3258 replies to this topic

[HubbDave]

Off to ski at Wahusett in a few

[powderfreak]

Just another awful ski day... "its better than you think it is" truly is the motto this season up here. Skied fresh powder in the woods all day long... top to bottom.









Also skied around with a moose for several runs... same one that's been living around the base of the ski resort for the past month.

http://www.americanw...ost__p__1383358

[bch2014]

I leave on my western ski safari tomorrow, looks like we'll have some snow out there so that will be great!

[Ginx]

bch2014, on 17 February 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

I leave on my western ski safari tomorrow, looks like we'll have some snow out there so that will be great!

Nice have a good friend who spent a week in Utah in mid Jan and missed the big dumper by a week, dismal when he was there, much better now.

[HubbDave]

Just back from WaWa...they took a beating since Tuesday night. The warm temps plus the light rain we got last night did a number on the trails. Lots of ice again after a few weeks of packed powder type conditions.
My son also took a digger just before we were going to leave. Whacked his face pretty good. Looks cool though

[bch2014]

Ginx, on 17 February 2012 - 07:11 PM, said:

Nice have a good friend who spent a week in Utah in mid Jan and missed the big dumper by a week, dismal when he was there, much better now.

Yea its improved quite a bit in the last few weeks, looks like 4-8 for Jackson/Targhee tomorrow night into Sunday so our first few days should be fresh and Tuesday night another round of snow is supposed to move in. I leave for SLC Thursday night to finish out the trip with a day each at Deer Valley and Snowbasin.

[ChrisM]

Ryan's piece on us, he might have a higher quality video.

[powderfreak]

ChrisM, on 18 February 2012 - 12:28 PM, said:

Ryan's piece on us, he might have a higher quality video.

Nice dude... terrain parks and jumps are the way to make little hills sweet. As long as you have some snow and a little pitch you can have a good time.

Also sweet to see Ryan getting out there and promoting the sport and local hills. Kudos man, that's more than I can say for some of our local TV personalities who are more stuck on the recent deaths than they are promoting the local economy.

[ctsnowstorm628]

ChrisM, on 18 February 2012 - 12:28 PM, said:

Ryan's piece on us, he might have a higher quality video.

Good stuff bro

[HubbDave]

Chris, I hope you wear a helmet

[messenger]

Especially this year...need that helmet. By this time next month you may bump your noggin on the grass if you dont.

[powderfreak]

A great day to start off President's Weekend... lots of happy faces thanks to some upslope snowfall last night.

[ChrisM]

HubbDave, on 18 February 2012 - 02:21 PM, said:

Chris, I hope you wear a helmet

Always...after being told by multiple doctors I would be dead if I wasn't wearing it three years ago...I won't even get on the lift without one.

[messenger]

powderfreak, on 18 February 2012 - 02:56 PM, said:

A great day to start off President's Weekend... lots of happy faces thanks to some upslope snowfall last night.

IMG_1942_edited-1.jpg

stowe is fully booked, we looked at snagging a room for sunday into tuesday.

Most places are close to fully booked until monday then they open up.

Will places make snow after this week?

[HubbDave]

messenger, on 18 February 2012 - 02:45 PM, said:

Especially this year...need that helmet. By this time next month you may bump your noggin on the grass if you dont.

Yeah... at least where I have skied this year, no real snow, only crud over ice

My son mashed his face pretty badly last night (at the bottom of an easy trail, just caught an edge while coming to a stop). Could barely open his eye this morning. He looks tough now.lol

I had 2 students get concussions this year, a friend of ours who was helping my son's program got a concussion.

We need snow if people are going to be out there

[messenger]

HubbDave, on 18 February 2012 - 03:54 PM, said:

Yeah... at least where I have skied this year, no real snow, only crud over ice

My son mashed his face pretty badly last night (at the bottom of an easy trail, just caught an edge while coming to a stop). Could barely open his eye this morning. He looks tough now.lol

I had 2 students get concussions this year, a friend of ours who was helping my son's program got a concussion.

We need snow if people are going to be out there

I thought this year would be bad but this is so much worse than I thought. I cannot contemplate that we may go a month or three without a double digit snowfall in much of ski country. Unbelievable.

[HubbDave]

It's been bad, but there are still plenty of trails and terrain open
Not sure it will be an epic end of season like last year (WaWa 100% open on April 3rd, ran the lifts again the next week for a race)

Last night was like March of 2010

[powderfreak]

messenger, on 18 February 2012 - 03:52 PM, said:

stowe is fully booked, we looked at snagging a room for sunday into tuesday.

