The 2013-2014 Ski Season Thread

[mreaves]

Northern Greens doing their snow thing.... 18" in the last 48 hours on Mansfield.

 

 

 

It's just me, but I'm more excited by the snowmachine in the background 

[MarkO]

Really weren't any lines at Loon. I might have waited a minute total on about a dozen runs. The skiing was a little crowded, but I was fine sticking to the edges of the trails.

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

My family owns a place at attitash, and man do they seem to open late. I read in there blog today that they " don't like to see man made snow go down the streams of the mountain" as snowmaking is expensive.

Like what?...... Most places like to open as early as possible, but looks like unless it's on natural snow, it won't be attitash

NOT impressed.... As I've seen, loon is open

[CoolMike]

If you have a place near Attitash there is no shame in staying in the Jackson, NH area and then day tripping over to Sunday River.  Its only a short 45 minute ride if I recall correctly.

 

SR is really good for early season snow conditions.  They groom every trail every morning and they spread out quickly.  By this weekend there should be three peaks and south ridge open.

 

SR is my happy place so don't mind me chatting it up all the time.  I love that resort.  If you go eat a pizza at the Matterhorn for me!

[HoarfrostHubb]

Wachusett blowing snow now

[powderfreak]

Big powder skiing and riding here in the Greens on Nov 11th:

Getting ready for the descent in snow that was over the knees in depth.

[CoolMike]

Big powder skiing and riding here in the Greens on Nov 11th:

 

How many good powder days do you get up there a year?  That powder looks super light and fluffy to me. 

 

I've had about 40 ski days in my lifetime and only 2 real powder days. (Last February on Mt Snow after "Nemo" and Last December 29th on Wildcat after the big mountain storm).

 

I'm wondering if I've been riding on the wrong mountains.

[powderfreak]

How many good powder days do you get up there a year? That powder looks super light and fluffy to me.

I've had about 40 ski days in my lifetime and only 2 real powder days. (Last February on Mt Snow after "Nemo" and Last December 29th on Wildcat after the big mountain storm).

I'm wondering if I've been riding on the wrong mountains.

I'm not sure on actual number of powder days...what do you think JSpin or Adk? Like 30 days in a winter at the ski resorts up here where 4" or greater falls in 24 hours?

We get a ton of surprise powder days...systems that will not register in any news media. They may not be surprises to some people if you recognize the upslope parameters, but still you just never know what the northern Greens will do. Like this past event looked good for maybe like a foot at the top over 4 days...not 18-22".

There are a lot of days too, when the forecast calls for 2-4" and we get 12" or something like that...or days with no snow forecast that get several inches. It seems like the positive forecast busts (ie calling for 4" and you get 8") out number the negative busts.

Speaking of this past storm's quality...the snow was right-side up which is perfect for powder skiing and riding. Wetter, dense snow on the bottom 8-10" (graupel and poor flakes too) and then another 8-10" of lighter, colder snow on top. With that layering, you don't have to feel what's under the snow as the dense base snow keeps you afloat, and you are more or less just skiing through the drier pow on top.

If you want powder days outside of the hyped major nor'easters, start looking at the following ski areas: Sugarbush, Bolton, Stowe, Smuggs, and Jay Peak.

[Hitman]

I'm not sure on actual number of powder days...what do you think JSpin or Adk? Like 30 days in a winter at the ski resorts up here where 4" or greater falls in 24 hours?

We get a ton of surprise powder days...systems that will not register in any news media. They may not be surprises to some people if you recognize the upslope parameters, but still you just never know what the northern Greens will do. Like this past event looked good for maybe like a foot at the top over 4 days...not 18-22".

There are a lot of days too, when the forecast calls for 2-4" and we get 12" or something like that...or days with no snow forecast that get several inches. It seems like the positive forecast busts (ie calling for 4" and you get 8") out number the negative busts.

Speaking of this past storm's quality...the snow was right-side up which is perfect for powder skiing and riding. Wetter, dense snow on the bottom 8-10" (graupel and poor flakes too) and then another 8-10" of lighter, colder snow on top. With that layering, you don't have to feel what's under the snow as the dense base snow keeps you afloat, and you are more or less just skiing through the drier pow on top.

If you want powder days outside of the hyped major nor'easters, start looking at the following ski areas: Sugarbush, Bolton, Stowe, Smuggs, and Jay Peak.

