powderfreak

Yeah restaurants are like humans with pre-existing conditions... doesn’t take much to push them over the edge. I’m always surprised at how many restaurants that seem “popular” but yet still struggle mightily and even close in normal times. Some areas it seems the restaurants turn over every 5 years if they are independently owned and not an Applebee’s or Olive Garden type chain.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yeah I'm with you. It was actually talked about in that storm thread, Ray made the same point at the time... go big or go home, who cares what happens days later. It does all melt eventually, even at the picnic tables. I get what Will is saying too, I wouldn't want to do a whole winter of that sort of up and down 40s in BUF and then lake effect, then 40s and missing synoptic snows to the east. But man, to get a 5-7 foot storm in like 48 hours? Sign me up. Worrying about what happens afterward does remind me a bit of like how Kev can have an 18" event in-progress and seems like he can't really enjoy it because all he's focused on is the EURO showing a rainer 3 days later.

It's been the weenie reflex every time there's a big lake effect event to comment on how fast it disappears (I guess it makes us less jealous, ha), but man there's something about even seeing a day with 6 foot mushroom caps on top of houses in a suburban development. The photos from that event are absolutely insane regardless of what happens afterwards. I found myself reading that thread last night for whatever reason when I couldn't sleep, and we were all in there jacking it to it, ha. Even Ray was ready to up and move to BUF lol.

This is all we want, right? Some random photo from the November 2014 lake effect storm in the BUF suburbs. That's the dream right there.

This is pretty crazy. 1:45 into it is getting about to conditions most of us wish we could experience. The noise of the shattered glass at 2 minutes in is crazy to me...then that same place getting destroyed at 3:00 minutes.

Do you have one? More oaks to fall for sure.

You’ve got the right attitude dude. It’s one winter in a global pandemic...people are eating at restaurants in their parking lots and under tents, schools don’t know what to do with children, makes sense that ski season won’t be the same. It’s a season where you try to enjoy the little things, explore something different. Things will be functioning but not ideal or “normal.” It’ll be what people make out of it. I do think it’s important for the communication to start now to adjust expectations.

For the reservations,. it's going to be a challenge but there's a belief that once early season limited terrain/lifts moves into more mid-winter operations that reservations likely wont be needed at some mountains. I can't disagree with the idea of developing procedures now that can be dropped if they aren't necessary... vs the other way which is get caught with your pants down and overrun with crowds and then have to implement controls in-season. Better to prepare for it, communicate it, and then if need be, you can scrap it at some mountains. This was from Katz on that: “This season we will be implementing a reservation system across each of our mountains. It is possible that at some point in the season, as we evaluate the dynamics of our operations, we may decide that we no longer need the reservation system at certain resorts. However, with so many uncertainties, we believe it is only prudent to have this system in place now.”

I think that's the point. They need to really curb it back this winter. Ski Resorts out in Colorado were the source of their out-breaks last March and the Gov forced them to close. They need to stay open so they can't run that risk again, and how do you manage the demand when hotels and indoor spaces can only be 50% occupied or whatever? It's certainly not a normal winter.

I thought it was just “Awakening”?

This didn't do it for ya?

Yes! It got really cold and fast once that pattern changed. February was frigid. I still remember that Valentines Day storm thread, we actually had several posters in BTV at the time. It started snowing at 0F and we got like the first foot of snow at temps of like 5F. It was so, so cold. Coldest major snow of my life and the BTV obs show it. I think it eventually rose into the mid-teens at some point (but that's still a cold air mass for 2+ of QPF)... but that's just another reason why that storm was so great. I do remember late January and the first half of February in 2007 didn't have much synoptically until Valentines Day... but we did have a big increase in upslope snows with the arctic air masses starting to come in. I remember the snowpack didn't grow all that fast (outside the 2,000+ foot elevations) despite the snowfalls because of how cold/fluffy it was, but it was nice to see regular snow at that point and it was still serviceable for skiing. After Valentines Day the snowpack was set for the rest of the season. What you describe sounds like the classic Northern Greens though... like when I've got 4-6" on the ground at my house with 1.5sm -SN at MVL and then you drive a few miles up the road and there's a couple feet on the ground at 1,500ft+ with SN+ wind-whipped blizzard style.

One of the greatest flips I’ve ever witnessed too. It was looking real bleak and then one day it snowed in January...then it snowed a bit more...then we put together a couple decent weeks, before Valentines Day storm hit (still my personal number 1 favorite storm). After that it was just deep winter, biggie on St Patrick’s Day too followed by crazy upslope. April snowed a lot up high, some storm in there gave two feet of paste followed by rain lol.

August 1st is the traditional skiing New Years Day anyway. The official start of the new ski year for those who count their days and ski on glaciers all summer, ha.

Wishing for this on a very humid evening...