#Flashback Thursday: My skiing history.

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My skiing history is probably not the most exciting but you might be able to connect to some of it. So, it started about 10 years ago in 3rd grade when one day over the announcements, I heard something about ski club and I didn’t really know anything about skiing, so little me was thinking that I had to do this. I told my parents about it and they agreed that I could do it. When the club started, we all got on the bus and went to Labrador Mountain, once we got there I picked up my rentals and tried to do the smartest thing anyone could do, try and ski without even knowing how to put skis on but I managed, but it wasn’t pretty. I got lessons and eventually I was skiing but it still wasn’t pretty and I was hooked on skiing. The next couple seasons I went to Olympia Sports and rented skis and I was slowly getting better at skiing. Eventually, I got my own pair of Rossignol skis when I was around 11 years old and I was extremely happy to be rocking my own skis, I thought they were the coolest things ever. By this point, I was parallel skiing and making my way down the hill on my own and safely doing it as well. I was enjoying every minute I spent on the mountain and I was always ready to going skiing even in the Summer. When I was 14, I got a pair of Armada Arvs and again, I was super pumped to have some new skis. I was trying to ski in the park but I was terrified of everything. Finally, just recently I got my newest pair of skis, J skis Allplays and I have been loving them. 10 years later, I am finally doing proper parallel turns and still attempting to rip the park. Just like little me, I am always excited to go skiing and I enjoy almost every minute of it.

March 7-8th was most likely the last nice weekend to ski.

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Despite everyone thinking the season was done, there was still snow on the mountain and the conditions were pretty good over the weekend. We went skiing on Friday, it was a little iffy but it was fun. It started off fast and then it started raining and we couldn’t even move cause our skis were sticking to the snow and then it started to get a little faster later in the night, overall it was a good night. I was only able to free ski for an hour on Saturday because I had to work all day but it was a beautiful day to ski, it was also Lab Fest and there was a waffle stand at the base of the mountain and a hot dog stand at the top. On Sunday, I was able to ski all day long, and it was a blast. In the morning the conditions were a little icy but it quickly started to warm up and turn to slushy conditions with temperatures in the upper 60s. All day my friends and I did nothing but hit the park and because it was so slushy every time you fell, it felt like falling on a pile of pillows. By the end of the day, I was exhausted, it was definitely a fun day to ski. But that was probably the last good weekend or last weekend of the season because Monday was in the 60s and today it is 50 and raining with warmer temperature and rain in the forecast. The start of the season was a little ruff but it definitely ended on a good note.

3 places to ski in Central New York.

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Even though the 2019-2020 skiing season in CNY is coming to an end, there is still little time left to ski but you can look forward to coming to these mountains next season. All these mountains are close to Syracuse with the furthest one being Greek Peak which is 45 minutes away. Greek Peak Mountain resort is located in Virgil, New York and has lots to offer. It has 55 trails ranging from easy beginner trails to expert trails, 8 lifts and 220 acres of skiable terrain. If you get tired of skiing, Greek has a restaurant right next to the main chair lift, it also has a hotel, an indoor water park as well as an arcade. Labrador Mountain is located in Truxton, New York and it is a nice mountain to ski at. Lab has 23 trails ranging from beginner to expert trails and 3 chair lifts. Lab also has a restaurant and a nice main lodge where you can also get food and relax for a minute. Song Mountain is located in Tully, New York and it is very similar to Labrador Mountain and it is owned by the same person. Song Mountain has 24 trails and 2 chair lifts, it also has a main lodge and a restaurant at the base of the hill. All of these mountains offer lessons so if you have never skied before you can learn how to and they are great for the family. I have skied at all of these mountains and I enjoy skiing at these mountains.

Why it is important to take care of your skis and how to do it. (Step by Step guide)

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Taking care of your skis is probably the most important thing to do with your skis other than actually using them. Taking care of your skis will keep them feeling new and make it easier to shred the mountain. For example, if you don’t have your skis waxed you will stick to the snow and you won’t move at all. Also, if you don’t have sharp edges you are going to have a hard time stopping and turning. In this blog, I will go over waxing your skis, which is so easy you can do it at home. The materials needed to wax your skis are a waxing iron, wax, plastic or metal wax scraper, rubber bands, wax brushes, and a cork (optional). There are a couple different types of waxes, all-weather wax and hot and cold weather wax. Depending on where you live or how much you wax your skis will determine what wax you use, if you live where the temperature fluctuates between low and relatively high temps or you don’t wax your skis often you will want to use all-weather wax. But if you live where the temperature stays fairly low most of the season you want to use cold weather wax and if it stays relatively warm throughout the season you want hot weather wax.

