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HookShot
Dec 26, 2005

highme posted:

I've been up on midweek days when both ski racers & freestyle camps are going full speed and never really experienced what I'd call "crowding". Regardless your kids will be relegated to whichever lane on Palmer their camp gets to use for training, essentially 3-4 cats wide. The racers tend to load at the midway station and only lap the top half for their training (and are usually on their way in to watch film when the snow starts to soften up to the point the rest of us enjoy it). I would suggest if you're going to do it, send them to a session as early as possible so they can still ski all the way down to the lodge.

Wait there’s times when it’s early enough you can still ski down to the lodge?? LOL.

The one year we went was one of those super super lovely snow years, and we decided it wasn’t worth doing Whistler glacier for the last week, and we all drove down to Hood instead. So it was not only a lovely year for snow but it was also mid-August, and you couldn’t even make it right to midstation on the chair, you had to take your skis off further and further back every day and walk the last 100-300 feet or so.

Anyway yeah I agree with all this.

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ImplicitAssembler
Jan 24, 2013

Fifty Three posted:

Genuine question, and one I shouldn't have to ask because in a sane world our respective governments would be supporting us during a lockdown anyway, but- could a place like Whistler survive with just locals during a season?

No. I doubt they would have bothered to even open had they been limited to locals.

Eejit
Mar 6, 2007

Swiss Army Cockatoo
Cacatua multitoolii

wilfredmerriweathr posted:

Annual alta/bird patrol april fools shenanigans:




Apparently that monolith is cemented in, that's on high rustler at alta

Solidly cracked me up

Moot .1415926535
Mar 24, 2006

Yep, that's pretty much it.
Ski patrol anywhere probably has names like that and imo it should be a wide open secret so they have to deal with less of it. There’s one on the beginner side of the mountain here called STP for stupid terrible place because it looks like an awesome rope duck from your double green run until someone has to go down and fish your stupid terrible rear end out of a creek and then sidestep you back up to the run.

wilfredmerriweathr
Jul 11, 2005
There's a catwalk that takes you across the bottom of a steep cirque-accessed run here, but the catwalk leads away from the top of a steep green so a lot of beginners take it.

The catwalk used to be officially called "death road" and a tourist ended up (I believe) going off the side of it and getting extremely injured, so he sued snowbird and part of the suit was "why is this so dangerous that it's called death road?"

In response the official name of the run was changed to fluffy bunny and that's the name it still wears today officially.

You can buy the official maps from the patrol store which ski patrol use to determine locations on the ski area, and they all still feature the "patrol names" which while not as funny as that april fools map, still contain the names the runs were born with, like "death road."

wilfredmerriweathr fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Apr 2, 2021

Elysium
Aug 21, 2003
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.

wilfredmerriweathr posted:

The catwalk used to be officially called "death road" and a tourist ended up (I believe) going off the side of it and getting extremely injured, so he sued snowbird and part of the suit was "why is this so dangerous that it's called death road?"

Seems like he should have lost the suit because he was adequately warned of the dangers that were possible.

wilfredmerriweathr
Jul 11, 2005
I believe the outcome of the suit was basically "this shouldn't be the ski areas fault, but we're gonna award him tens of millions of dollars anyway."

The area below the catwalk was reinforced via use of railroad ties, and he hit one after sliding off the edge of the catwalk and sliding down into the roped-off retaining wall area. The court found that there were "limits" to the release of liability that you agree to when buying a pass and that apparently hitting a railroad tie wasn't considered a typical ski area hazard. Sucks but that was a decade or more ago.

Reminds me of my local hill growing up "welch village" which has a bunch of awesome gladed terrain from the 1970s, but its been closed since someone went skiing in there in the 80s without goggles and poked their eye out on a tree branch. Some folks just can't take responsibility.


In other news CMH is selling the bugaboo lodge:

https://www.cmhheli.com/bugaboo-listing

wilfredmerriweathr fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Apr 2, 2021

highme
May 25, 2001


I posted my food for USPOL Thanksgiving!