Most places are close to fully booked until monday then they open up.

Will places make snow after this week?

Mostly likely not... no need to at least up this way. I can't speak for places further south/east/west that have received less natural snowfall or have less of a base. I feel pretty comfortable up this way with our depths at least through March...provided we come even close to getting back to a normal snowfall pattern.

[powderfreak]

HubbDave, on 18 February 2012 - 05:18 PM, said:

It's been bad, but there are still plenty of trails and terrain open
Not sure it will be an epic end of season like last year (WaWa 100% open on April 3rd, ran the lifts again the next week for a race)

Last night was like March of 2010

Yeah... that statistics for snowfall are disgusting but the bottom line is we've been like 95-100% open for like 4-6 weeks now. Somehow its actually been about the same as last season in terms of cumulative number of trails open per operating days (similar way of looking at it as snow depth days). I think the reason for that is its just been so dry we aren't even getting rain storms and then freezing temps so the expert terrain is able to stay open as opposed to flash-freezing all the time.

All in all, looking back at my notes and pictures for this winter, you may not have guessed it was as bad as the statistics show it to be. Then again, we are a little "bad-winter-proofed" up here thanks to upslope effects... we seem to have less seasonal variation than places down south, but that's sort of expected. The more snow you average, the lower your seasonal variability is going to be... same thing as why the mid-Atlantic can be a lot more variable than SNE in terms of snowfall most winters.

[messenger]

powderfreak, on 18 February 2012 - 06:17 PM, said:

Mostly likely not... no need to at least up this way. I can't speak for places further south/east/west that have received less natural snowfall or have less of a base. I feel pretty comfortable up this way with our depths at least through March...provided we come even close to getting back to a normal snowfall pattern.

Thanks...I'm hoping we get 4 good weeks starting later this week. Still considering a day trip Monday. I've found the crowds aren't as bad on the Mondays of holiday weeks.

Is what it is. Sunday River is the same way, the number of trails has never really waivered. It's not doing much of anything up there, not too warm, not wet...so the snow stays put.

[Ginx]

messenger, on 18 February 2012 - 06:41 PM, said:

Thanks...I'm hoping we get 4 good weeks starting later this week. Still considering a day trip Monday. I've found the crowds aren't as bad on the Mondays of holiday weeks.

Is what it is. Sunday River is the same way, the number of trails has never really waivered. It's not doing much of anything up there, not too warm, not wet...so the snow stays put.

Dude run up to Berkshire East with us the 27 th

[HubbDave]

Ginx, on 18 February 2012 - 07:44 PM, said:

Dude run up to Berkshire East with us the 27 th

I hope the end of this week/next weekend materializes with some snow. Heck, if I get a snow day on the 27th (lol) I would go

[Professional Lurker]

Ginx, on 18 February 2012 - 07:44 PM, said:

Dude run up to Berkshire East with us the 27 th

...so you're definitely coming up? ...who else? I'll do my best to make an appearance.

[sankaty]

Just got back from a couple of days at Sugarbush. Conditions were exceptional on Friday with a few inches of fresh snow and mild temperatures softening the base. Today was decent, but more variable. A couple more inches fell overnight, but the mini thaw from yesterday yielded a scratchy base under the fresh snow on the ungroomed trails. Overall, surfaces were in much better shape than anticipated. Favorite run was Paradise off the Heaven's Gate chair, though Morning Star had the best snow.

I was really surprised at how uncrowded it was today. We were bracing for the worst, but except for a ten minute line once at around 11AM, we never waited more than five mintues for a chair.

While surfaces were good, it's incredible how little snow there is. Most of the ground was bare in Warren (!), and there were some bare patches even on the mountain. Just unbelievable for mid February. I hope March is snowy and cool, or it could be a short spring season.

We love Sugarbush's kids program. The whole family had a great time.

[BxEngine]

One of the skiers who died recently in Vt was a NYC fireman. Awful story.

[powderfreak]

sankaty, on 18 February 2012 - 10:23 PM, said:

Just got back from a couple of days at Sugarbush. Conditions were exceptional on Friday with a few inches of fresh snow and mild temperatures softening the base. Today was decent, but more variable. A couple more inches fell overnight, but the mini thaw from yesterday yielded a scratchy base under the fresh snow on the ungroomed trails. Overall, surfaces were in much better shape than anticipated. Favorite run was Paradise off the Heaven's Gate chair, though Morning Star had the best snow.

