powderfreak

Sounds like a good place to start. Can only get higher from there.

We are getting there. Putting down good snowpack in Canada. Gradient is so close but yet so far into mid-December.

Right on track!

That’s a step down from peak torch in the 70s. Seasonal change underway .

Definitely in the doldrums of early season winter talk. Booze cures all ales?

Yeah been "ripping" 9 mile visibility -SN the past couple hours, ha. Wind is really honking though. The renegade flakes are moving more sideways than down.

Can I just say thank you for documenting this event. I've been perusing the thread the past few days to catch up on the 27 pages of the event... and with your obs, posts, photos, videos, the event really comes to life. Much appreciated. Glad we have someone in the key spot for south town lake effect storms.

Yeah a good Stowe friend is down in the neighborhood for World Cup and has skied Okemo a couple times on his Epic pass… said it’s pretty insane what Okemo has done considering the length of time since it was 70F. Like multiple routes in several areas.

Snowing above about 2,000ft this morning. Up at 3000-4000ft is mid-winter vibes still.

Looks like two months ago.

I don’t know nor care that much, but I’ve been around the ski industry long enough to know the vast majority of skiers and ski families traveling north each weekend aren’t affected enough to change their behaviors. Paying a little more for groceries each week or heating oil, doesn’t move the needle much of the suburban upper middle class in the northeast IMO. Maybe they save a little less? But they are going to do leisure activities.

You can get it printed at the ski areas too.

If you are learning or going with small children too you don’t need it. It’s like trying to learn golf playing at Pebble Beach.

One thing the past couple years has shown me is the amount of wealth in the United States is mind-boggling.

Ahhh that is often a common thread seen in bad mountaineering decisions… goals. Whether it’s on Everest or some backyard hill. Setting a goal and the desire to complete the goal vs. turning around or saying nah, this isn’t the time… that has been at the forefront of many mountain accidents over the years. From skiing to backpacking, the desire to complete the mission or objective has killed more people in the mountains (sometimes the conditions and timing just isn’t right) than any other human factor. It can be very hard to accept defeat and turn around. Though it’s not defeat… staying alive should be considered winning. I’ve read many mountaineering books from people climbing high summits and that internal struggle to realize it isn’t happening and to turn around is often the biggest mental hurdle. That Everest disaster 2-3 decades ago was all because of that desire to complete the goal of summiting. They pushed past the point of no return, it got late, dark, and it killed people.

Given that weather forecast they said she went up in “workout pants” which I hope they don’t mean tights or spandex type stuff! I mean it was going to be 0F that night. No where does it say she had winter gear. It’s all very confusing.

Yeah it’s a tough call sometimes, I enjoy solo sometimes but skiing with friends is usually better. You have any trips to Spruce planned?

Which I guess shows it’s working as that economic disincentive is now going to move you to skiing midweek at Stowe when there’s excess supply… and lead to one less car on the Mountain Road from Fri-Sun. Or you’ll take a shuttle from lodging… though you probably pay $30 a day anyway to have a car at the Lodge at Spruce Peak?

Absolutely. That’s why we say they are businesses. Not non-profits, and there is massive overhead and uncertainty (weather). That’s what my post was about my naiveness coming in out of college. Its the “romantic” vision of skiing against the “realistic” for-profit-business side. Any business that can get more is likely going to do it, from the local pizza shop to a multi-national corporation.

Humans are interesting creatures for sure in thought processes. It’s not always logical, but it’s usually emotional. This forum in winter casts a light on that in its own .

The initial investment is just massive to get something off the ground. But people love the business challenge.

They found her this morning a bit below treeline it sounds like. https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/search-for-missing-hiker-in-nh-now-a-recovery-operation-officials-say/2902276/

34/26 and it’s been spitting light snow and flurries with no accumulation most of the morning. Smallest flakes possible type stuff. Like if they had to fall another few hundred feet they’d be completely gone.

At Stowe the lift uphill capacity can handle the crowd. The majority of the lifts will now be high-speed with the new Sunrise lift replacing the Triple. Liftlines are not the problem. The road and traffic are the problems. One person per vehicle is just not efficient. But it’s America and individual travel in a car is almost a constitutional right it seems. The answer is not easy but we enjoy the early season days that are quiet.

There needs to be an economic disincentive… something that discourages an individual from performing an action. That is the first thing I learned in the Stowe marketing and sales office 15+ years ago as a UVM intern. Obviously, my naive college ideological self was thinking skiing should be cheap all-around, almost like a non-profit org for those who like sliding down snow. With fast lifts that always open on time, snowmaking operations that run at all times to max capacity, pristine grooming when the natural snow isn’t in, terrain that’s always cared for in the off-season. Everyone wants a high-end operation, that’s cheap to experience, on a mountain that is breathtaking to view. I remember when Stowe was the first ski area to have a single day lift ticket go over the $100 mark. It was a huge deal. We got slaughtered on social media. Now a Mad River Glen day lift ticket costs a hundred bucks (well, $99) with very little operational overhead costs (lifts, grooming, snowmaking, all bare bones cheap economically). Places that are in demand need an economic disincentive and skiing is seeing a boom period. COVID reigniting outdoor spaces (similar to Sept 11 exodus to the countryside in drivable distance to NYC), Mega-Passes to places world wide, and later stage capitalism has led to a run on demand for mountain activities/life. As an economics study, the underlying dynamics at play make sense to me. You can’t have a cheap, big mountain and high-end operation and not run into demand issues requiring a variable that turns people off from the product.