Skiing in the playground (snowboarders welcome too)

[Erloas]

So the season is fast approaching, even open in a few places already.

I'm very excited about it this year, even more so then in years past. Because at this point I'm in the best shape of my life and I think I'll be able to do really good. I'm also at a point where I think I can go a lot more then in years past.

The only real issue is that I've only skied a few times in the last too many years. I went all the time in high school with the ski club, but then I moved to Phoenix to go to college... and well, Arizona is not exactly known for their snow so I only made it a few times over the 8 years I was down there. And even though I've been home for 4 years now I just haven't made it all that much.

But this year my brother is also back, and I've got a cousin that now lives in SLC, so I've got more potential people to ski with. I won't even think about skiing alone any more, not after my last year of high school when I woke up on the side of the slope and couldn't remember most of the day and it was about 15 minutes after the lift I was closest to had closed.

So who else skies? What is your favorite place(s) to ski and what types of terrain do you like to do.

I used to ski everything and loved getting into the more open black runs and there was very little at a resort that I wouldn't ski. My favorite resort is Jackson Hole by far, I just love it up there. The Canyons in Utah is 10x better then it was 10 years ago, before they expanded to the new upper mountain areas, so much more terrain and better snow then the lower part of the mountain. It has the advantage of also being the closest to my house (other then a couple really small ones, one of which doesn't look like its even going to open this year), but I think its a bit expensive for what it is, though most of them are pretty high now. Unfortunately at this point many of the other Utah resorts have kind of blended together.
And I haven't yet had the chance to ski in Colorado, though I hope to either this year or next.

I'm also looking at buying some new skies, but they seem to have changed a lot since I last really looked into them. In HS the parabolic skies were pretty new and thats what I have now, but rocker seems to be the big thing now and I don't know much about them other then mostly sales bits, everyone acts like its the best new thing but how much is nebulous at best. So many choices, so little to actually go by unless you rent a bunch of them, but you half pay for a good pair of skies by the time you rent some high end skies a couple times.

Also... if anyone in Wyoming (know there isn't many of us), Utah, or Colorado, maybe we could plan a meet-up/ski trip sometime this winter.

[Erloas]

I find it hard to believe that we don't have any skiers and snowboarders around here...
Is no one looking forward to the upcoming season?

[thubby]

used to snowboard, but I've managed to abuse my knee enough that it stopped being comfortable.

i still ski, but i dont get on the slopes nearly as much as i'd like. mostly its little places around here. its a hike to get to any mountain, and they're all pretty small.

[arguskos]

Man I love skiing, but it's been years since I've done it. I need to ski more, I really do. I'm hoping to get a chance to ski some this year, but I dunno how it'll work out. We'll see, we'll see.

I did enjoy skiing in Dubai (the last time I got a chance to ski, sadly) though, that was a blast, even if it was fake (indoor, etc).

[Aedilred]

I love skiing, but, being British and all, opportunities are limited (one week a year at most, and even then it's pretty expensive). I have skied in the US (NH) but most of the skiing I've done has been in Europe. Qualitatively the best skiing has probably been in France, but so much is dependent on the snow. I've often found it frustrating, in fact, because I've historically been tied to going in school holidays. So either it was New Year, when it's usually snowing so hard you can barely see (not to mention the cold), or Easter when it's so hot the snow turns to slush by lunchtime.

I wouldn't worry too much about being slightly out of practice so long as you're fit. Just don't push yourself too hard on the first couple of outings - you'll find it all comes back very quickly.

[mootoall]

Ski Patroller in the playground here. I'm in New York, so no *great* snow where I am, but I've had some good experiences up in Vermont.

[Erloas]

I've often found it frustrating, in fact, because I've historically been tied to going in school holidays. So either it was New Year, when it's usually snowing so hard you can barely see (not to mention the cold), or Easter when it's so hot the snow turns to slush by lunchtime.

Yeah, snow conditions are a pain at times. I'm far enough away from the resorts that I can't easily just go because the conditions are good, so I've got to plan a bit in advance and you never quite know what you'll get.

I've had great days while it is snowing, you just have to dress for it.


My plan for this year is to take my brothers skiing for Christmas gifts. My plan is to take each of them at different times so I get to go more. And right now I'm trying to convince my dad to make my Christmas gift taking everyone skiing right after Thanksgiving. Mostly to see where everyone is at and make it better for me to plan the gift trips later. I'm thinking I'm going to take my youngest brother to Steamboat for about 2 days... but first we've got to make sure we'll still be able to move on the second day. Also if someone isn't up to skiing the black runs, I'll pick a more intermediate type of hill, also the potential of taking my brothers' girlfriends, whom haven't skied before, so I can get all my teaching done on one day instead of over several trips.
And I also just checked with my boss and it turns out I have 3.5 days of vacation left instead of the 1.5 days I though (forgot 2 days I had carried over from last year) so thats going to make taking any trips easier. Also means that maybe I can do a weekday instead, where the rates are sometimes cheaper and there are always less people in line.