I'm limited to weekends and 2 holiday weeks, in all about 40-45 ski days a year, and of those I think I average 8-10 legit powder days a season. A good number of those are the upslope events when there can be 2" at the base, but above 2500' there's 6-12". That's what sets the northern greens apart (and why I drive all the way up).

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

If you have a place near Attitash there is no shame in staying in the Jackson, NH area and then day tripping over to Sunday River. Its only a short 45 minute ride if I recall correctly.

SR is really good for early season snow conditions. They groom every trail every morning and they spread out quickly. By this weekend there should be three peaks and south ridge open.

SR is my happy place so don't mind me chatting it up all the time. I love that resort. If you go eat a pizza at the Matterhorn for me!

I mean obviously attitash is pretty much where I've skied my whole life, but if been to Sunday river a few times and I Iove it. Awesome variety there.

Attitash is nice and I'm thankful or being able to ski at all because it is expensive and many people don't get to do it.... But I want to experience more

[Ginx snewx]

Itchy

[adk]

How many pow days do we get?

Last year I kept a log. I skied about 40 days last year with more then three inches of new snow and skied a total of about 202" new inches of snow.  Three inches doesn't sound like a lot of snow but let me tell you- three inches of upslope fluff on a perfect piste is about the best skiing you can have.

 

but that was last year.

 

This is this year:

 

 

 

Though it does feel like we've done this before:

http://youtu.be/QvTCW9t0qF8

[Ginx snewx]

How many pow days do we get?

Last year I kept a log. I skied about 40 days last year with more then three inches of new snow and skied a total of about 202" new inches of snow.  Three inches doesn't sound like a lot of snow but let me tell you- three inches of upslope fluff on a perfect piste is about the best skiing you can have.

 

but that was last year.

 

This is this year:

 

 

 

Though it does feel like we've done this before:

http://youtu.be/QvTCW9t0qF8

Sweetness

[OceanStWx]

Itchy

 

What a fantastic day it would be for a few turns.

[subdude]

11/13 and i'm already jealous of you guys. Stop having so much fun. 

[ono]

I'm limited to weekends and 2 holiday weeks, in all about 40-45 ski days a year, and of those I think I average 8-10 legit powder days a season. A good number of those are the upslope events when there can be 2" at the base, but above 2500' there's 6-12". That's what sets the northern greens apart (and why I drive all the way up).

 

That's a pretty good number for someone who lives outside of ski country- you've obviously got the right idea about making the extra drive to the snow belt- so many people just stay south, where they get ~1/2 the snow. They either don't care or just don't believe the extra time on the road is worth it.  More for us.

[powderfreak]

Northern Greens continue to do their thing...I called it 1-3" to be safe today, but rumor is at least 4-6" more of total fluff last night at 3000ft+.

Jay Peak picked up another foot.

[Hitman]

That's a pretty good number for someone who lives outside of ski country- you've obviously got the right idea about making the extra drive to the snow belt- so many people just stay south, where they get ~1/2 the snow. They either don't care or just don't believe the extra time on the road is worth it.  More for us.

Yes, we wave to the masses exiting in Manchester, as we cruise by on route 7. Adios.

[amarshall]

Jay Peak

 

[Skivt2]

Of course then there is Killington. I've got friends pushing 20 days on this season already and I have 6 because I only ski weekends. It might not get the totals the northern greens get but it's 4k tall and gets in on that action sometimes. Best of all its been open 3 weeks today and will stay open at least a month more than everyone else. Yay for K!

[Quakertown needs snow]

Northern Greens continue to do their thing...I called it 1-3" to be safe today, but rumor is at least 4-6" more of total fluff last night at 3000ft+.

Jay Peak picked up another foot.

Love this shot.

Congrats with these early season conditions.

[HoarfrostHubb]

Holy cow. Wachusett might be opening this weekend!!!!

[CoolMike]

Holy cow. Wachusett might be opening this weekend!!!!

 

I've been told that their facebook page said they will be open on Saturday.  There is no word yet on if they will stay open for the whole weekend or just do a one day hype-up-the-mountain with temporary snow sort of thing.

 

I'm further told that they have posted that more information will be posted to the facebook page tomorrow.  I don't often log into facebook so all of this is hearsay from a trustworthy source.  Feel free to check it out yourself of course!

[CoolMike]

PF, JSpin, Adk, and others, thanks for the images and info about Stowe and Jay Peak.  My schedule is crazy this winter but I'm going to try my best to get a weekend up there this year.

