Lost Trail Powder Mountain, MT 1/8/06

A link to more pictures and video is available at the bottom of the report.

On Sunday we had a rather grandiose scheme to let Mom get some Chair 4 ski time with Ty, and allow the whole family to ski together. We decided to station ourselves at the new Lost Trail yurt, taking advantage of its location near the base of Chair 4. As I'd found out on Saturday, this was really the best solution for taking multiple runs off Chair 4 with Ty, since it can take quite a while just getting over to Chair 4 with him, depending on his mood and the speed of the snow. The most challenging part of setting up camp at the yurt was getting everything (Food, kid supplies, Ty, Dylan, etc.) over there. In the end, E had a full backpack, and Ty on the leash, and I had a very full backpack on my back, and Dylan in a carrier on the front. We got a lot of looks, questions, and compliments as we got set up at the main base and prepared to load Chair 1.

Although I was carrying a rather heavy load between Dylan and my backpack, we skied easy green trails all the way down from the main summit to the yurt, so it turned out to be a piece of cake. We took the North Bowl/Speedway/Candy Stick/Easy Street/Candy Stick route that I had discovered on Saturday. It had been great on Saturday, but there had been some new snow overnight and now it was really slow. Ty insisted on walking in many areas instead of being pulled by the leash, and this slowed us down even more. Since Ty had wowed me on Saturday by insisting that he could ski the Bunny Hill all alone, and then doing it, we let him ski a couple of the flatter sections alone on the route over to Chair 4. He did well, but it was obvious that we still had to use the leash for the steeper pitches. All told, I think it took over an hour to get to the bottom of Chair 4, and by the time we parked the skis and walked over to the yurt, it was late enough to have lunch. Ty walked over to the food service area in the yurt and grabbed one of the monster cinnamon buns. Fortunately, I had remembered to pack the remaining 90% of the cinnamon bun that he still had left from the previous day, so he was happy with that.

While the rest of the family finished lunch, I took a quick run on Chair 4 by myself. I rode the chair with a woman from somewhere in the area, and in conversation in came up that we were from Vermont. She commented on how the conditions here must be quite different than what we skied in Vermont. She was amazed when I informed her that we were from northern Vermont, and that actually, the conditions weren,t much different in terms of powder skiing than what we had here at Lost Trail. I explained that there was a higher chance of above-freezing conditions compare to Lost Trail (which typically gets above freezing at 7,000' maybe once or twice at most during the heart of the season) but that for the most part I skied as much quality powder when I lived in northern Vermont as I did here at Lost Trail. She was especially blown away to learn that Jay Peak had a higher annual snowfall than Lost Trail. We also talked about outdoor activities with kids, and it was interesting to learn that she used to mountain bike with one of her kids in a front pack. Skiing green runs with Dylan in the front pack seems pretty tame by comparison.

For my run, I jumped into The Slot, and then cut left into the trees to do a little reconnaissance for Ty. The Slot had few tracks, and I got some sweet powder turns on the steep terrain before cutting left into the sparse trees. I was hoping the powder in the trees hadn't changed too much or become too deep, since Ty had done so well on Saturday's surface. There was a lot of nice untracked snow in the steep trees, which I liked, and it seemed like Ty would still be able to handle it. I then hit assorted groomed options around the lift line for a little high speed cruising, and returned to the yurt.

We geared up for skiing with the boys, our overall loads much lighter now that E and I were able to drop our backpacks and leave them in the yurt. Now, I wore Dylan in the front pack and carried the still and video cameras in one of our usual Mountainsmith lumbar packs, which added minimal weight and bulk compared to the big pack. E carried no extra baggage, so she could easily deal with loading and sitting with Ty on the chairlift. One of the day's goals was to get E comfortable with loading Ty on the lifts, so that in the future, she would be able to take him out for runs while I watched Dylan. By this point, she already had the loading and unloading techniques down pretty well, and by the end of the day she was looking really smooth and comfortable.

