powderfreak

Gonna have to check this out in Phin's backyard....

I didn't think it had anything to do with moral superiority... and I'm not saying there isn't a lot of money at stake... but it's basic anthropology that the more advanced and prosperous a society gets the longer their population lives and in return the more unacceptable early death becomes. Since the dawn of time people have been trying methods to get themselves and others to live as long as possible... from witch doctors and potions, to the magic elixirs and fountains of youth. Humans have always had the desire to prolong life as long as possible. As one of the most prosperous/advanced countries in the world, early death is much more unacceptable here than it is in say West Africa. We are really in the "banter" zone but I find this stuff interesting to ponder.

I really like that line of analysis though, it’ll be interesting to see. We are certainly a society who continues to move towards keeping people alive as long as humanly possible, ha pun? We pour billions into medical research, cancer research, complicated procedures, daily medications (some take so many they need trays to organize them), you name it... we are here to get everyone to live a day longer than they would’ve last year. An early death is unacceptable. Its an interesting philosophical discussion to have as a country. It’s not a surprise we react this way. Without a real discussion, death won’t get any more acceptable in future generations either, in fact it’ll be the opposite as we keep plowing on in medical advancements and expectations grow.

Purely curious, in those comparisons is there a modifier that accounts for change in health care, living conditions, etc? I could certainly see past pandemics hitting those groups harder. Have people been claiming this one was worse in those age groups?

I guess it makes sense that those dying now can’t be dying later, and everyone alive needs to go at some point, so yeah obviously it’s speeding up death for those it kills... makes sense in that light. I guess the question would be how far out do you run it to correlate it with COVID, 2-3 years seems like a decent time frame for elderly populations. On the human emotion side of it, most people would certainly sign up for another 3-5 years with their loved ones. But that discussion heads more into the resulting public policy (ie was it worth it yes or no argument) which I’m trying to stay away from. I think the excess deaths trends are/will be interesting. Something happened to push a whole bunch of humans over the cliff edge, will that mean there’s a gap before the next line of people get to the cliff edge?

No reason for this stuff dude. Don’t ruin the larger discussion.

Regardless of cause, my father who’s a retired physician, on hospital board of directors, etc doesn’t like to discuss the policy side of things but always shares with me the excess deaths data. The excess deaths metrics are fascinating to look at in the US and other countries... deaths are incredibly stable year to year, almost to an incredible level to me. Like year over year some very populated cities will be within extremely small variations. He showed me one of his medical journals with NYC you can see very little variation going back to the point where you can see 9/11 for a spike in unexpected deaths. Small blips can be traced to even heatwaves too. Then starting in March it goes way high into April with unexplained spike in deaths, like nothing seen in the relative recent past. That to me is the proof that those people wouldn’t have just died anyway. They also looked at Ecuador and some other hard hit less prosperous countries... they compared the deaths to something you’d see from military conflict on excess deaths. Cause aside, something happened to kill off a lot of people that hadn’t in the past. Now public policy is a completely separate issue but too many people group the resulting public policy and their view on the illness all together.

America... where everyone has an underlying condition. High quality of life where you can have simple hypertension and be fine with a daily pill for decades. Then COVID comes and pushes you off the cliff.

Yeah their written obs are gold but you can tell he’s paying attention around the clock. I found one that they had 6” of snow and it even said “only a dusting down in the valley at RT 2 but we were plowing up on top of the hill.” Thats what made me look up his lat/lon and he takes a weenie zone to its max at pretty much 1800ft lol. That’s almost the elevation of the base of Bolton Valley up here. It definitely explains the difference between the towns under 800-1000ft as even a baseline.

Ha yeah those dirt roads get canted and you can easily go into the ditches/snow banks on the side if it’s not level. But regarding the snow numbers there, the elevation makes sense. Looks like the observer is near the black dot (those contour lines are 40 foot intervals) and up on that shelf between the 1760-1800ft lines... I bet that’s even decently snowier than down in the river valley at 1200-1300ft (I bet that area radiates like mad though down by the pond lol). Just thinking about it at the ski resort here, there’s a pretty noticeable difference from 1300ft to 1800ft, much less an elevation like Gorham at 800ft. It gets *really* snowy around here at 1800ft, that’s where you get the 4-6 foot snowpacks in big winters. That elevation is about equal to the highest inhabited elevation here in Stowe at like the Kellogg family mansion lol.

I still don’t understand how Berlin/Gorham average that little, it seems the mountains are pretty tight in there...I would’ve guessed 115” at least. Whitefield makes sense, it’s a larger open area removed from the mountains but Gorham is tucked in pretty good. I guess looking at the topomaps, the Randolph CoCoRAHS measurements are coming from around 1,775ft elevation, and Gorham is down around 800ft or even a tad below... so that is definitely a huge difference all else being equal. Thats practically 1800ft, way the hell up there, lol and 1,000ft higher than Gorham. I don’t know why I was thinking CoCoRAHS was down in the RT 2 area at like 1200-1400ft. For sure once you get near 1800ft it’s going to get really crazy snowy. I know around here it seems to even double in snowfall/snowpack going up say 800ft to 1800ft, so it makes sense in that light.

