Ok, so despite all the doom and gloom of how Blue knob management is killing babies and all, me and a friends decided to give it a shot since Extrovert and Stemboggen were open. First run down Stemboggen was a little dissapointing. The run was interesting enough but wasn't very steep with the exception of the bowl drop in. My second to 9th run down were much better
Off the walls whales had migrated north to Stemboggen and the more you rode it the more fun it got. Rollers, kickers, high banked turns, moguls, you name it. We had a blast and looped the mid station most of the time.
Extrovert dissapointed me too the first time down. Mostly cause I was terrible at it. I probably did 6 runs down it and by the last one I was feeling pretty good. There aren't too many of us boarders on a trail like that but man I had a blast. I think the fact that its right under the lift keeps alot of the newbies off of it
1. cause it looks SOOO steep from the lift, and
2. you don't wanna wipe out in front of an audience.
As far as comparing it to Lower Shay, I like extrovert better. It seems as steep but much longer. The only thing that killed it was that High Hopes cut through the middle and you had to pause so you could merge. Overal, it wound up living up to the hype and was pretty sweet all day. The consistent pitch is whats amazing. Its basically the same steep pitch from mid station to the bottom.
Snow was absolutely perfect in the morning with a little slush starting to mix in the afternoon on some spots.
As far as coverage goes, pretty good I think since the ground around was almost completely bare. All open trails were side to side coverage top to bottom in the morning. Stemboggen had a pretty thin/bare spot towards the bottom the whole width of the trail for about 5 feet at the end of the day. The Stemboggen catwalk had a real thin spot or two by days end and Extrovert had an unavoidable thin/bare spot at the very bottom where it merged with the green. Despite the thinning, no major equipment damage, or any noticeable damage at all for that matter, was taken. They really weren't bad at all.
So how do I rate Blue knob? pretty darn good. The fact that they even opened Extrovert and High Hopes was impressive given how late the season is. People in line that were regulars said they've never seen Blue Knob be so aggressive at opening trails this late in the season. Despite some glades being open on the report I never even tried to find them. We were having too much fun on the other trails to even think about it. Oh, and the blue runs there are great as well. Jack Rabbit (I think) to the far left was incredible, at least until winds started killing it in the afternoon. Fast, fun, and that last banked right turn is the best.
In conclusion, when its got the goods open and snow conditions are favorable, GO TO BLUE KNOB!!!