Step 1:

Take the rubber bands and put the brakes into the rubber bands, then pull the rubber bands over the fin on the heel of the bindings so the brakes are pulled up and out of the way. Then take a towel and clean off the bottom of your skis to remove any grime.

Step 2:

Set the temperature of the waxing iron to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. After the waxing iron is up to the correct temperature, grab the ski wax and put the corner of the wax up against the waxing iron and then go in S shapes down the ski. After you apply the wax, apply equal pressure along the ski with the waxing iron and go at a steady pace to spread the wax on the ski.

Step 3:

After applying and spreading the wax, set the skis or snowboard outside to let it cooldown for 30 minutes. After the 30 minutes are up, I would let the skis warm up slightly to make it a little easier to take the wax off. Then take the plastic or metal wax scraper and start scraping off the wax, you might need to put a lot of pressure. After you scrape off the wax you can take a waxing brush and wipe off any residue that remains.

Step 4:

Have fun with your freshly waxed skis or snowboard!!

The weekend was amazing but this week is not looking good.

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This weekend there was a lot of snow with temperatures in the high 40s and blue bird skies. It was a great weekend to go skiing and I’m surprised that it wasn’t busier but because it wasn’t super busy, I was able to get off of work early and ski for hours. Going up on the chairlift I was watching a group of skiers, who looked like professionals, doing all kinds of tricks such as backflips, corks, or 1080s and it was the coolest thing to watch. I feel bad for anyone who didn’t go skiing this weekend because it was really good. The start of the weekend the conditions on the mountain were a little icy but after it warmed up the conditions greatly improved. But this week is not looking so great, with high temps and rainy weather for a couple of days. I’m expecting us to lose a lot of snow, which is never good, but it is going to cool down a little and we are supposed to a little bit of snow but it is not going to cover for all the snow we are going to lose. I’m sure the conditions are not going to be the best but I think the season is going to come to an end soon. However we did have conditions like this earlier in the season, so I would stay hopeful that we might get more snow. But it is the end of February and we usually start to warm up in March, so it might be worth trying to go out and ski while we still have snow.

Wednesday night skiing was crazy!

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So, after school a few of my friends went skiing and we weren’t ready for what was going to happen. When we first got there, it was basically empty with only a few people skiing, which was nice. But the conditions were less than perfect, it was super icy and not very fun to ski on. All the powder from the previous storm was frozen over and all the little chunks of snow turned into ice balls, also known as the infamous death cookies. Once we got up on the hill, which was still early on in the night we were watching this guy who was absolutely insane at the park, at least at Labrador Mountain, and it was so much fun to watch. But eventually all the schools got there and that is when it started to turn to become very difficult to ski. There were so many kids and even some adults that could only pizza straight down the hill, going through the park and most of the time they were back seated, so they were not even wedging correctly. These kids would either hit one of the jumps fall and just end up sitting on the jump while other people waited to hit it. Some other kids would hit the biggest jump and end up hurting themselves, so ski patrol had to come up and escort them down. Many of them would stop in the middle of the trail between two features and so you had to weave your way threw them and at one point there was around 100 people going through the terrain park, it was absolutely chaotic. But it did help with the conditions because there were so many people skiing and snowboarding it kind of turned the ice into an almost icy powder. But once the kids left for the lessons it kind of calmed down and around 7 some of the buses started to load up and leave. Finally, around 8 pm we left the mountain and even though it was super packed, we still ended up having a good time.

J skis Allplay review.

