The Official Skiing / Snowboarding / Playing in the Snow Thread

[otc]

And I guess I should add that the vertical tracker isn’t something you run on your own.

They just track pass scans and report the totals on their website. Top guy is over 7mil vert this year.

Dude just rips the same damn groomer again and again.

 

[otc]

Deciding whether I should enter the closing day pond skim in my full size chicken suit


On one hand, I've never done one and would like to and it hasn't sold out yet.

On the other hand we've got potential for a powder day on closing day...and I honestly don't want to give up half a day of skiing on the last day to stand around and wait my turn to get soaking wet.

 

[UnFacconable]

Going up tonight for a 3 day weekend which will be our last skiing of the season. It was a very interesting year - started out really lame but genuinely got better throughout the season. Snow is still great (it's snowing as I type this) so it's not even really spring skiing right now.

I think through this point in the season I've had more days than I had either of the last 2 years, but each of the last 2 years we skiied later into the season. This year both the kids have spring sports and they don't want to keep missing games (and they've had enough skiing at this point).

Already looking forward to 2024-2025 lol.

 

[Newcomer]

On the last day of my Jackson WY trip, and I am dog tired. Yesterday and the day before were my Mount Moran days, and it was unquestionably the most challenging thing I’ve done in my life. 6-7 miles skinning across the lake, 4,000 vert skinning, a 2,000 vert boot pack, a 6,000 foot descent, then 6-7 miles back to the car. Some dicey skinning in parts, and shedding from the day before knocked out the boot pack. But I am pretty darn proud of myself. She’s a beast of a mountain.

Only downside / negative - my skiing was piss poor! I am a pretty solid skier, and I struggled with every turn. Every. Single. Turn. It took every ounce of effort for me to ski the handle of the skillet, which is about 50 degrees, but after that I pretty much did a lot of wide turns / traversing. I did not account for just how shot my legs would be.

 

[otc]

Closing weekend storm has materialized:

Rain in town must be keeping everyone home and thin cover is keeping the rest off the south facing front side.

Been skiing lines like this nonstop and gliding right onto the chair with the minor cost of picking my way through 1-200’ of sketchy cover at the bottom.

 

[Fueco]

Seeing the weather forecast back home, I’m kind of glad we’re not home trying to ski today.

 

[otc]

Been skiing lines like this nonstop and gliding right onto the chair with the minor cost of picking my way through 1-200’ of sketchy cover at the bottom.

Paid the costs for the fresh lines:

 

[Newcomer]

Better a base than an edge. But that is a gouge.

 

[Fueco]

 

[UnFacconable]

Long post incoming - end of season wrapup. tl;dr, had a great season, kids and I made a ton of progress, already looking forward to 2024-5.

Probably skied my last day of the season yesterday. Handed back the kids' seasonal rentals, so they are almost definitely done. There is a chance I head back to the hill in late May for a solo trip or with my wife but I'm guessing we're pretty much done.

Generally I'm really pleased with how things went overall. The last few days were particularly great - nice and cold with a bit of fresh snow which created nice mid-winter like conditions.

Was fortunate to do a couple of short hikes to hit some of the more famed terrain at our hill (stuff that my kids sometimes will point to and ask if I've done it) which was a great way to close out the season. According to the coach, my 7 year old also confidently crushed one of those lines yesterday (a legit 40 degree plus pitch) which is so great to hear. One of the parents supposedly took a video, so trying to get a hold of it. As a humbling comparison, when I was up there putting my skis back on and figuring out where to go, a dude non-chalantly skied past me and basically without slowing down picked a gnarly entrance over a cliff and threw a 50 foot backie and mached it back to the lift.

We were thinking about pushing the 7 up to the jr race program next year but have become convinced to stick with the more general development program. The coach, who has been exceptional, recommends staying in the general program as long as possible, unless the kid really wants to do race. One of the counter-vailing factors is that while both of my kids prefer big mountain to racing, everyone has said that big mountain kids almost uniformly benefit from 1 year of racing to really get the hang of carving and control of their edges, and that you can't quite get that without doing some race.

