2014-15 Season Recap, Version 2.0

Tony Crocker

Administrator
Staff member
For those with a sense of deja vu, here's why: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=11843

Area Sum of Days Sum of Vertical Sum of Powder
Mammoth 4 96.5 2
Snow Summit 1.5 33.8 0
Bear Mt. 0.5 10.7 0
Aspen Highlands 1 11.6 0
Aspen Mt. (Ajax) 1 17.4 0
Snowbird 6 117.2 0
Alta 2 40.2 0
Beaver Creek 2.5 44.9 0
Vail 3.5 94.1 10
Copper Mt. 1 23.8 2
Jackson Hole 4 94.1 0
Brian Head 1 11.9 0
Arapahoe Basin 3 50.3 10
Winter Park 2 37.1 4
Solitude 1 19.3 0
Blackcomb 3 81.6 6
Whistler 2 39.4 1
Grand Targhee 1 24.5 0
Big White 1 15.5 0
Lake Louise 1 24.2 0
Sunshine Village 1 21.5 0
Kicking Horse 1 22.4 0
Panorama 1 21.9 0
Las Lenas, Argentina 12 161.0 5
Mustang Powder Snowcat 3 50.6 26
Loveland 1 16 1
*Lost Trail 1 18.7 6
*Discovery 1 20.9 0
*Hlidarfjall, Iceland 1 9.2 0
*Arctic Heliskiing, Iceland 3 44.3 27
Totals 67 1274.6 100

* = New area, total now 195 areas

Arctic Heli was clearly the highlight of the season. Vail and Jackson in January had the best lift-served skiing. I was fairly successful in avoiding the worst of the snow conditions, with only 6 cherry-picked days in California and only a handful of times being confined to the groomers. Opening day was a close to average Dec. 18 at Big Bear, but again northern hemisphere closing day was a very early May 9, as I chose to leave California and finish the season in better snow elsewhere, this time Colorado. 15 ski days in Colorado was a record high.

There was no getting around the lack of powder in 2014-15. 4.0% powder for lift served skiing is the second lowest since I bought fat skis in 1996 and less than half of 10.6% average. The 12 days in Las Lenas boosted 2014-15 up to my second highest season in vertical and 3rd highest in day count. It was also only the second time I've exceeded admin's day count.

Of note to Patrick: By skiing April 24 and 27 in Colorado I have finally skied all dates in April to go along with January-March. I still have 3 unskied dates in May and 4 in December.

I had not created these charts since I retired, so here are those seasons, plus the last season before retirement:
vert15.jpg

pwdr15.jpg

vertpwdr15.jpg

The powder deficit is where 2014-15 stands out on those charts. Next year rates to be the lowest day count since before retirement (due to missing 2/3 of March, historically my highest ski month), likely less than 50 days unless we have a good year here in California.
 
23 Days
1 Windham, NY
1 Hunter, NY
1 Plattekill, NY
1 Belleayre/Highmount, NY
1 Mount Peter, NY
3 Campgaw, NJ
2 Camelback, PA
2 Loveland, CO
1 Diedamskopf, AT
1 Warth-Schröcken, AT
1 Damüls, AT
2 Brandnertal, AT
1 Montafon Silvretta, AT
1 Gargellen AT/Madrisa CH
1 Golm, AT
2 Stowe, VT
1 Bolton Valley, VT

A decent, but hardly superlative season for me with the obvious highlight being an eight-day roadtrip through the Vorarlberg region on Austria's western border. Given my excellent record across the pond, I'm shooting for two destination visits to the Alps in 2016.

I only got in eight ski days back east, but managed to enjoy the past winter's excellent snow preservation. I also went against conventional northeastern-skiing wisdom -- taking advantage of a booked-well-in-advance $129 flight to Burlington in mid-March for a three-day weekend headquartered at Stowe, which caused all sorts of long-distance hand wringing here on FTO.
 
jamesdeluxe":2wjn94ya said:
taking advantage of a booked-well-in-advance $129 flight to Burlington
Flying to Vermont??? I don't remember that part. That's really taking a leap of faith.
jamesdeluxe":2wjn94ya said:
I'm shooting for two destination visits to the Alps in 2016.
Assuming one in the usual late January time slot, when would the second one be?
 
I didn't ski as many days as I would have liked, but over all I have no complaints..
I have to est some of the days since I don't keep track of my day trips
Hunter 5
Bell 1
Plattekill 3 or 4

Zermatt 5
Sierra Nevada (Spain) 1
 
jamesdeluxe":1ix0ijq9 said:
I'm shooting for two destination visits to the Alps in 2016.
Tony Crocker":1ix0ijq9 said:
Assuming one in the usual late January time slot, when would the second one be?
To be discussed in the 2015-16 season plans thread. I'm giving Tony time to stockpile bricks to throw at my prospective destinations. :lol:
 
I spent a lot of time on the greens this year with a handful of days on the steeps. That should pay dividends in both ski days and terrain for me moving forward though.

23 Days:
15 Eldora (only one on the steeps)
3 Jackson Hole
2 Beaver Creek
2 Loveland
1 Grand Targhee

4 Dec
4 Jan
5 Feb
6 March
4 April

Jr had 14 days on snow and my wife had 11 despite missing ~6 weeks from minor knee surgery.
 