Ummmm.... https://www.cmhheli.com/hahaha-gotcha

wilfredmerriweathr
Jul 11, 2005
If you haven't watched the video on the page I linked, check it out. It's pretty funny!


Also, found this edit today, I need to get up to bellingham sometime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRCrkxKWkLs

wilfredmerriweathr fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Apr 2, 2021

Steve French
Sep 8, 2003

Yuns posted:

Question to the racers/ex-racers like Hookshot and Steve French but are dryland summer camps worth it? The kids have teammates going to some week long dryland summer camps for racers but we have LAX and field hockey camps to consider as well. Did any of you do dryland camps?

Also for summer non-dryland camps I've heard Hood is insanely crowded in summer. How is it these days?

I never did any dryland camps, but did spend a lot of time doing dryland training in the fall locally with my team. Not sure what sort of value any short dryland training camp will have; I'd say a longer term dryland training regimen over months in the offseason are the better move. If I were a ski team dad now and had the money, I'd spend it on a ski camp, not a dryland camp. No idea without checking how reasonable of a trade off that is in terms of cost, though.

ironlung
Dec 31, 2001

Yuns posted:

Question to the racers/ex-racers like Hookshot and Steve French but are dryland summer camps worth it? The kids have teammates going to some week long dryland summer camps for racers but we have LAX and field hockey camps to consider as well. Did any of you do dryland camps?

Also for summer non-dryland camps I've heard Hood is insanely crowded in summer. How is it these days?

I'd encourage your kids to play other sports during the summer. IIRC they are about 13ish, that's around the age ski racing started to feel like a real chore to me after being in a serious race program for many years.

Yuns
Aug 19, 2000

There is an idea of a Yuns, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there.

ironlung posted:

I'd encourage your kids to play other sports during the summer. IIRC they are about 13ish, that's around the age ski racing started to feel like a real chore to me after being in a serious race program for many years.
They already competitively swim, and play lacrosse and field hockey for their school. They already have to do LAX and field hockey camps over the summer. The dryland is a week between other camps but we decided against it because it's a sleepaway and we're not ready in COVID world to let the kids stay in a dorm full of other kids yet..

ironlung
Dec 31, 2001

Yeah I mean, imo you get similar (and perhaps more) benefits by playing other sports as you do from ski specific dryland training especially at that age. As long as they aren't sitting at home playing video games 24/7 it should be all good. Cross training seems to be very en vogue in youth sports right now too but obviously if they are super interested in the camp then go for it.

knox_harrington
Feb 18, 2011

Running no point.

Super warm here in the Alps. Apparently this weather isn't going to stick around though, and next week cold again and maybe some more snow.

The new skis worked great with the Hojis, you can tell they're quite light and there's not a lot of scope for being lazy but they did great in the different snow I could find. Best in corn snow lower down of course.




I'm touring through next week with a guide and one woman who is cool and a few other people who I don't know. Unfortunately one of the guys seems to be a bit of a cock, he's got my number and will. not. stop. messaging me trying to get me to do stuff. He's just announced that he's going to call me to discuss... something tonight. Classic British guy who wants to be in charge of everything. I'm trying to stay positive but can feel a low threshold for telling him to stfu coming on.

HookShot
Dec 26, 2005

ironlung posted:

Yeah I mean, imo you get similar (and perhaps more) benefits by playing other sports as you do from ski specific dryland training especially at that age. As long as they aren't sitting at home playing video games 24/7 it should be all good. Cross training seems to be very en vogue in youth sports right now too but obviously if they are super interested in the camp then go for it.

I totally agree with this. I feel bad for the kids whose parents are making them ski, ski, ski and do nothing else but ski. I know a family who's considering moving to New Zealand in the summers so their kid can be on snow all year. Like oh boy is your kid going to hate skiing.

Meanwhile the kids who are all actually the best at skiing tend to be really good at other sports, too. One of my teammates went to the Jr. World Champs in gymnastics a couple years back.