The problem is that our mountain is amazing for off-piste (my kids spent probably 90% of their season there) so a lot of kids hate the race program. Their friends ski at a different local mountain where race is more appealing because the mountain doesn't have as much to offer. Anyway, the older kid is going to do 1 year of race before (probably) switching to big mountain, and the younger kid is going to stay in the same thing. We will re-evaluate in a year. It's entirely possible that next year is their last on team (which would mean next year is my last with my club) and that we'll do family skiing after that.

From a personal development standpoint, this was easily the most improvement I've seen since I was a beginner. I am more aware of what I have to work on than I was before I joined the club, but I'm skiing far more fluidly, slowly, and in control on even the steepest terrain. We are fortunate to have an amazing number of chutes and other steep pitches (dozens and dozens) which in the past I've been able to ski down but not ski well. I'm now able to ski most of it far better than I was in the past. I wasn't as pretty as I would have liked on the steepest stuff I did yesterday (would like to be able to finish my turns better and stay in the front of the boot), but I was still making decent turns. I also have a hope that I can eventually get to where I want to be as a skiier in the next couple of years, which is something that I thought would require a private ski coach for 20+ days per year.

 

[otc]

I accomplished my goal of being the top skier with my name by 28k feet and pushed the needle above 600k vert (although both of those are really meaningless as they only count pass scans which doesn't always happen on upper-mountain chairs).

What I find a bit interesting is that 600k puts me close to the top 350 passholders. I guess 350 people is still a lot, but it is kinda crazy to me...I ostensibly live in a "ski town" and there's a much larger town 15 minutes down valley with even more people who ski. I'm working a full time job and spent time travelling during the season, and there's still only 350 people with more vert than me (including employees)?

Seems crazy. Not like all of my days are huge-vert days. I probably only did 40-45 riding chairs and plenty of people hit 60, 75, 100 days.

The problem is that our mountain is amazing for off-piste (my kids spent probably 90% of their season there) so a lot of kids hate the race program. Their friends ski at a different local mountain where race is more appealing because the mountain doesn't have as much to offer. Anyway, the older kid is going to do 1 year of race before (probably) switching to big mountain, and the younger kid is going to stay in the same thing. We will re-evaluate in a year. It's entirely possible that next year is their last on team (which would mean next year is my last with my club) and that we'll do family skiing after that.

Maybe that's actually a benefit? Gives you that 1 year of race experience but then motivates you GTFO back to "fun" skiing. Guess it depends on whether the kid is seeing the big picture and realizing the race time is for intentional development or if they are just seeing it as "oh, guess this is what skiing is now".

 

[UnFacconable]

I accomplished my goal of being the top skier with my name by 28k feet and pushed the needle above 600k vert (although both of those are really meaningless as they only count pass scans which doesn't always happen on upper-mountain chairs).

What I find a bit interesting is that 600k puts me close to the top 350 passholders. I guess 350 people is still a lot, but it is kinda crazy to me...I ostensibly live in a "ski town" and there's a much larger town 15 minutes down valley with even more people who ski. I'm working a full time job and spent time travelling during the season, and there's still only 350 people with more vert than me (including employees)?

Seems crazy. Not like all of my days are huge-vert days. I probably only did 40-45 riding chairs and plenty of people hit 60, 75, 100 days.

I'm not sure how far down I ranked but the top person is over 2M vert. I just checked and one of the dudes I've skied with a few times is #2 and averages 30k+ per day. He told me during one of the last storms that he got 200k in 4 days midweek! And that is almost exclusively skiing off-piste. I do know that he and another good friend of mine refuse to take any slow chairs and really do seem to enjoy piling on the vert but that means that with very few exceptions, they only ski 2 chairs on our hill.

I enjoy getting after it, but I'm never going to be that guy.