I was really surprised at how uncrowded it was today. We were bracing for the worst, but except for a ten minute line once at around 11AM, we never waited more than five mintues for a chair.

While surfaces were good, it's incredible how little snow there is. Most of the ground was bare in Warren (!), and there were some bare patches even on the mountain. Just unbelievable for mid February. I hope March is snowy and cool, or it could be a short spring season.

We love Sugarbush's kids program. The whole family had a great time.

A buddy of mine who has a MRG pass was trying to tell me that the valleys are all brown. I didn't believe him.. I said, sure maybe under some large evergreens or something that stop the snow from hitting the ground, and he was like, no its BROWN as in fields and everything.

I still don't really believe it although folks have been saying there's a big difference between north of I-89 in the Greens, and south of 89 at least in the RT 100 corridor.

Up here its all white in the valleys. These were from Saturday. It at least looks like winter and has been that way since before Xmas.

[powderfreak]

A couple more shots from yesterday....

Cruising down with 1-2" on top of the smooth groomers. Never got warm or rained yesterday so the surface under-foot was prime packed powder. Really quality skiing, really.



Then this picture is to show the conditions of the woods... and right now there's about 6" or so of fresh snow on top of the light crust from the warmth a week ago. The woods are skiing really good right now. Just cruising through the powder in all the secret shots.

[Allenson]

powderfreak, on 18 February 2012 - 06:24 PM, said:

I think the reason for that is its just been so dry we aren't even getting rain storms and then freezing temps so the expert terrain is able to stay open as opposed to flash-freezing all the time.

Definitely. No, we haven't had a lot of snow this year but at least what we have had hasn't been washed away or turned to ice by flash freezes after a thaw/rain. I'm surprised at how long our snowpack has lasted and how it's held up considering that I haven't recorded over an inch of snow in a 24 hour period since January 31-February 1.

Sure, we've had some warm days but so far, these warm-ups have not been accompanied by an inch or so of rain...yet.

[powderfreak]

powderfreak, on 19 February 2012 - 05:09 AM, said:

A buddy of mine who has a MRG pass was trying to tell me that the valleys are all brown. I didn't believe him.. I said, sure maybe under some large evergreens or something that stop the snow from hitting the ground, and he was like, no its BROWN as in fields and everything.

I was just watching some of the Sugarbush videos and this was from two days ago on February 17th... maybe my college roommate wasn't lying and it really is brown down there in the Mad River Valley. I can't believe the fields in the background are all snow free in mid-February down there.

Here's one screen grab:



Luckily a place like Sugarbush has great grooming and snowmaking. I believe they are also a Piston Bully Elite Fleet with their grooming machines so you probably don't have to worry about surfaces too much... a place like MRG though must be pretty interesting right now. All the major resorts like Okemo, Killington, Sugarbush, etc can certainly make the best of a bad winter thanks to good infrustructure investments, but the smaller hills in central/southern VT must be taking a beating.

[J.Spin]

powderfreak, on 19 February 2012 - 05:15 AM, said:

The woods are skiing really good right now. Just cruising through the powder in all the secret shots.

The woods are skiing great, and it as is often the case it gets better the higher you go in elevation. We parked down at the Timberline Base (~1,500') yesterday and the powder was just a couple of meager inches there, but we found a general 4-6” higher on the mountain. I’d say at Bolton, above roughly 2,000’ was where the powder skiing got really good, so we stayed on the main mountain at Wilderness all day, only returned back down to Timberline when we were done. It was so good that we’re thinking of heading out on their backcountry network today to get some more of that powder. We found that in areas that had been hit with direct sun below ~2,500’, the powder was starting to take on a little extra density, but it didn’t seem like it was going to be a problem, and won’t be an issue in the trees. I added a shot from yesterday below, and the full report is available at our website.

[powderfreak]

J.Spin, on 19 February 2012 - 08:13 AM, said:

The woods are skiing great, and it as is often the case it gets better the higher you go in elevation. We parked down at the Timberline Base (~1,500') yesterday and the powder was just a couple of meager inches there, but we found a general 4-6” higher on the mountain. I’d say at Bolton, above roughly 2,000’ was where the powder skiing got really good, so we stayed on the main mountain at Wilderness all day, only returned back down to Timberline when we were done. It was so good that we’re thinking of heading out on their backcountry network today to get some more of that powder. We found that in areas that had been hit with direct sun below ~2,500’, the powder was starting to take on a little extra density, but it didn’t seem like it was going to be a problem, and won’t be an issue in the trees. I added a shot from yesterday below, and the full report is available at our website.