29 days:

2 MRG
2 Sugarbush
2 Revelstoke
3 Mustang Powder
1 Big White
3 Sunshine Village
2 Lake Louise
14 local mole hills

How's that for diversity?

My daughter, who turned 9 in January, and had never previously skied west of Minnesota, skied 24 days this winter. By the end of our spring-break trip to Banff, she was leading the way and looking fairly aggressive in shallow untracked on some of the single-black-diamond terrain of Lake Louise's backside and around much of Sunshine. It has been nice to see the time spent on the greens and at the molehills over the years paying off.
LL 4.15.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
flyover":12ccap0n said:
My daughter, who turned 9 in January, and had never previously skied west of Minnesota, skied 24 days this winter.
24 days (and 422K vertical) is what my son Adam skied in his breakout season at age 7. It helped that 1991-92 actually had snow in SoCal (Baldy had as much as Snowbird that year), so he had 9 days at the SoCal locals. My own 11 local days in 1991-92 were tied for second highest lifetime and were more than I've skied during the 5 seasons combined since I retired.
 
flyover":3dp4ihnd said:
My daughter, who turned 9 in January, and had never previously skied west of Minnesota, skied 24 days this winter. By the end of our spring-break trip to Banff, she was leading the way and looking fairly aggressive in shallow untracked on some of the single-black-diamond terrain of Lake Louise's backside and around much of Sunshine. It has been nice to see the time spent on the greens and at the molehills over the years paying off.

:applause:
 
Admin":3b7kh8go said:
:applause:

Thanks, Admin.

As excited as I am about her progress and the terrain it allows me to ski with her now, I'm even happier that over her six seasons, I can honestly count the number of times tears have been shed over skiing on one hand.

Tony Crocker":3b7kh8go said:
24 days (and 422K vertical) is what my son Adam skied in his breakout season at age 7.

Skiing the local molehills for for 15 days this season and MRG for 2, there's no way she came anywhere close to that kind of vertical. A big part of her breakthrough this year, though, was in stamina. We skied more-or-less bell-to-bell during our trips to Vermont and the Canadian Rockies.
 
While Tony Crocker keeps us in suspense about his trip to Las Lenas, I'm re-posting my season recap.

Season total 42 days. My recent high was 44 days in 2011-12. (I may have gotten 45 in 1975-76 when living near Tahoe City and Truckee, but don't have records.)
Total vertical 949K which beats previous high of 946K in 2011-12.

Days on Tahoe Value Pass 20 (10@Kirkwood, 7@Heavenly, 5@Northstar. One day was all three)
Days on Mountain Collective 10, same as previous year. Had 3@JHMR, 2@Mammoth, 2@Altabird, 1 each Lake Louise/Sunshine, 1 Squalpine - went there another day but used a free TGR movie ticket.

Days in CA=24, days in other states=11 (3 MT, 4 WY, 3 UT and 1 OR), days in Canada=7 (5 BC, 2 AB)

Season highlight was road trip to Canada that included skiing 18 days in a rows starting with my first time cat skiing (3 days), then first time skiing in Canada and Montana (4 and 3 days, respectively - every day at a different and new to me place). Trip continued with 4 days in WY, 3 in UT and finished with a day at Kirkwood. Trip started with a day at Bachelor where I skied 45K with a nasty bug I picked up the preceding weekend in Central America and after spending night in back of SUV

My best powder days of year were Dec. 13 with 9" new at Kirkwood and little competition and March 3 at Targhee with 6" new. Also skied Apr. 8 when Kirkwood claimed 18-24" but it was not as good.
 
Discovery - 21 days
Bridger - 1 day
Naya Nuki - 2 days
Mt Bachelor - 7 days

31 days on snow this year which for me is a record. From my arrival on March 12th til Discovery closing on April 5th I skied every day bar 3 days. 1 day each of the first 3 weekends off. Low snow year we made the very best of it with many a good day had. No new resorts but 2 days skinning Naya Nuki. It was my first ever attempt to skin and proved I am fat and unfit. I hiked the ridge at Bridger and skied Hidden chute.

Great times with great people. Cannot wait for 2016's trip.
 
I know my original post fell into the internet void...where are my final numbers for the season : 90 from October to September
* 2 new areas (Pico and Molltaler Glacier)

Local : (Outaouais + Ontario) 59
Rest of Quebec : 8
New York & New England : 19
Europe : 4

Quebec Outaouais (Local): 53 (Edelweiss 47, Fortune 3, Ste-Marie, Vorlage, Cascades
Ontario (Local): 6 (Calabogie Peaks)
Quebec (Laurentians & Townships) : 8 (St-Sauveur 5, Avila, Orford, Owl's Head)

Vermont : 11 (Jay 4, MRG 3, Smuggs, Bolton, Sugarbush, Pico*)
New York : 4 (WFToll Road, Whiteface, Titus, Gore)
New Hampshire : 2 (Cannon, MtWashington)
Maine : 2 (Sunday River, Sugarloaf)
Europe : 4 (Zermatt, Saas Fee (Switzerland) & Molltaler*, Hintertux (Austria))
 
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