[Karoht]

I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I'm no more than 1 hour away from a great world class ski resort and home of the 1988 Olympic Winter Games. Yes, I'm talking about Nakiska.
I'm also only 2 hours away from Lake Louise and Sunshine, both legendary hills in their own right, world cup mountains. I'm 3 hours from Fernie, which is practically the skiing capital of Canada. And my grandparents live near Kamloops, they drive a whole 45 minutes to reach Sun Peaks Resort, owned and operated by none other than skiing legend Nancy Green.
I've skiied in Austria and Switzerland, but that was more than 20 years ago.

My grandfather lived near the Tocino Valley when he was doing his baking/chocolatier apprenticeship. Tocino is near the Swiss/Italian border. He'd work, he'd ski, he'd drink beer, he'd wake up and do it all again the next day. It was a great 5 years for him. He's the man who taught me to ski, been doing so since I was 4 years old. I remember the year I got a pair of ski's for christmas, hand made with hand made bindings. Very old school stuff.

I remember the year I suffered a skull injury (martial arts related) and was not allowed to ski. Bad year. Age 11-12. Crappy winter that year. Bitter cold, metric tonnes of snow in the hills. And I wasn't even allowed on a sled at the hill near my house for fear of reinjury and risk of brain damage. That killed me, every weekend that winter, to see snow falling, to hear the ski reports bragging about how big their base was or how much fresh untouched snow fell that night.

Go figure, the next winter was the warmest winter on record for quite some time. Not much snow. But most of the time, you could ski without a jacket on. It was an interesting year.

I also did snowboarding for 3 years. It was alright, but not my cup of tea.

[Erloas]

I don't know any of the Canadian resorts, but I haven't even had a chance to ski many of the world class resorts that are only 3-6 hours away.

I was wanting to pick up new skies on Black Friday, but now I think I'll put it off a couple more weeks. The Canyons, which happens to be the closest resort to me, is having a Demo Days on December 10th. I've never done a demo day but its going to make it a lot easier to figure out what skies I want after test riding a few of them.


And did everyone but me know about Liftopia.com? Just found out about it searching around this last week. Doesn't seem to have everywhere, but it has a lot of places and some of the deals seem to be pretty good, but even just saving $10 for a ticket is (almost) enough for lunch.

[Winter_Wolf]

I almost paralyzed myself from the waist down my first time snowboarding. I went to skiing as a relatively safer method of hurling myself down steep mountainous terrain at high speeds. :smallsmile: I did much better with the skis.

Sadly (or maybe luckily for my wife who's too young to be widowed) Wisconsin has no mountains, and I detest cross country skiing. If I want to walk across snow I'll use snowshoes. :smalltongue:

My dad used to tell me stories about when he was a kid. They used to make barrel stave skis, which sounded like fun but sadly there were no barrel staves to be found. It was made perfectly clear to me at an early age that if I destroyed a perfectly good barrel to get them, Bad Things would happen to me.

[Dallas-Dakota]

Well my country is as flat as a pancake, so no real skieing oppertunities here. Did go skieing once in southern Germany, greatly enjoyed it! Sadly my family didn't as much so we never went again. >.>

I do mean to go again sometime when I have my life stable and a steady income so I'l have enough money to go...

[THAC0]

I have a love-hate relationship with skiing.

The easy hills are too easy and the hard ones to dang hard.

Then again, I learned in Alaska, I am told that other places have better "middle of the road" trails.

[Karoht]

Stick to Blue runs rather than black?

[THAC0]

Stick to Blue runs rather than black?

Hah, I've been going between green and blue, but my husband says that the blues we've been on would be blacks at other places. I dunno!

[Eldan]

Around here, the blues are almost flat, in my experience.

Anyway, it's pretty much a national sport here. Especially amongst us flatlanders. If you are old enough to stand, you are old enough to have planks strapped to your feet and be pushed down a mountain.

[Karoht]

Hah, I've been going between green and blue, but my husband says that the blues we've been on would be blacks at other places. I dunno!
Blacks are supposed to have a certain degree of slope, and possibly feature terrain to deal with such as moguls, rocks and sudden sharp drops. Where blues are typically a lesser degree of slope, will only feature a very very light amount of terrain, so you might see some moguls might be on the run, but they will be easy to negociate and only for a short patch, not the whole run.

Also, weather can be a factor. If it's an area with minimal shelter and thus gets windblown frequently, that might be why it's a black when it shouldn't be, or why a green run might be flagged blue.

That said, there are a few blues on hills I visit which would be catagorized as green on another hill and black on yet another. I've seen blacks which should be flagged yellow (hazard area) and some which are really only blues. I think it depends on how conservative the hill is really.