Yes, this is the same on Mansfield... the lower 500 vertical feet (from say Midway/Houtons on down on the Quad side, or Switchback/Chin Clip Runout intersection on Gondola) is less snow and a little crunchy/manky... not the best skiing. But luckily its right at the lower, flat runouts where it the lower quality snow starts. Above that its pure quality and especially the top 1,000ft from 2,500-3,600ft of lift serviced.

[sankaty]

Speaking of southern VT, Magic Mountain is reporting a seasonal total of 34". Unbelievable. The natural snow trails on Mount Snow's North Face are mostly closed.

Unfortunately, I didn't get much opportunity for deep woods skiing at Sugarbush, though I'm sure it was good based on the few glades I did ski. In the mornings I was skiing with my wife, who is a good bump skier but still gets a little freaked in the trees. I was like that about until some friends kept dragging me in to the glades about six years ago. It's mostly psychological, and super-tight trees still make me uneasy.

I have a feeling that if she gets some wider, mildly rockered skis she'll be unstoppable in trees. It's made a huge difference for me.

J.Spin, those photos of your kids skiing make me so happy (and give me something to aspire to for mine).

[powderfreak]

sankaty, on 19 February 2012 - 08:40 AM, said:

Speaking of southern VT, Magic Mountain is reporting a seasonal total of 34". Unbelievable. The natural snow trails on Mount Snow's North Face are mostly closed.

Unfortunately, I didn't get much opportunity for deep woods skiing at Sugarbush, though I'm sure it was good based on the few glades I did ski. In the mornings I was skiing with my wife, who is a good bump skier but still gets a little freaked in the trees. I was like that about until some friends kept dragging me in to the glades about six years ago. It's mostly psychological, and super-tight trees still make me uneasy.

I have a feeling that if she gets some wider, mildly rockered skis she'll be unstoppable in trees. It's made a huge difference for me.

J.Spin, those photos of your kids skiing make me so happy (and give me something to aspire to for mine).

That is crazy... that means from Sugarbush northward to Jay, that stretch of the Greens has received some 75-125" more so far this season... that makes a huge difference in such a low snow year. I can't imagine how bad it would be if we had 8 less feet fall than we've had so far; its literally unfathomable to me. Jay has had 10 more feet than Magic.

And while I'm only 27 and no where near having kids (enjoying my ski bum years), I do enjoy J.Spin's photos, too. The kids look so stoked to be out there riding the powder. It reminds me of skiing with my dad and his friends at Killington in my early years... getting yelled at by ski patrol for skiing unmarked woods and having my father just smile as patrol rips into him about bringing a young kid into the "dangerous" woods. He started me young at 3 years old (my earliest photo of me and him on skis, I have like leather boots on or something like that back in 1988) and I plan to do the same when I finally make the leap into that realm.

The only thing I wish growing up was that I had easy access (as in 15 minutes away) to 300"+ of snow per season like J.Spin's kids do... they ski more powder than the average child, lol.

[nzucker]

sankaty, on 19 February 2012 - 08:40 AM, said:

Speaking of southern VT, Magic Mountain is reporting a seasonal total of 34". Unbelievable. The natural snow trails on Mount Snow's North Face are mostly closed.

Unfortunately, I didn't get much opportunity for deep woods skiing at Sugarbush, though I'm sure it was good based on the few glades I did ski. In the mornings I was skiing with my wife, who is a good bump skier but still gets a little freaked in the trees. I was like that about until some friends kept dragging me in to the glades about six years ago. It's mostly psychological, and super-tight trees still make me uneasy.

I have a feeling that if she gets some wider, mildly rockered skis she'll be unstoppable in trees. It's made a huge difference for me.

J.Spin, those photos of your kids skiing make me so happy (and give me something to aspire to for mine).

The difference in snowfall has been really pronounced below about a White River Junction-Concord line. Places like where dendrite lives have held onto snow cover for weeks longer than I have at 1200' on the NH-MA border. We've only had 45" here and that includes 25" in the October snowstorm. Only 0.25" has fallen in February, ridiculous. My friend (skierinvermont) in Rangeley says he still has close to 18" on the ground. So there's definitely been a strong latitude gradient this winter, and also a strong gradient between areas exposed to SW flow (like western NY/western slope of the Greens/CT River Valley) and those much more protected like Stowe and where Pete lives.

[NorEaster27]

Despite the lack of snow, Gore mountain skied great this weekend. Really great job by the snowmaking team, even some of the trails with natural snow had a good amount on them up in elevation.