We did three runs in the Chair 4 trees, followed by options on the groomed trails below. Ty had a really good time in the trees, and as he'd done frequently on Saturday, he would sometimes smack the branches of the trees as he passed them. At times this may have been to push them out of the way, but mostly he still just enjoyed the novelty of it. On one of the runs I shot a little video in the trees, which was recorded in the trees between the Chair 4 lift line and Two Dot, just below the mid-station. I'd brought one of our video cameras, but the color balance was acting up so I ended up shooting a little video with our still camera. I quickly pasted together a couple of the raw clips with QuickTime and you can download the video from the web page link at the bottom of the report. Ty tended to want to head right down into the trees when we got off the lift, so the first couple of runs were in trees near the lift line. But on the third run, we were able to traverse over near Sacajewea and Lewis and Clark and try some different tree lines. On that run I shot a bunch of stills, and some of those are on the web page as well. As for the groomed skiing, I introduced E to what Ty had been doing with me when we had skied the lift line the previous day - he had enjoyed jumping off the little areas around the lift towers where the snow had been groomed to slightly different levels. It gave him something to focus on during the run, and as he says, he likes to "jump". By the third Chair 4 run, he was trying to do this off of every little powdery mound we found on Lewis and Clark, and E said that it was his primary focus. Most of the mounds were so soft that he didn't really get much in the way of a jump, but at least it made him turn a bit more since he was motivated to get to the various mounds of snow.

By the third run, Ty was getting pretty tired, so we got our packs from the yurt, loaded back up, and headed up Chair 3. I was feeling like I'd hardly done a thing during the day, since skiing around with Dylan in the front pack and taking photos and video was far easier than managing Ty's skiing for several runs. Dylan slept much of the time, and when he was awake, he was preoccupied with watching all the trees go by in this interesting new environment. I was really thankful that E took over for the day with Ty, as he'd worn me out pretty nicely the previous day and it was good to have a break.

Instead of returning to the base via Chair 5 and the rope tow, we just walked over to the parking lot from Chair 3. For the first time ever, Ty actually fell asleep on the chairlift! So, it seemed like getting him to the car as soon as possible was the way to go. E hung out with the boys, and I went and grabbed the car. During this time, Ty had a bit of resurgence in his energy (possibly due to his brief "nap"), and he felt he needed to play in the snow. He walked around with his skis in the powder near the parking lot, but unfortunately he would sometimes fall down and ask for assistance to get back up. Well, the soft snow was waist deep in this area, so helping him meant post-holing, and snow up the pants and down the boots for Mom and Dad (who were now out of their ski boots). On of the trips to help Ty, E wisely crawled out instead of post-holing, and I got a couple of pictures. I think Ty found the whole process amusing, and he didn't seem all that anxious to get rescued when he fell. He seemed to enjoy lying in the snow in his semi-tired state.

So, although it took a lot of planning and load carrying to spend the day with both boys over at Chair 4 and the yurt, it was worth getting to spend the time with the whole family.

Additional pictures and video from the day are available at:

http://www.JandEproductions.com/2006/08JAN06.html

J.Spin

The top 20% of conditions between Jay and Lost Trail might be comparable. It's the bottom 50% where there's a big difference. I also suspect competition for first tracks is a little tougher at Jay :wink: .

I was meaning to make this comparison in one of the East vs. West discussions. Lost Trail is an area 90% of North American skiers have never heard of. Yet it has probably comparable acreage and quality of terrain, and obviously better snow conditions 75+% of the time, than the consensus top areas of the Northern Vermont snowbelt.

Tony Crocker":13klnh6m said:

The top 20% of conditions between Jay and Lost Trail might be comparable. It's the bottom 50% where there's a big difference. I also suspect competition for first tracks is a little tougher at Jay :wink: .

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Yeah, I think this brings up a good point about the presumed big difference in conditions. Most people would think it silly to go out and ski the bottom 50% of days. Unless you have to go to race training, work on the slopes, or are committed to certain dates, these are the days to do something else. Like most places, the locals are out skiing the top 20% of days and finding conditions comparable to anywhere. If you try to lock in certain dates, the odds would say that you are just not going to catch the best days, and this is an even bigger problem in the northeast where thaws and freezes can be more prevalent. It's the same anywhere you try to lock in dates. When living in Vermont, I've taken trips to Utah resorts and wound up skiing a week of hard pack, wishing I had the powder conditions I'd just skied back in Vermont. But that's just the way it goes. Short of going backcountry/heli/cat, you're just not that likely to randomly get better conditions on a scheduled trip than you get if you're a local near resorts with good snowfall, and you go on the good days. In terms of competition for first tracks, Lost Trail definitely has less competition than Jay Peak. Jay Peak's great snowfall has put them on the map for a lot of people, and the fact that they have cut so many glades means that the trees get tracked out much faster than many other Vermont areas. Competition for first tracks at Lost Trail is probably more like Burke or maybe Sugarbush, which have a lot less traffic relative to their terrain. I might give Sugarbush the overall edge because although they have more skiers, they have several times the acreage of Lost Trail and the Slide Brook bus service area never gets tracked out.