Yuns
Aug 19, 2000

There is an idea of a Yuns, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there.
Other than a couple of the tiny kids on the team. No one on our ski team is being forced to ski or pressured to ski. They all love it because at least in our state at this level it's way more laid back than other sports. All the most hardcore ski parents already moved to VT/Co etc. If you want to see insane sports parenting, you have to play hockey or LAX etc. Interesting that you mention gymnastics because one of our kids is an all state gymnast.

stratdax
Sep 14, 2006

knox_harrington posted:


I'm touring through next week with a guide and one woman who is cool and a few other people who I don't know. Unfortunately one of the guys seems to be a bit of a cock, he's got my number and will. not. stop. messaging me trying to get me to do stuff. He's just announced that he's going to call me to discuss... something tonight. Classic British guy who wants to be in charge of everything. I'm trying to stay positive but can feel a low threshold for telling him to stfu coming on.

He's just stoked he's met someone with a similar interest he can do stuff with.

spwrozek
Sep 4, 2006

Sail when it's windy

Went to Copper for the first time in 10 years of living in Colorado. Pretty sweet terrain. Spring skiing is still awesome at the resort.

spwrozek
Sep 4, 2006

Sail when it's windy

A dude skied butt rear end neked down montezuma bowl today at A-Basin. Obviously NSFW

https://www.reddit.com/r/skiing/comments/mjb8uo/lost_my_ikon_pass_for_the_rest_of_the_season_for/

knox_harrington
Feb 18, 2011

Running no point.

stratdax posted:

He's just stoked he's met someone with a similar interest he can do stuff with.

These are not "let's go skiing" messages, they're 'look up these train times for me". It's loving weird, I've never met him.

Scarf
Jun 24, 2005

On sight
Hit up breck yesterday with the new surf stick.

It rides exactly how I imagine my ideal board to ride in my head... I've been chasing a board that feels like im back on the water surfing and this thing nails it. Even on the groomers... can't wait to get it in some powder.

Yuns
Aug 19, 2000

There is an idea of a Yuns, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there.

knox_harrington posted:

These are not "let's go skiing" messages, they're 'look up these train times for me". It's loving weird, I've never met him.
I would reduce contact a much as possible. He doesn't sound right.

in a well actually
Jan 26, 2011

dude, you gotta end it on the rhyme

Yuns posted:

I would reduce contact a much as possible. He doesn't sound right.

Well, they already said he’s British...

IncredibleIgloo
Feb 17, 2011





This is an oddly specific Park City Mountain Resort question; does anyone know when the Town Lift usually opens? I went early December in 2019 and it was not open, and now I am planning a trip for December 12-19, and while I am pretty sure it won't be open, I would be interested in what locals have to say. The reason I am asking is because it might impact where I want to stay, as it would be better to stay closer to town lift for the non skiers in my group.

wilfredmerriweathr
Jul 11, 2005
I don't ever ski pcmr, but this season was horrible until mid Jan, so I'd say it probably opened much later than usual this season.

Someone else probably has more concrete info, but yeah pcmr was barely 50% open until late Jan.

IncredibleIgloo
Feb 17, 2011





wilfredmerriweathr posted:

I don't ever ski pcmr, but this season was horrible until mid Jan, so I'd say it probably opened much later than usual this season.

Someone else probably has more concrete info, but yeah pcmr was barely 50% open until late Jan.

Good to know. Here is another PCMR question; what happens when parking fills up? I looked at the lots and they look relatively small for the amount of skiers. Is there some further off site parking? This is not needed for my trip, but I need to think about for moving to area, if I end up going down that route.

Kalman
Jan 17, 2010

IncredibleIgloo posted:

Good to know. Here is another PCMR question; what happens when parking fills up? I looked at the lots and they look relatively small for the amount of skiers. Is there some further off site parking? This is not needed for my trip, but I need to think about for moving to area, if I end up going down that route.

Offsite lots and shuttles. (Eg https://twitter.com/pcmtnalert/status/1375823240472444932?s=21)

IncredibleIgloo
Feb 17, 2011






Ok, that is not too bad at all. At my local mountain if all the lots are full it is kind of like "Sucks to be you, nowhere to park, I guess you have to go home", which can really blow.

