Honeymoons are pretty much the best...

Alas, Julie and I arrived here at Disney World on Sunday and I waited until today to get online. Not bad for me. We’ve had a blast thus far and still have a couple of days to play! Then it’s back to work and of course back to playing in the snow at Sunday River!

For all of you that have been to Disney, you know that one of the many things that Disney does really, really well, is prepare fabulous food options. Perhaps not so much in the parks as you are trying to move quickly from place too place, but the dinners at the resort restaurant have some of the best food you’ll find, especially ay Epcot. And yet here we are on our honeymoon and what is again my favorite thing to eat? Yep, ice cream. I joked that I would stop at every place that has it, but I haven’t done so because there are so many. Nevertheless, I’ll surely need some kind of fat burner when we get back or at least a visit to the gym everyday for the next year. Yikes!

The Chondola Construction moves ahead!

With a month left in the construction process of Sunday River’s Chondola, things are really starting to come together nicely. I’d say that last week’s rain probably posed a big problem for the whole schedule, but even through the weather, work went on. Looking up the line of the lift, there is a huge spool in the middle of the ski trail that is actually thousands of feet of steel rope that will be spliced together and will make up the haul rope (cable) that the chairs and gondola cabins hang from. The process of stringing the haul rope and splicing it can take weeks and is pretty complicated, but it’s also a really cool part of the process. Another cool part of the recent construction is in the picture above. Notice that they are pouring concrete around the whole structure and the walkways. If you look closely at some of the areas that haven’t had the final layer poured, you can see orange tubing, which is actually heat coiling. This keeps the surface from allowing ice to build up.

Bretton Woods readies the mountain for the new season!

As of Wednesday afternoon, Bretton Woods, part of Mountain Washington Resort, has fired up its snowmaking guns and is busy laying down a good base for the approaching ski season. There is already over a foot of snow at the Top o'Quad Restaurant, according to Chris Ellms, Director of Ski Operations for the Resort.

"We plan to get folks out on the snow just as soon as we can. From here on in, we'll be making snow at every opportunity and plan to open as soon as possible," says Ellms. "If the cold weather cooperates, and especially if Mother Nature blesses us with a couple of inches of new snow, we will be able to open as early as November 8th -- possibly even sooner!"

The first weekend of skiing is in the books!

What a difference a couple of days make. I was fortunate to ski Friday through Sunday this past weekend and in typical New England early season fashion, we had three distinct types of conditions. Early season skiing and riding is challenging and conditions are variable by the hour. This is one of the reasons that regardless of the open terrain, skiing and riding is always listing as “for advanced only.” This of course doesn’t stop every Tom, Dick, and Harry form thinking that they fall into that category and clogging up the trails that we refer to as the “White Ribbon of Death.”

Nonetheless, the weekend was fabulous. We skied spring like conditions on Friday, boilerplate hardpack on Saturday, and sticky and wet manmade on Sunday – top-to-bottom. Sunday was by far the best day and by mid-morning there were some nice zipper lines formed down the center of T2.

Day3 is now in the books and we’ll take a few days off to actually work…