Tony Crocker":13klnh6m said:

I was meaning to make this comparison in one of the East vs. West discussions. Lost Trail is an area 90% of North American skiers have never heard of. Yet it has probably comparable acreage and quality of terrain, and obviously better snow conditions 75+% of the time, than the consensus top areas of the Northern Vermont snowbelt.

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With 1,800 feet of vertical and around 800 acres of terrain (which I believe is the acreage of Lost Trail with the Chair 4 expansion), I would put Lost Trail in the small/medium range for the typical northern Vermont resorts. Actually, we were talking to a friend from the northeast on the phone the other day, and she asked what our local Montana ski area (Lost Trail) was like. Off the top of our heads, we gave her Bolton Valley for reference in terms of size and feel. Now that I've looked up the Lost Trail stats, it seems that our guess was about right. Bolton Valley is a small/medium Vermont resort with about 1,700 feet of vertical, which feels about the same as Lost Trail in terms of skiable area. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the total skiable acreage for Bolton Valley yet, the only reference I've found so far is from Jim Bauman's First Tracks article where he cites the 5,200 acres that Bolton owns, but that includes some of the backcountry. In terms of size perspective for some of the other VT resorts, small would be something like Cochran's or Suicide Six (under 1,000 feet of vertical and small acreage), and small/medium would be something like Bolton Valley described above. I would probably put Smuggler's Notch in the "medium" size category, with somewhere above 1,000 acres. Although the acreage may not be too much bigger than Lost Trail's or Bolton Valley's, the 2,600 feet of vertical and the village area sort of bump it to the medium category for me. For medium/large I would probably pick something like Stowe, with around 2,400 feet of vertical and (I have to go by feel here again because I haven't found the stats) maybe 1,500-2,000 acres of in-bounds terrain. Large resorts would be something like Sugarbush with around 2,600 verts and 4,300 acres (with the Slide Brook bus service area), or Killington with roughly 3,100 verts (and probably similar acreage to Sugarbush although this is another case where I haven't located the exact numbers). In terms of terrain, Lost Trail doesn't feel as steep overall as places like Stowe or Smuggler's Notch, but they do have some nice steep pitches with the areas above Femur Ridge and Hollywood Bowl/Darwin Chutes. Also, the open feel of the treeline terrain at the top of Lost Trail's Chair 4 is something that you can't really get at Stowe unless you hike above the lifts. Overall though, Lost Trail is a real gem and we've been fortunate to have it so close. It's nowhere near as big as some of our favorites in Vermont (Sugarbush being where we spent many of our days), but the type of terrain and snowfall are comparable, the on piste conditions are generally better at Lost Trail, and it has a very relaxed vibe. If Lost Trail was close to any large cities, they would really have to get serious about upgrading parking and lifts because they would probably be overwhelmed. But fortunately for those of us in the area, the local and regional populations are still relatively small.

From their own websites:
Jay claims 385 acres plus "100 acres of off-piste."
Stowe claims 485 acres.
Killington claims 1209 acres.
Mad River Glen claims 115 acres of trails but 800 acres within boundaries.

Mt. Baldy here in SoCal claims 800 acres within boundaries, similar definition to MRG. I said after my 2003 trip that Baldy and MRG were comparable, and it's probably safe to put Lost Trail in the same class of size.

Then you come to the question of how much of that 800 acres within boundaries is skiable. When J.Spin notes "the open feel of the treeline terrain at the top of Lost Trail?s Chair 4 is something that you can?t really get at Stowe unless you hike above the lifts" he touches on the fact that at Lost Trail and Baldy the answer to that question is "virtually all of it, assuming adequate snow cover." The confined nature of the eastern tree slots (many of which have to be pruned in summer to remain skiable) means that even at the best eastern places it would be generous to say even half of the off-trail is skiable. Do we think Jay's marketing people want to understate its off-piste/glade acreage?

So I say that Stowe and Jay are incrementally bigger than MRG, no more than 1 1/2 times as much skiable acreage. And that Baldy/Lost Trail's usable terrain is in the ballpark with Stowe and Jay due to the tree spacing issue.

"Like most places, the locals are out skiing the top 20% of days and finding conditions comparable to anywhere. If you try to lock in certain dates, the odds would say that you are just not going to catch the best days" is a point I agree with 100%. And also "you?re just not that likely to randomly get better conditions on a scheduled trip than you get if you?re a local near resorts with good snowfall, and you go on the good days." That's why I tell some of you powderhounds to consider Seattle as a place to live. Larry Schick says they average about 25 powder days per season, and in 1998-99 it was 75.

