The Mailman is Santa Claus...

The mail truck just arrived and dropped off Jason's new tele boots, straight from Scarpa. He's super pumped and looking forward to some telmark skiing this winter. lots on the go today, the new flooring is being installed in the main lodge, there's carpenters and electricians working on different projects, and a fellow should be here any minute to run some internet and coaxial cable. - SB

Crabbe stocking stuffers...

This rain is really putting a damper on the snow! But, either way Christmas is just around the corner. Dropped off the stocking stuffers to our retail xmas outlets yesterday and this morning. Got one more stop to make Thursday afterwork. Get them at Regent Mall Guest Services, Radical Edge, Ski Wolf, Cleve's and Elusive. Stocking stuffers make great Christmas gifts and are only in stores while supplies last until December 24th! - SB

Draft...

Chris from Draft Pro installs our draft system in The Thirsty Boot Lounge. - SB

More Ski Patrol training...

Matt going up the tower to set things up.

Larry getting lowered down.

The Crabbe Mountain Ski Patrol training on King's Horn.

The Crabbe Mountain Ski Patrol was at it again yesterday. This time chairlift evacuation training. The Crabbe Ski Patrol is made up of both staff ski patrollers and Canadian Ski Patrol System volunteer ski patrollers. Both groups train together from September thru the end of November to prepare for the upcoming season... which is just around the corner! - SB

A snowy Open House...

We had a winter day at yesterday's open house! A huge thanks to everyone who braved the snow and came out for the afternoon. I bet Bonnie Hanson is glad she came out, she was the winner of the 08-09 Season Pass. Yesterday's storm is a good reminder to get your winter tires put on your car asap! How about this week? - SB

Snowplow...

We all woke up to the rumble of the snowplow driving by this morning! Very cool. Open House is today 1-4pm. See you here!

Open House Meet and Greet tomorrow...

Lots of activity at the mountain. The lodge staff is busy preparing the lounge for tomorrow's open house, Big Larry is working on the walk-in cooler for The Thirsty Boot, Gary and Mark are doing seasonal maintenance on the T-Bar and Bonnie has the guest services office all ready! Just another day here at the mountain. Be sure to have your pass picture taken while your here tomorrow and remember if you don't already have your 08-09 season pass... we are having a 1 day sale tomorrow 1-4pm at the Open House! See Wednesday's post for all the details! See you tomorrow. - SB

One Day Only, 08-09 Season Pass Sale at the Open House, this Saturday...

Great to see all the flurries today! Got some big news. We are having a One Day Season Pass Sale at this Saturday's Open House... 1-4pm. Here's the details:

Adult $304.99
Student $264.99
Senior $264.99
Child $264.99
Family $1029.99

* Buyer must be present at the Crabbe Mountain Open House to purchase. No phone orders please. Prices do not include HST.

The Ski Mitt Retail is having a clearance sale on selected items, there's a meet & greet in "The Thirsty Boot Lounge", free finger food, booths, door prizes, you can register for Snow School programs, there's even a Ski Patrol fundraiser BBQ on the deck of the Thirsty Boot, why not get your pass picture taken!

PLUS: Someone will win a Crabbe Mountain Season Pass!

There's even an Open House Wax Special on this Saturday!
Here's the det's:
Wax on the spot $5: this Saturday only! (Rental Shop tent beside lodge)
Full Tune $15: Base Grind, Edge Sharpen and wax. Payment upfront please.
Full tunes will be ready to go the first day of the season.

Get out and enjoy the flurries,
SB

Brrr :) ...

Pretty cold this morning, even had to scrape the car windows. Crystal and her crew are busy getting the lodge, kitchen and lounge area ready for the upcoming season! Richard has been up working on our fleet of terrain park rails, which is getting huge by the way! Look for Crabbe's Terrain Park set up to be off the hook again this winter. Don't forget the Open House is this Saturday from 1-4pm in The Thirsty Boot Lounge, Main Lodge. See you there. More info in tomorrow's post! - SB

-10C...

Looks like we could see -10C overnight Wednesday! And look at the daytime highs for Thursday and Friday. Too bad there wasn't some precipitation included in the forecast!
I'm digging out my North Face down-filled jacket. - SB

Shediac Bay Ski Swap and more...

We followed the signs.

Skiers and snowboarders shopping for gear.

Part of our Crabbe Mountain booth.

Salomon SX62 Ski Boots at the Shediac Bay Ski Swap!

New Brunswick's Newest Outdoor Store - "Outdoor Elements"

Lots of soft goods.

The back-end of the store.

Jay and I went to the Shediac Bay Ski Swap yesterday. Left Fredericton around 9am. Good drive on the new 4 lane TCH. Slow down for the new train tracks near Moncton. They've recently been built up and could use a bump sign! Set up the Crabbe Mountain booth by 11:30am and the doors for the Ski Swap opened at 12 noon. Lots of excited skiers and snowboarders through the doors. Things wrapped up later that afternoon. We packed things up and got back on the THC.

On the way, Jay noticed a call on his cell from our good friend Johnny McNair who recently opened "Outdoor Elements" in Sussex. An outdoor store specializing in skis, snowboards, mountain bikes and everything in between. So we took the Sussex/Saint John exit and made it to Outdoor Elements for 4:30pm. Johnny met us at the door, our buddy Cole was even there working at the shop. We locked up the shop at 5 and the four of us headed next door to a little restaurant for supper and to catch up. Got to try some Pepperoni Nachos, they were pretty good! After a few hours with good company we were on our way back to Fredericton.

Temps this week are looking chilly. Can't wait! - SB

Glade Thinnning postponed...