[HoarfrostHubb]

I've been told that their facebook page said they will be open on Saturday. There is no word yet on if they will stay open for the whole weekend or just do a one day hype-up-the-mountain with temporary snow sort of thing.

I'm further told that they have posted that more information will be posted to the facebook page tomorrow. I don't often log into facebook so all of this is hearsay from a trustworthy source. Feel free to check it out yourself of course!

That's where I read it

I assume it is just for publicity. Good for them

[CoolMike]

Do you have any idea what trails would be open at WaWa?

[HoarfrostHubb]

I assume. (Based on snowmaking and webcams) Challenger, Ralph's, Indian Summer, Ollie's

I need to get my pass

[J.Spin]

I'm not sure on actual number of powder days...what do you think JSpin or Adk? Like 30 days in a winter at the ski resorts up here where 4" or greater falls in 24 hours?

 

I always have a tough time with the “powder day” terminology, because some people deem it a “powder day” only if there’s six inches of new snow or more, some won’t call it a powder day unless there’s a foot or more, some say it’s a powder day only if it’s bottomless, and if you’re touching the subsurface on turns, then it’s not.  Woe to thee who goes out on that day when there’s only five inches and change worth of new snow – it clearly wasn’t a powder day, so how great could it actually be?  It’s all so arbitrary, and like adk said, 3 inches above a smooth base can be oh so good.

 

With that said, Tony Crocker, the quintessential ski area snowfall statistician, does use a six-inch cutoff value for a “powder day”, but he takes a distribution approach to the analysis.  You can check out his data at the link below.  He doesn’t have Stowe in his table, but he does have Jay Peak in there, using data from the 3,000’ elevation.  I think most will agree that Jay Peak does get marginally more snow than Stowe, but they’re basically in the same league, and using the Jay Peak numbers in Tony’s data would be a reasonable representation of what’s occurring on Mt. Mansfield.  You’ll notice that Tony’s first table covers ski areas from around the country, and I’m sure many people would be surprised to know that Jay Peak is in the top third of that list, with a higher percentage of 6+ inch days that places like Aspen, Fernie, Mammoth, Taos, etc.

 

http://50.87.144.177/~bestsnow/pwdrpct.htm

 

That analysis doesn’t really go into the numbers of “powder days” for a whole season, but I really like the way Tony takes a statistical approach to say “For a month with XXX inches of snow, there should be X number of days with 6+ inches of powder, and X number of days with 12+ inches of powder.  He’s got a nice plot in there modeling the percentage of 6+ and 12+ inch powder days per month with respect to total snowfall, which is pretty neat.

 

Anyway, since I’ve never been keen on the arbitrary cutoff value for how much new snow constitutes a “powder day” as I mentioned above, in my own ski season summaries I eschew the whole “powder day” concept and just simplify it by noting whether I skied powder that day or not.  Around here in the Northern Greens, unless one is going to constrain themselves to exclusively marked runs (i.e. no tree skiing, sidecountry, backcountry etc.), there aren’t too many days where powder isn’t available during the core of the winter season.  The only time powder isn’t available in some form in winter is right after a big thaw with no back-end snow in the mountains, and fortunately those events are pretty infrequent.  And, even in those cases, with the way it snows around here, there’s typically an Alberta Clipper or something that comes through in short order and puts down a fresh coat of fluff.  Sometimes that may just mean 3 to 6 inches of powder over a solidified base, but as adk noted above, that kind of powder skiing can be amazingly sweet, and it’s even better nowadays with the amount of float provided by modern fat skis.

 

Anyway, as an example of what I’m talking about, below I added the list of ski outings from my 2012-2013 Ski Season Summary.  The red Xs show the days where powder wasn’t available.  The Xs are clustered in the front (the period like we’re in now before the cold weather stabilizes) and back (spring skiing) ends of the season, but there are very few Xs present in the main part of the winter season.  From mid December through the end of March last season, there were only three days in which we didn’t ski powder – a quick count of the numbers there indicates that that’s ~93% of days with powder.  That of course includes some days with sidecountry or backcountry if the resort is getting tracked out, but each outing listed below is a link to the full trip report with all the pictures and details about the snow, so you can see what it was like.  Now we’re not ski industry professionals that have to be out on the hill every day, and if the snow is crappy and there’s no powder we’re inclined to just stay home and enjoy a break from skiing, but that’s not very often.  I bet that even for someone who had to be out there every day, the overall percentage of days with powder wouldn’t be that different if they had the flexibility to head into the backcountry whenever they wanted.  So as far as actual numbers of “powder days” each season go, I bet if we used the monthly snowfall averages for the mountain (I'm sure PF has those), applied Tony’s chart, and summed it up, we’d get a pretty good number for 6+ inch days.  If there’s no minimum depth of fresh snow applied, it’s going to be much, much higher.