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The company J skis was created by Jason Levinthal in September of 2013. Jason Levinthal also started the well known Line Skis and Full Tilt boots. But since the creation of J skis he has made multiple different skis such as the Metal, the Masterblaster, the Friend, the Max , and the Allplay and this blog is going to be about the Allplay. The Allplay is an all mountain ski that is great at ripping everywhere, whether it is the park or some fresh powder. The Allplay has a 98 mm waist that allows it to be used all over the mountain. I’ve been using the Allplays for a couple years and I have been enjoying it. These skis really are all mountain skis, the other day I was going through powder up to my knees and I was having no problem getting through it. The next day I was ripping the park and fresh groomers and it has been a blast to use these skis. The playful style of these skis really make it a good park ski, it is not too soft and it is not too stiff. One of the coolest things about J skis in general is the different designs that they put on there skis. Currently I have the Allplay “Invasion” and I love the looks of these skis. One thing that you should be careful about is chipping the design on the skis, if you fall and your skis collide there is a possibility that you chipped a little bit of the design off of the ski. If you are a ski instructor you may want to use another pair of skis, I used mine while trying to teach people how to ski and well there is now a few scratches on them. It hurts to see someone just ride over the top of my ski while digging in their edges, but they haven’t chipped anything off of them. So overall, I would give these an 8/10 and I would recommend them to someone because personally, I have really enjoyed them.

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The snowstorm on Friday was amazing!

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The snowstorm on Friday dumped around a foot of snow! Even though the roads were horrible, it didn’t stop me and my brother from enjoying the snow. We unburied our snowmobiles and went on the first ride of the season and it was so much fun. The trails were covered and untouched, we were blazing the trails and the amount of snow was insane. The snow was going over the top of the snowmobile and in some spots there were snow drifts around 3 or 4 feet deep. Once we got into an open field, we would carve throughout the field, mess around and have a great time. On Saturday, we went skiing at Labrador Mountain. In the morning, I had to work so I wasn’t the first in the powder but after work I was going through as much powder as possible, it was a blast; It was like a taste of the Midwest in the North East. Lab also set up their terrain park, which is super sick, they had multiple rails, a box and a massive jump but after shredding powder my legs were shot and I was not ready to hit the park. We also skied on Sunday, but I had to work so I was only able to ski for a little bit, but it was still a lot of fun. Overall, the weekend and Friday were amazing and if you were able to ski or snowmobile over the weekend, I hope you enjoyed it.

Rossignol Evo 70 ski boot review.

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So for the last couple years I have been using the Rossignol Evos and I can say that I really love these boots. It is a great boot for novice to intermediate skiers, as it has a soft flex. It also has a last width of 104 mm, so it fits a variety of different sized feet but it fits medium to wide feet very well. If someone isn’t used to skiing or doesn’t like the feel of skiing boots, these boots would be the ones for them. The evos have three aluminum buckles and the top buckle is adjustable so you can tighten it to the way that fits you perfectly. There has been a couple of problems I have had with these boots. One of the problems I have is the after some use, the polyolefin shell starts to peel where the boot rubs against each other. The other problem is the paint on the buckles are starting to come off. But these problems will not affect the performance of the boot. So throughout my use of the boots, I haven’t had any performance problems and I have been using them for a couple years. Even though they say this boot is for beginners and intermediate skiers, I believe this boot would work well with an advanced skier. I am more of an advanced skier and because the boot is comfortable, it works very well for me. Personally, I would recommend this boot to anyone, especially someone who is trying to get used to ski boots.

This ski season hasn’t been that much fun.

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So this season at Labrador has been alright but it is not all that fun. There have been a few good mounds and rollers we have been able to get some air off of. This weekend was a pretty good, it wasn’t super cold or warm and the conditions on the mountain were good. They finally started to build the terrain park but because of the stretches of warm weather, we had set everything back. On Monday night they planned to continue building the park but it got called off. I don’t know if it was because we have a couple warm weather days coming up. If they had the terrain park up we would have to take ski lessons down the trail next to it. But there is not a huge base of snow on that trail and the upcoming warm weather could cause them to close that trail and so they wouldn’t be able to build the terrain park as that trail would be needed for ski and snowboard lessons. Also on Monday night they had gotten rid of all of the rollers and mounds that we used as jumps which I assume is to spread snow out for the warm weather and the double chair was also closed. So Monday night was fairly boring and the season hasn’t been all that great but there have been good days, hopefully we get a few good snow storms in the future. But if you like skiing and or want to try to ski, I would still recommend you to come out and ski because the conditions are still good.