We're in the fog today at Crabbe! Jay just popped into my office. The weather forecast for Sunday Glade Thinning has taken a turn for the worse and isn't looking good +17C and rain. We are going to postpone this weekends glade thinning and reschedule for Sunday, November 30th. Same time, same place. Getting things ready to the Shediac Bay Ski Swap tomorrow. See you there! - SB

Snow tonight?...

Another busy day at the mountain. Jay had the flooring people into the Main Lodge earlier today... re-doing alot of the flooring. The refrigeration folks should be here later today to install the condenser/cooling unit for the new walk-in beer cooler. Looks like we're in for some wet weather for the next couple days, maybe even some snow overnight tonight. Sunday looks great for our Glade Thinning Day! - SB

Brrr...

Been really cold up here this week. Snow flurries off and on all day yesterday and lots of frost lastnight. I'm just in the middle of making some calls for the Crabbe open House on the 22nd. Jay and I are heading to a business gathering, soiree whatever you want to call it tonight at 5:30pm in town. Should be a great networking opportunity! - SB

Light Snow...

Were at the ski house, it's 11:50pm and it's snowing!
Not amounting to anything on the ground, but still pretty cool. - SB

Cold air coming our way...

Another busy day here at the mountain. The maintenance crews are currently building a new deck on the front of the ticket office, Jay C is in his office on the phone, Jay S is working on the Ski-In-School Program, Diana is working the Admin desk, and i just got off the phone with a local print publication. Got a big week ahead of us... Jay C and I have a business soiree to attend on Wednesday, Saturday we're heading to Moncton to the Shediac Bay Ski Swap and Sunday we'll be glade thinning here at the mountain.

It should feel a little more like winter for the next few days... overnight lows are forecast to be in the -1C to -6C range. Might be scraping the windows in the morning! - SB

Rails & Roast Beef... Rail Jam - Saturday, December 6th...

Once again, Crabbe Mountain and Elusive Snow-Skate-Life will be holding a pre-season rail jam on the Beginner Hill. Well, at least that was the plan last year too, but two feet of fresh snow in early December allowed us to open for the season on the same day as Rails & Roast Beef!!! Let's hope that happens again. Crabbe's scheduled opening day is Friday, December 12th. Rails & Roast Beef will be the Saturday before... December 6th. Registration is $10 - 11am with the jam starting at 12 noon. Skiers and riders will also get a wicked good roast beef eats in the afternoon. Helmets mandatory. Think Rails & Roast Beef. - SB

I'll leave you with the video from last year! Click the play button to view.

The Daily Gleaner's - First Snow Contest...

Considering how mild it is outside today... today is a great day to tell you about a really exciting contest! It's The Daily Gleaner's "When Will Fredericton Wake Up To Snow" contest! Be on the lookout for the 'cut-out" entry form in the Gleaner because you could win a 08-09 Crabbe Mountain Season Pass! Check Monday's Gleaner for more!

Anyways, i really gotta thank Sarah at the Gleaner for this one. She's been extremely helpful and awesome to work with! Thanks, ;) - SB

Balmy...

The fellas unloading pressure treated lumber for the new deck.

Pretty balmy outside today. TWN is saying 17C in Fredericton. Our thermometer here at the mountain is sitting at around 14C, but still quite a warm day! Jay even has his office window open, in November! Yesterday maintenance crews removed the deck in front of the lodge with plans to build a new one. I'm sure it's going to look great!

We're staying up at the ski house tonight. Such a great day, maybe we'll sit outside on the deck and have a few pops this evening. Think Cooler Temps. - SB

Turkey, bacon, swiss...

Jay and I are both in town for meetings today. We try to book things all in one day for obvious reasons. Between meetings we popped by M & T Deli (on the corner of Regent & Queen) for lunch. Jay went with the club and I went with a turkey bacon swiss sandwich. Mmm, was it ever good. The food there is always good. And, Derek the owner is an all around good guy and an avid skier so it's always nice to support people that support us.

Oh before i forget, we found out what was up with our internet yesterday. Apparently we exceeded our fair usage policy and went over the daily download cap by 11 o'clock in the morning. We're not sure what's up with that, something's gotta be jinkity janked on their side of things, other than email, we upload far more than we download... website, blog, etc. So the long and the short of it, the service provider told Jay yesterday, when a company exceeds their daily fair usage, they are automatically penalized and their download speed is set to a below crawling dial-up modem for 24 hours. No joke. Gotta run, got a 2 o'clock! - SB

Read all about it...

Check out the article in today's Daily Gleaner on Crabbe Mountain.
Gotta thank Kristofer McDavid from the Gleaner for stopping by Crabbe yesterday!

Here's a link to the article:
http://dailygleaner.canadaeast.com/search/article/468655

Good reading,
Stefan

Jinkity janked...

"Web Acceleration Client Error (506) - Suspected Recent Satellite Link Outage". That's what's popping up on most web-based applications today. I'd say our satellite internet is jinkity janked... because some things throw you the error code above while others are running slower than dial-up. Jay has a call into the service provider. Hopefully they can get us up and running quick! Some cold up here and the wind is howling!

Hope this post will upload!
Stefan

;) ...

The glade thinning crew today: Tony L, Todd R, Terry O, Michael R, Aaron C, Jason and moi. What an awesome day of thinning! We began around 10am and worked until 2:30pm. Got about 75% of our project finished, we'll finish it up on our next thinning day November 16th at 10am. I can't wait to do product testing on this run!

That's all for now!

Stefan

Rossignol 08-09 Free System video...

Found this cool Rossignol video on a new binding system for this year.
Check it out!
Stefan