Since I didn’t feed him at the hill, we hit the first drive through I spotted on the way home and, lo and behold, a big sign at the speaker announced the return of an old friend so I had to get one of course.
We had a good day.
The line for the detachable quad was already huge so we got on line for the double double. There were people on the right hand lift but while we were on line they must have had some kind of mechanical problem because they stopped it and started loading the left hand chair before getting the other one moving. While we were waiting we watched two girls on snowboards jump off the lowest chair on the stalled side and crawl back to the line. Probably not the smartest thing in the world but I certainly sympathize. Sitting on a chair that’s four feet off the ground and not moving is very frustrating.
They got it moving while we were riding the other one up but just unloaded it and shut it down. Weird thing about this set up is that both lifts share a top shack. It doesn’t look big enough for two operators. I’m sure that’s fine.
We skied the trails under the double until they opened their second quad and then went over to that side. The maze was set up in a way to let patrollers scoot around it and get ahead of the line. It was obvious where the line started but they hadn’t put a patrol/ski school sign up. There were some kids using it to skip the line and they just happened to pull up as me and DangerBoy got to the loading area. One of them tried squeezing his board in front of my tips so I looked down and just said “The lines back there. You shouldn’t be jumping ahead of all those people.“ The kid said he is there every day and started telling me who his dad is but we were on the chair before he could finish. My son was like “Why are you arguing with eleven year olds? It doesn’t matter.” I conceded the point.
I saw this guy. His gear is probably over twenty years old but I bet he was having as much fun as everybody else that was there. God bless him.
His pants were even tucked into his boots.
It was crowded but we found some trees to get into. We spent a lot of time this way.
Another unique thing about Shawnee is that they have “slope security” for some reason, separate from the ski patrol. I would love to hear what led to this decision. Something bad happened in 1986 maybe?
Of course they are the natural choice for mask patrol, a thankless job I’m sure.
Which is good because as we got towards noon, it got somewhat crowded.
There were plenty of regular patrollers around too. All hands on deck for the holiday I guess.
I wasn’t thrilled with the crowds but we stayed outside the whole time so I wasn’t too freaked out by the experience- can’t report on what the lodge was like inside. DangerBoy enjoyed himself but admitted that traveling a little farther might have been worth it. Since I didn’t feed him at the hill, we hit the first drive through I spotted on the way home and, lo and behold, a big sign at the speaker announced the return of an old friend so I had to get one of course.
We had a good day.
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