That’s 2010-11, just as a map example, ha. And that winter was more along the lines of 330” on the ground based snowboard at 3000ft. That reading was the COOP’s, measured in an elevated precipitation can up on the ridge. It’s no longer in service but was extremely prone to drastic under-catch due to high winds. But yeah last year by mid-May was probably in the 260-275” range but hard to say final numbers with COVID halting measurements in the first half of March.

On the flip side there are maps like this one that always stands out to me as the exact opposite, it tried so hard to isolate the real snowy zone that it diluted the vast majority of land as all one color that fell into a 52-inch range of 73-125”. This type of map is like the flip side of the ones that lack detail in the higher snowfall zones. It seems very difficult to capture all of the variations in a visually appealing way and be accurate.

That said, I do think that’s one of the better ones I’ve seen. It highlights the “snowy climate” zones even if the numbers might be broad. 120”+ gets the message across. Those things will never nail in the higher ranges up to 300” at the summits, but I liked that map more than others... many just stop at 100”, ha.

I’m sure they can be adjusted but honestly, I’m pretty sure those bindings would be on the indemnified list...meaning no shop will adjust them. Every binding manufacture puts out a list of binding models each year that are indemnified and insurance companies of shops/ski areas won’t touch those for liability issues. Shops typically take it very seriously. You can certainly still make the choice to ski them, but no one will work on them (ie adjust them for you). It may be time for new equipment. Look at fall ski swaps (though who knows how those happen in COVID times) for used equipment, or I bet there are still a decent amount of places sitting on used demo equipment from last year that they couldn’t unload at the end of last winter because of COVID closures during that normal sale time in the late spring. For example at Stowe you often can get used demo skis for $150-$250 with bindings... when that gear new is like $700+ set ups. Here’s a quick run down on indemnified bindings: Each season the ski industry releases a list of “indemnified bindings” by manufacturers. This means there are actually bindings each year that, according to the manufacturers, cannot be skied anymore due to safety issues. Bindings simply wear out.

lol, looks like he’s 200ft surrounded by 400-500ft hills. I’m sure he’ll be fine. Probably gets some nice natural A/C in the summer nights.

People have been coming all summer without following the guidance, not sure why it would change this winter to be honest. Weekends have been jamming around here.

That’s awesome! What a beast to come face to face with. That’s a beauty and looks pretty free of ticks there given how uniform the coat looks. I saw one moose three times this summer, ha, and it was a young bull with only like 6-8” antlers. In fact that same moose just wandered through the ski area base plaza last week.

Yeah you can do it yourself if you feel confident, but if your skis and bindings are older I would highly recommend taking it to a shop to get the bindings fitted and tested. Like I’d run mine through a machine to test the release values of the toe and heal to make sure the bindings release properly and that’s standard in the industry. You’d be surprised how many bindings fail after several years...but again it’s all on the consumer and what they want to do. If you want to save $30 also factor in the cost of blowing out your knee/ACL or breaking your leg if the binding pre-releases too early, or it doesn’t release under torque when it should. Ski resorts see it all the time, Dad tried to adjust the bindings for each kid but didn’t nail it and now Little Timmy is in crutches because Dad forgot to adjust the DIN and the skis didn’t release...and it turns out the bindings were cranked so much they wouldn’t have come off Timmy’s feet even if he got hit by a bus. Another suggestion I’d have is never buy ski boots without trying them on. If you try them on somewhere and know it fits then buy it online cheaper, sure, but I personally would never just buy a pair without putting them on my foot.

Love that bunkhouse dude. What a great way to stash the kids somewhere else, ha.

If we move, that's where we'll likely have to go due to housing prices now. Most of my friends who purchased houses are out in that Hyde Park, Eden, to Elmore Pond axis. That's a snowy little spot there in the gap of the Greens. A co-worker got 5" last May 9th in Hyde Park... that's stuff you wouldn't get if you bought next to BTV, ha.

Awesome! Every mile north in latitude is a bit snowier.

Real first world problems haha.

Ahh last May was a winter month.... until the NNE spots set all time record highs in mid-90s lol. Good memories.

Phin, how much did you get or what was max depth in 2010 down there? Those were some legit storms, 100" seasonal totals in a couple spots right? That still has to rank near one of the more incredible couple of storms relative to a spots location that an East Coast climate has seen. Then 5 years later 2015 came along in Eastern SNE. The ocean storms were off the hook for a stretch during a multi-year period in different spots.