powderfreak

I love that plan. My first season passes were to Gore/Whiteface with the ORDA pass back in High School... I washed dishes for two years in high school at Alteri's Restaurant, coming home smelling like red sauce and pasta to pay for it. Those years were simple. Gore's a very underrated spot. Whiteface was scary steep at the top as a kid, but Gore's got some pitches too. I broke my wrist as a 10-year-old on the Rumor Headwall, ended up in the trees on the right side. Learned lesson was sometimes you can't stop when you fall, and slide a long way. Ski Patrol crushed it, that's a steep sled ride down to a waiting snowmobile ride down the old Tannery Trail. I was just another kid from the Albany area to eat it hard off the Straightbrook Quad.

Those photos...ha

That's nuts. Even the trail runners decked out with water-bottle vests have had masks on up here even on the work roads where you have plenty of space. Overkill to me, but they probably think I'm the inconsiderate one if I don't mask up when 10+ feet away in quick passing outdoors. I do think it's a nice "team humanity" gesture if you are on a close tight trail with thick high elevation vegetation allowing for a close pass, even outside. Not necessary in my opinion still, but a nice nod to humanity. Most hikers seem to be extremely respectful at the least.

That's like a masked ACATT member swapped out the sensor in the middle of the night.

Ha! What the hell happened there?! Yeah their numbers make no sense. ALB's monthly temp on the F6 is 3.4 degrees COLDER than the monthly temperature at ORH, ha. No way a place at 200ft in the Hudson Valley averaged 3.4 degrees colder than 1,000ft in the Worcester Hills.

The most surprising station departure in the month of August though is ALB.... they are -1.0 for the month of August. For ALB to be -1.0 for the entire month, compared to the torch in SNE? ALB only hit 87F for a high temp in August, which seems low given the torchy conditions in valleys along I-90 and south. Another comparison: ALB... -1.0 max temp 87F POU... +3.6 and exceeded 90F on 10 days. Does that pass the sniff test? Or was there some crazy gradient in the Hudson Valley? I can't figure out if the F6 data is just straight wrong or from another month.

Guess this illustrates it pretty well... the last two weeks have been two different worlds between NNE and SNE. Pretty evenly delineated right there. Aside from BTV's background warm anomalies, NNE was below normal past couple weeks on average for sure. Meanwhile SE Mass was completely torched, as Bob has experienced. Not only is climo starting to get more stark between NNE and SNE during the transition seasons, having normalized departures that much different over that gradient leads to some very real sensible weather differences.

The torch just came to a screeching halt in August. Up here at MVL, since August 15th we have been -0.5F.... so the 2nd half of the month averaged below normal, a real nice change from the record June and July. It's been noticeable too, the heat just vanished.

Don’t tell Tip, he hasn’t figured that out yet.

October up north in the mountains is the same as the Maryland January.

Took the dog to the picnic tables... 47F with 30G50. Was forced to put on a jacket and honestly could probably use a hat and gloves. Wind chills in the 30s.

Chilly. Rotting in the upper 50s and low 60s. Feels like we should be watching football with a fire going, ha.

Everyone here has been wearing masks and I can say the on-trail hiking mask usage is near 100% when passing people (even I think some of the mask usage on trail is a bit much, but at the same time I think it's just a mutual respect people are showing towards each other, which I'm all for). I still wouldn't judge your Killington home area based on social media posts from that site. It's funny that in the last couple weeks I've actually heard the Killington Locals+ forum or whatever mentioned by several people recently as a toxic place where a few folks continue to try to push this "us vs. them" mentality. I bet by far the vast majority of locals down there are fine with masks, are extremely respectful and also don't hate everyone. It just seems like drama whenever that place gets mentioned. All faith in humanity has been lost recently on social media, ha. The bullies and trolls have been formally released into the wild now.

Ha, that’ll take more than one event (hopefully).

56F at MVL at 12pm. The heat is about to come on, just had to lower the thermostat to 58F to make sure there’s no way in hell the heat kicks on in August. Sitting 64F inside.

Probably make that up in one event this fall with a 3-5” swath through SE Mass along a frontal boundary, ha.

It is very easy to forget the rest of the world up here. If you disconnect and just enjoy living, you can really forget everything. That’s why every time I drive past people getting served food in the Piecasso parking lot, I’m like ok there’s my reminder that stuff is not completely all right. But it’s very easy to live a sheltered life if you chose to up here. The most I hear from the media are in CPicks posts, ha.