Kalman
Jan 17, 2010

I mean you have to remember that Park City also hosts Sundance which has a pretty significant attendance, and it’s adjacent to an actual town, so there’s more than just the resort base - there’s paid lots in town, etc etc.

IncredibleIgloo
Feb 17, 2011





Kalman posted:

I mean you have to remember that Park City also hosts Sundance which has a pretty significant attendance, and it’s adjacent to an actual town, so there’s more than just the resort base - there’s paid lots in town, etc etc.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense! I have been there a few times, but every time I have been staying in a hotel slopeside or very close to it so it has never been an issue. What about the resorts in the canyon south that do not seem to have any built up infrastructure around them, like Alta and Snowbird? Do they have parking problems or something cooked up for when they are super busy there?

wilfredmerriweathr
Jul 11, 2005
Yes parking problems and traffic are some of the biggest issues at snowbird/alta and solitude and brighton as well. Snowbird and Alta generally fill their lots quickly on powder days, often turning people around at Alta by like 10am due to no place to park. The problem has gotten a lot worse with the ikon influx the last few years, but it was a steadily growing issue even before it.

On powder days if you're not already waiting in line at the base of the canyon hours before the avalanche closure ends, you are not getting up there. The canyon will often be closed to uphill traffic before 8am due to avalanche control, and then from 11am onwards on a big morning due to gridlock and no parking left, with police blocking the uphill lanes.

There are ongoing proposals to fix this, including a gondola up lcc or cog rail.

wilfredmerriweathr fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Apr 7, 2021

IncredibleIgloo
Feb 17, 2011





wilfredmerriweathr posted:

Yes parking problems and traffic are some of the biggest issues at snowbird/alta and solitude and brighton as well. Snowbird and Alta generally fill their lots quickly on powder days, often turning people around at Alta by like 10am due to no place to park. The problem has gotten a lot worse with the ikon influx the last few years, but it was a steadily growing issue even before it.

On powder days if you're not already waiting in line at the base of the canyon hours before the avalanche closure ends, you are not getting up there. The canyon will often be closed to uphill traffic before 8am due to avalanche control, and then from 11am onwards on a big morning due to gridlock and no parking left, with police blocking the uphill lanes.

There are ongoing proposals to fix this, including a gondola up lcc or cog rail.

That would have to be one heck of a gondola? Or would they just put more parking in somewhere close and have that be the base for the gondola? Rail sounds like it would be a fun way to get to skiing.

wilfredmerriweathr
Jul 11, 2005
I am all in on the train idea - in fact, Stadler Rail (who make the swiss cog trains for the alps) actually purposely built their US factory and HQ near my work, I presume under the assumption that they would eventually build this line up the canyons. Train would be ideal because then you could catch a light rail train anywhere in the valley and take it up LCC.

The gondola, while not as good an idea as rail, would still help things a bit, but it would shift the traffic problems from "getting up the canyon" to "getting to the base of the canyon."

There are actually two gondola proposals, both pretty similar, but this is the more supported one and involves a base station at the suburban french restaurant La Caille. I believe it would be one of the world's longest gondolas, if not THE longest, at around ten miles (would likely be three gondola spans with transfer stations, you stay in the same cabin but get transferred to new spans.)

You can read all about it here

https://gondolaworks.com/

and you can read about all the options together here

https://littlecottonwoodeis.udot.utah.gov/draft-alternatives/

The fact that we don't have any snow sheds in the most avalanche prone highway stretch on the continent is seriously mind boggling in its shortsightedness.

wilfredmerriweathr fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Apr 7, 2021

spwrozek
Sep 4, 2006

Sail when it's windy

The longest gondola now is 5.5 miles I believe so yeah....very long.

The avalanche hour podcast had a U-DOT guy on it this or last year and they talked all about LCC And the issue with control.

IncredibleIgloo
Feb 17, 2011





Wow, that would be one hell of a gondola ride! Looking at Google maps satellite view of the La Caille area base station I can see that you are right, that this is just shifting a problem, because there doesn't seem to be any parking there.