 

P  Stowe, VT, Sunday 04NOV2012

X  Stowe, VT, Sunday 11NOV2012

X  Stowe, VT, Thursday 15NOV2012

P  Stowe, VT, Friday 30NOV2012

P  Stowe, VT, Saturday, 01DEC2012

X  Stowe, VT, Saturday, 15DEC2012

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Friday 21DEC2012

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 22DEC2012

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Sunday 23DEC2012

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Thursday 27DEC2012

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Friday 28DEC2012

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 29DEC2012

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 29DEC2012 (Night)

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Sunday 30DEC2012

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Monday 31DEC2012

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Tuesday 01JAN2013

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 05JAN2013

P  Stowe, VT, Sunday 06JAN2013

X  Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 12JAN2013

X  Stowe, VT, Sunday 13JAN2013

P  Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry, VT, Saturday 19JAN2013

P  Stowe Sidecountry & Bruce Trail, VT, Monday 21JAN2013

P  Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry, VT, Sunday 27JAN2013

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Tuesday 29JAN2013

P  Stowe, VT, Sunday 03FEB2013

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 09FEB2013

P  Stowe, VT, Sunday 10FEB2013

P  Stowe, VT, Thursday 14FEB2013

P  Bolton Valley & Backcountry, VT, Saturday 16FEB2013

P  Bolton Valley & Backcountry, VT, Monday 18FEB2013

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Thursday, 21FEB2013

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 23FEB2013

P  Stowe, VT, Sunday 24FEB2013

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Tuesday 26FEB2013

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Thursday 28FEB2013

P  Bolton Valley & Backcountry, VT, Saturday 02MAR2013

P  Stowe, VT, Sunday 03MAR2013

P  Bolton Valley & Backcountry, VT, Saturday 09MAR2013

X  Stowe, VT, Sunday 10MAR2013

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 16MAR2013

P  Stowe, VT, Sunday 17MAR2013

P  Stowe, VT, Tuesday 19MAR2013

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Thursday 21MAR2013

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Thursday 21MAR2013 (Evening)

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 23MAR2013

P  Stowe, VT, Sunday 24MAR2013

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Saturday 30MAR2013

X  Stowe, VT, Sunday 31MAR2013

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Tuesday 02APR2013

P  Stowe & Mt. Mansfield Chin, VT, Saturday 06APR2013

X  Stowe & Mt. Mansfield Chin, VT, Sunday 07APR2013

P  Stowe, VT, Saturday 13APR2013

P  Bolton Valley, VT, Sunday 14APR2013

X  Stowe, VT, Saturday 20APR2013

X  Stowe, VT, Sunday 21APR2013

X  Bolton Valley, VT, Sunday 28APR2013

X  Sugarbush, VT, Saturday 04MAY2013

X  Stowe, VT, Sunday, 05MAY2013

X  Mt. Washington, NH, Saturday 18MAY2013

P  Stowe, VT, Sunday 26MAY2013

[CoolMike]

Thanks JSpin!

Its funny how a 'simple question' can lead to complex answers.  

For me a powder day is more about how the mountain feels than how many inches of snow fell the day before.  The floating sensation is what defines a powder day to me.

 

For example, as a snowboarder, do I have to think about what I'm doing with the snowboard in three dimensions?  In deep fluffy powder with my old full camber snowboard I have to pilot the board through the pow, I can't let myself nose-dive, for example.  

 

Other criteria may be ability to find some untracked stashes on the marked trails or glades, especially on the sides of trails.

 

As a numbers guy I understand this sounds weird.  Four inches of fresh snow would be enough to get me to take a day off work and find a hill to ride.

 

I've probably had more than the two 'powder days' I mentioned above, but I've only really started to master snowboarding last season (my 3rd season).  I guess I'm a slow learner  

[Clinch Leatherwood]

Sunday River today. Lots of fun, little crowded aside of the tougher trails.