58F at almost noon. Its actually been a pretty chilly last week of August. Highest temp last 5 days is 73F. August might finish only +0.5 or so.

I just want this. November 2018, early season snow and reducing the number of stick season days. Followed by a day like this later in the winter. Guess we go for quality over quantity this winter.

Fleece or buff or neck gaiter or whatever is my understanding. I wear one anyway, too. Stowe's electronic signboard calls it a "face covering" not a mask. Something you can pull up over your face. I don't think there's any science to it except it helps to have a policy like that with no gray areas and most people wear them anyway. That way you don't have to try to delineate where a mask is needed and where it's not. To be honest, these are for-profit companies that aren't happy about restricting capacity (costing them money) but they need the season to happen. They know they'll lose money this year but it's about business continuity. The entire local economy also relies on the various ski resorts operating. They also know that if there are COVID outbreaks and things aren't going well, they want to be able to appease local governments by saying "See, we require a mask or face covering and are doing our part to help both the economy and public health."

Literally no one seems to be following that stuff that I can see. There's no penalties it seems either. So I wouldn't waste a ton of energy worrying about it for now. And I still haven't seen anyone genuinely whining about out of staters, except some vocal minority of nut-bags online that want to keep everything for themselves. If you remove the stuff you read online, you'd never even know it. I know you're in a tough spot but it's clunky in a lot of places that I can't imagine people are following. I would think your husband traveling for clinicals is similar to traveling for a job and would be exempt. Is it true that RI residents need to quarantine to visit MA? Who's doing that? It's all just political posturing by the states to try to cover their asses if things go south..."Look, see, we tried to restrict access." Just enjoy the turns this winter and remember it's a privileged life we live to be able to do these leisure recreation activities, at least that's going to be my motto. Like PowderBeard.

Disagree. I think people have COVID fatigue. It takes a lot of energy to stay safe, ha. But yeah, you can see what happens when a lot of people get together indoors...there are universities across the US that are just baking out COVID positives like they are weed cookies in the dorm common kitchen. University of Alabama has had 1,000+ positive cases in the first 10 days of classes.... they found another like 400 in the past day or two. Was it University of North Carolina that was open for 3 days before hundreds tested positive and they went to full online learning? The best bet right now for everything from schools to businesses and ski resorts is to do anything to mitigate that, as you're pretty much forced to shut 'er down in a big outbreak. Wearing a mask and capping skier visits is how the ski areas are going to try to do it. Honestly, a reservation system on busy holiday periods might make for a better experience than the free for all crowds, ha.

Yikes! Our hidden obstacles are old racing timing wire that seems to be strung along a variety of trails and I know we've tried to remove a lot of it (I once walked Liftline and the woods pulling it up) but on the sides of some trails is still that thin black cable hung in trees from like 1950 that when the snowpack gets really deep, all the sudden there's this clothesline wire chest high in the woods. Ski areas have all sorts of junk left over but barbed wire is a whole other ballgame, ha. Good luck against that.

Honestly the only ones I've seen of that are just wishful thinking locals at some mountains who think if they can keep people away it'll be the best winter of their lives. Just like skinners this past spring wanting full access but also not wanting anyone to travel more than 10 minutes to the hill.... skiers are selfish when it comes to powder and honestly, humans are selfish and it's really shown in this whole thing. No ski area is going to ban people based on billing zip code. If anything it'll be lodging right now, where you sign a form that says you followed the quarantine rules. Everyone has been signing those all summer long in Stowe, but we all know they aren't following it because it's impossible to go two weeks without coming into contact with anyone. I bet Killington will have a reservation system like Vail announced. I know Alterra is beta-testing one right now and likely rolls out a similar system. The mountains want to know who is coming and it also helps the communities from becoming overwhelmed with people. Lodging at only 50% also helps capacity. The one thing I keep remembering is to take a deep breath and remember that it's just ONE winter in a global pandemic. Chances of a vaccine and moving past this are very high by winter 2021-22. It's obviously not ideal or normal, but people are eating food at restaurant tables in parking lots right now and kids can't go to school full time. That's where we are. It is what it is this winter. I'm just trying to enjoy every turn I take and if I do a lot less skiing than a normal winter, so be it. There will be other winters, not the end of the world.

The clouds this evening were wild... undercast and very fluid-looking like water running over rocks.