Maybe that's actually a benefit? Gives you that 1 year of race experience but then motivates you GTFO back to "fun" skiing. Guess it depends on whether the kid is seeing the big picture and realizing the race time is for intentional development or if they are just seeing it as "oh, guess this is what skiing is now".

That's definitely a thing. As you can imagine there is a lot of chatter about it. Some people claim that the jr racing program just takes the fun out of skiing and with a kid like mine, that feels like an uncompensated risk. I care very much about having them become lifelong skiers creating good memories on team, and worry that the torture of running gates when they would rather be skiing the steeps would be counter-productive, especially for my younger one. In fairness, they do get to freeski when there is powder and a few other times, but I think it's more gate training than a lot of kids that age need. The big problem is that the program is focused on generating US ski team members (that is their explicit goal) so they don't mind losing kids who were never going to be that hardcore. My goals are very different. The older one I'm less worried about and might even enjoy the racing program for a year.

 

[otc]

Yeah, I racked up mega vert Saturday by skiing the fastest vert-per-minute chair all morning. In some ways off-piste is almost faster as you are closer to the fall line (especially if there are crowds or the groomers get chopped up).

Not that it was intentional, the skiing was just fantastic. I got like 24k+ by 12:30 before the snow started to get too heavy and I moved on. Lot of people were skeptical of the chair when they built it, but I think it has been a fantastic addition…total 🚀 when the conditions are right and takes a lot of pressure off our “main” lift.

My favorite chair on the hill is slow AF…but I’d rather ski there and wait for the slow ride. Also, when the fast chairs get lines, I bet the slow chair actually wins the race (especially if you are with someone and not using the singles line).

 

[UnFacconable]

Yeah, I racked up mega vert Saturday by skiing the fastest vert-per-minute chair all morning. In some ways off-piste is almost faster as you are closer to the fall line (especially if there are crowds or the groomers get chopped up).

Not that it was intentional, the skiing was just fantastic. I got like 24k+ by 12:30 before the snow started to get too heavy and I moved on. Lot of people were skeptical of the chair when they built it, but I think it has been a fantastic addition…total 🚀 when the conditions are right and takes a lot of pressure off our “main” lift.

My favorite chair on the hill is slow AF…but I’d rather ski there and wait for the slow ride. Also, when the fast chairs get lines, I bet the slow chair actually wins the race (especially if you are with someone and not using the singles line).

Yeah the 2 most efficient chairs at our hill (with great terrain) are ~300 ft of vert per minute. If the lines are forgiving, that gets you about 6-8k vert ft. per hour.

On weekend powder days, the guys I know usually get a group together to rent a ski instructor so they can skip lines (makes a ton of sense - it's expensive but actually decreases your $/hour of powder skiing).

I got a lot more powder runs in this year because we get to skip lines with our club as well - a huge benefit on nice days. It also removes a lot of the neurosis and second-guessing of where to go with your precious few powder runs before everything is skied out. On a good powder day, you could easily wait 30+ minutes to get on the chair, which cuts your runs by 2/3 or so.

 

[otc]

Ooof. I'm glad whitefish isn't busy like that.

You could get that kind of wait for the high speed chair on the backside on a busy day where the frontside conditions suck...
...but even then my favorite chair almost never has any wait, serves interesting terrain, and is literally just a 500' slightly-uphill skate away from the base of the busy chair. Tourists often don't realize it is hidden over there and even some locals don't see the magic and get frustrated by the slow speed even though they'd have already finished a lap by the time they made it through the line on the high speed chair.

Also that high speed chair is a lie IMHO. That part of the mountain is shaped like this: \__ so most of the terrain has a short exciting bit and then a flat run to the chair. With the long flat, it only does 1200' in 7 minutes which is <175' per minute. The slow chair does 1000' in 9 minutes (111/min) and follows a more consistent slope so in terms of "fun" skiing per minute I think you come out ahead. The entirety of the trees under chair 11 are skiable so it is just endless fun and stays soft long after a storm.

New 6-pack on the frontside does almost 320'/min (2224' in 7 min) and starts you right on steeper slopes so you can go go go right away.