This is a silly question, but what about Alta/Snowbird employees? How do they get to work if the roads are closed until avalanche mitigation? Or do they have to get there super early, like 5 or something?

Ola
Jul 19, 2004

This Jerry Of The Day is like that donkey tied to a lightweight plastic garden chair that is trapped mostly by its own mindset.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CNVVBXJDK1b/

wilfredmerriweathr
Jul 11, 2005

IncredibleIgloo posted:

Wow, that would be one hell of a gondola ride! Looking at Google maps satellite view of the La Caille area base station I can see that you are right, that this is just shifting a problem, because there doesn't seem to be any parking there.

This is a silly question, but what about Alta/Snowbird employees? How do they get to work if the roads are closed until avalanche mitigation? Or do they have to get there super early, like 5 or something?

They maintain a skeleton crew overnight at both areas, usually a few patrollers and some engineering/ops guys plus public safety. The patrols at these ski areas perform some of the avalanche control in the canyon in cooperation with udot.

The other employees take UTA vanpools (15 passenger vans driven by and filled with resort employees) and they get preferential treatment to the front of the lineup and then are usually allowed to proceed up as soon as is safe, oftentimes in between avalanche control work cycles (shots/gazex blasts/helicopter charges).

But on big days sometimes the employees are stuck until the actual official public openings, so things are usually pretty delayed at the resorts in those cases.

Uncle Lloyd
Sep 2, 2019

IncredibleIgloo posted:


This is a silly question, but what about Alta/Snowbird employees? How do they get to work if the roads are closed until avalanche mitigation? Or do they have to get there super early, like 5 or something?

Idk about Alta/Bird, but when I worked at Vail lift maintenance was usually on the slopes between 4-5, shortly followed by patrol, and all the lifties by 6-7. So everyone needed to open the mountain was probably on the property by 5-6.

wilfredmerriweathr
Jul 11, 2005
In years past the avy closures happened from 6:30-8am, and I used to simply drive up before the closure and sleep or chill in one of the lodges until work was complete. Sometimes work wouldn't be done til 10am, so often this resulted in country club mornings where the ski areas would open hours before the road was open. Back in those days the employees would all come up early.

Last season they went to 5am closures for avy work, to prevent people from doing this.

Then with covid because there is limited indoor space at the resorts they started doing avy closures at midnight. Not sure if that will continue.


Saw this today: https://bigskyresort.com/season-pass-letter

Kinda a bummer, though with how long the tram lines are I don't blame them. There should probably be a chairlift way to get up part of lone peak, that tram isn't big enough. I know there are concerns with how many people they could evac off the peak (I have friends in patrol there) but still, give me a fixed grip up one of the other sides.

wilfredmerriweathr fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Apr 7, 2021

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Eejit
Mar 6, 2007

Swiss Army Cockatoo
Cacatua multitoolii

wilfredmerriweathr posted:

Saw this today: https://bigskyresort.com/season-pass-letter

Kinda a bummer, though with how long the tram lines are I don't blame them. There should probably be a chairlift way to get up part of lone peak, that tram isn't big enough. I know there are concerns with how many people they could evac off the peak (I have friends in patrol there) but still, give me a fixed grip up one of the other sides.

We were there last week for two days as part of a longer ski roadtrip that also involved touring around JH. We waited about 30 minutes to load on Friday, got up and found out you had to reserve a time to ski Big Couloir, so we went a took a fun techy line down one of the Gullies instead. We debated trying on Saturday, but honestly we didn't want to waste 30 minutes or more in line again to go up for a time and then do it all over when our time for Big Couloir came up.

Instead we lapped the pucker-inducing chutes off Headwaters and enjoyed top quality slush in the Bowl while laughing as the maze for the Tram just got longer and longer as the day went on.

e: I agree that a fixed grip (or 2000 vert ft poma lol) going up from Shedhorn would solve a lot of their problems. And it's definitely a bummer because the terrain up there is huge and really cool to ski. If we could have more easily accessed it, we would have spent way more time up here.

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