[Erloas]

Yeah, there is no official classification for run ratings, at least not in the USA that I'm aware of.
Most resorts even say that their runs are using their own designation and don't necessarily correspond to ratings at other places. I think most resorts also make an effort to keep their run distribution somewhere close to 20/40/40 unless they are specifically catering to one crowd or another, that way they don't seem unappealing to certain groups.

But yes, snow conditions have a big impact on how easy or hard a run is to do, and that changes constantly.
Most blue runs I see (in Utah and Wyoming) tend to be steep groomed runs, and the occasional flatter uneven terrain. I can't think of any black groomed runs.

[Erloas]

So its been snowing quite a bit here. Well "here" its only been snowing for a couple hours and we already have several inches of snow. But the ski resorts have had snow most of the day, 7" or more in most of them just today, and its supposed to keep snowing for most of the weekend. And more to come next week.

So I'm really looking forward to my first trip out this year. Looks like that will be the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and it looks like the snow conditions are going to be pretty good for this early in the year, I can't wait.

I've got my skies down stairs and I'm working on waxing them now. First time I've tunes skies, at it seems to be going pretty good.

[Dr.Epic]

Perfect skiing music. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPWpfiOpgDk):smallwink:

[Aedilred]

I find the European method of piste classification more helpful than the American one; there seems to be a greater degree of standardisation, and the addition of an extra category leads to greater gradation and better predictability. In the US I found that there were blues more difficult than the easier end of the black spectrum and it varied from resort to resort.

[llamamushroom]

Apparently, there's the distinct possibility that my family will be going to Canada in January to go skiing. So, my question is, what's it like over there?

I've done a fair amount of skiing back home in Oz, but there are pathetically few runs, it's ludicrously expensive, and the snow is quite possibly the worst in the world, according to international visitors. Most of it has to be manufactured, and after about the fourth day of any given season, it's all ice.

So, what should I be prepared for in Canada? I hear they've got something called "powder" snow - what does that entail?

[thubby]

So, what should I be prepared for in Canada? I hear they've got something called "powder" snow - what does that entail?

its basically just real snow that hasnt been ridden (much)

its a slower, more controlled ride. turns are easier to the point it can actually mess you up.

on popular slopes, it means the runs get really choppy.

[Karoht]

Powder tends to be loose and not packed, the snow is kind of granular, it is kind of like skiing on sugar. Which can be good and bad. You will want to lean back a bit more than you normally do and therefore bend your knees more. Make more use of cantelever balance vs stance balance, especially at higher speeds. Try not to snowplow, because doing so will slow you down very sharply, you'll either have no momentum left or you'll stop too fast and fall over.

Also, powder can hide terrain features like rocks or tree branches. Give the treeline a bit more space than you normally would, and keep away from the rocks you can see. And naturally, keep within park boundaries, do not go outside of them. If there is powder, there is considerable risk of Avalanche.

[Greenish]

It's not real skiing if it's only downhill. :smallwink:

[Karoht]

It's not real skiing if it's only downhill. :smallwink:Back country skiing tends to be rather fun.
But again, heed the avalanche warnings.

[Erloas]

Well I got out on Saturday. Went to Brighton in Utah.
The weather was really nice but they hadn't had much fresh snow recently so it was kind of icy, and quite a few rocks and little trees showing through in some places. Only a couple of non-groomed runs were open and only a single black run.

I still had a good time though. I felt good and strong and was skiing with a lot of confidence, so my time at the gym seems to have been paying off on the slopes even though I haven't specifically trained at all for skiing yet.

I'm still really wanting to try to get to the demo days at the Canyons on the 10th... but currently the weather forecasts aren't showing any big storms coming through any time soon and I don't think theres enough of the resort open right now to be worth the trip, mostly because I expect everything would be packed with people with only a few runs open.

[Karoht]

A boatload of snow fell in the mountains near me.
High winds pushed a huge system over the ski hills.
40 cm over a very short period, 3 days, maybe 2?
This on top of record breaking snowfalls we've had all season. Crazy dangerous avalanche conditions in the back country.

Oh man, this weekend I have no plans whatsoever. And I get paid. This is looking promising.

[Erloas]

A boatload of snow fell in the mountains near me.
High winds pushed a huge system over the ski hills.
40 cm over a very short period, 3 days, maybe 2?
This on top of record breaking snowfalls we've had all season. Crazy dangerous avalanche conditions in the back country.

Oh man, this weekend I have no plans whatsoever. And I get paid. This is looking promising.

Did you get out at all?

Nothing at all is happening here. We got a little bit of snow last week but not nearly enough to change anything. None of the interesting terrain is open anywhere even kind of close to me. So I'm just waiting for another storm or two to come in and get the resorts fully open before I go again. The forecast doesn't look good for the next 10 days, and thats all the farther it goes out.

I did go the weekend before last to the demos, but there was so little open that I really couldn't test any of the skis in the conditions I want to be skiing in. I also couldn't tell any major difference between the majority of the skis I demoed, so it really didn't help me decide anything at all. But it did convince me that its really not worth it until more of the terrain is open.

[Karoht]

Nope, still haven't made it out. Curse you real life. *shakes fist*
But, the grandparents are in town this week, as such there are plans made to go. We'll see what's what.

[Tyndmyr]

I've done both of these things(cross country skiing, downhill skiing, snowboarding) and am quite proficient at them all...or at least, I used to be. It's been a long, long time since I've done any of these things. One snowboarding trip in the last eight years, I believe. Sadly, the east coast has much less convenient hills than I'm used to.

This year, though, I have hopes of an expedition somewhere to teach my local geeks to board.

[Alarra]

I love, love, love skiing, but haven't gone in yeeeears. My grandmother owns a cabin next to a ski resort in South Dakota and we used to stay up there often in the winter. We would ski down to the front door, it was awesome. Alas that was back in high school when I owned my own skis and had a season pass every year. Now that I think about it, I haven't been skiing since I lived in Minnesota, so....2004, and that was a mediocre place at best.

I've been meaning to take Zeb skiing sometime (crazy kid grew up in Colorado and has never been). Maybe this winter... With that in mind... Anyone know a good place that's moderately inexpensive and within relative closeness to Baltimore?

[Mauve Shirt]

I'll be going to Whitetail in a few weeks. It's not that spectacular. I'm not sure it'll be cold enough to make snow. But it's close-ish to Baltimore, for sure. If you have your own equipment, it's around $60 for a lift ticket. $70-80 for lift + rentals.

[Karoht]

Got out to Nakiska over the holiday. Christmas Day in fact. Christmas Day skiing is awesome. Hardly anyone on the hill, everyone is in a good mood, and the snow is usually really good that day.

This year was no exception. Fantastic snow, fantastic weather to go with it, a great day was had by all.

[Riverdance]

I live in Vermont where it has only just snowed today (the 12th) and conditions haven't been that great, but with the school it only costs about 7 bucks a go so I'm not complaining.

Ironically winter sports (skiing) was cancelled today because it snowed for the first time this winter.

[Karoht]

I live in Vermont where it has only just snowed today (the 12th) and conditions haven't been that great, but with the school it only costs about 7 bucks a go so I'm not complaining.

Ironically winter sports (skiing) was cancelled today because it snowed for the first time this winter.What is this I don't even...
Man, you americans are strange. We get 8 feet of snow and they still send us to school. And work. And outside during recess in -40c to go and play.


Did you hear about Alaska getting 12 feet of snow in something crazy like 8 hours? Man, I bet the snow forts up there are going to be epic!

[Erloas]

What is this I don't even...
Man, you americans are strange. We get 8 feet of snow and they still send us to school. And work. And outside during recess in -40c to go and play.

It really depends where you are at. I know we had more snow days the 1 year I was in Omaha then we did combined 10 years here in Wyoming. Its a lot colder here, but we don't get quite as much snow, the difference is mostly due to the size of everything though. Omaha was just too big for them to keep streets plowed if it was snowing hard, and there was already a lot of traffic, so slowing stuff down was just going to make the traffic exponentially worse. Of course the more snow a city gets the more prepared they are for it. A city that doesn't get many big snow storms can't afford the 100s of plows and drivers needed for a few days a year, but a city that deals with it all the time can.

For schools at least there is also a fair amount of liability from buses. They aren't all that great at handling in the best conditions and its just easier for a school system to drop a day then for them taking an increased chance of a bus full of kids getting into an accident.
Very few businesses though ever get snow days, generally only a few government ones, the places that take off every minor holiday they can get already.

The only people where I work that get a snow day is the ones living 40 miles away out the other side, where the only way into work is on the interstate and sometimes the state closes the interstate. The interstate can get really bad in storms, as well as being very long and open, so it takes a long time to plow and not a lot of money available to do it. And if you did get on an accident on the interstate you could easily be 20 miles away from anything when it happened with little chance of being seen or helped in a reasonable amount of time.

[Erloas]

Well after a really crappy December and an equally poor first half of January we're finally getting some snow.

Most places in Utah got between 17-30" over the last two days with more expected through the weekend. Jackson has 37" over the last 2 days with more expected too.

So I'm going to go Sunday. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to go to Alta or Jackson. Alta is closer and cheaper but Jackson has more snow and its my favorite resort (though I've spent very little time at Alta, which is why I want to go there more). It might simply come down to whether or not the road to Jackson is open. Its interstate to Salt Lake City, so much more likely to be open, but the trip to Jackson is mountain passes and valleys for 100 miles.