But when you schedule a trip to Mammoth or Alta/Bird, you're getting 8-10 x as much usable ski terrain, and you're not going to complain about conditions unless you get the bottom 10% or so. This is an underlying reason why I had such a difficult time convincing many of you that Mammoth was such an asset to living in L.A. The eastern mindset is: "I'm not going to shell out for lodging in advance when there's a 1/3 chance conditions will suck so badly that it will be money down the drain. I'm only going to value those areas that I can reach on a day trip where I can decide at the last minute."

Tony Crocker":1pxlukby said:

From their own websites:
Jay claims 385 acres plus "100 acres of off-piste."
Stowe claims 485 acres.
Killington claims 1209 acres.
Mad River Glen claims 115 acres of trails but 800 acres within boundaries.

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Unfortunately, except for the case of Mad River Glen (which gave its total acreage) these areas are reporting numbers that are way off the mark in terms of their actual amount of ski terrain. It would seem that if a ski area restricted access to only trails that have been cut (i.e. going off cut trails is not allowed), it might be correct to report only the cut trails as ski area acreage. But, all the ski areas in the above list allow (or at least don't stop) boundary to boundary skiing, and should be reporting their acreage as such to their visitors. For some reason (taxation, insurance costs, tradition - I'm not sure) many Vermont resorts have been slow to make this adjustment. Some areas, like Mad River Glen (reporting their 800 acres) Smuggler's Notch (reporting their 1,000+ acres) and Sugarbush (reporting their 4,000+ acres) are finally starting to see the light and report the correct numbers like other parts of the country, but most areas seem unwilling to change. Even areas that do report their total acreage still seem to be reporting only cut trails as their "skiable" acreage. To think of Jay Peak as having only 385 or 485 acres of skiable terrain is sort of laughable when virtually all of the terrain within its boundaries can be skied by advanced skiers. One argument might be that the terrain that can only be skied by advanced skiers shouldn't be counted, but then what is a place like Jackson Hole supposed to do with its advanced terrain which constitutes about half of its reported acreage? Many areas have in bounds cliffs or other hazards that most people aren't likely to ski on or even get near, but I'm not sure if these areas get counted out of the acreage.

Tony Crocker":1pxlukby said:

Then you come to the question of how much of that 800 acres within boundaries is skiable. When J.Spin notes "the open feel of the treeline terrain at the top of Lost Trail's Chair 4 is something that you can't really get at Stowe unless you hike above the lifts" he touches on the fact that at Lost Trail and Baldy the answer to that question is "virtually all of it, assuming adequate snow cover." The confined nature of the eastern tree slots (many of which have to be pruned in summer to remain skiable) means that even at the best eastern places it would be generous to say even half of the off-trail is skiable.

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As I look down at my response I realize that it is rather long, but this has been a really stimulating topic that I hadn't thought about fully in the past, so a lot of new points hit me...

Trying to gauge the amount of off-trail terrain that is skiable in a region is almost impossible, since it can vary greatly from resort to resort depending on when they were last logged, what the local environment is like, and above all, what one person considers "not skiable" may be considered "skiable" by someone else. Most of the terrain between trails at places like Jay Peak, Mad River Glen, Stowe, Sugarbush, etc., especially the low and middle elevation hardwood areas, can be skied by the typical advanced skier without any cutting. Once you have adequate snow cover as mentioned above (the unofficial northern Vermont gauge established by SkiVT-L seems to be when the snow depth at the stake on Mt. Mansfield hits 40 inches) the majority of small brushy saplings and blowdowns are covered, and a lot of lines open up. Pruning definitely helps to establish some new lines, and make others flow better, but it's not a necessity most of the time for something to actually be skiable. But, the difficult question is, what establishes whether an acre is skiable? Does one skiable line through an acre mean it is skiable, or does it need to have 10 skiable lines through it? The terrain at the northern Vermont resorts that I've found to be the "least skiable" is definitely the tight evergreen region that exists at some of the higher elevations. In these areas, some sort of thinning is generally required to make them "reasonably skiable", but this type of terrain is typically just a small amount of a resort's in bounds area. But even with the above comments aside about what amount of terrain is skiable in Vermont, many other ski areas in the country are in exactly the same boat in terms of vegetation. Aside from the special sparse trees near the top of Chair 4, and a couple south facing areas like Moose Creek and the Darwin Chutes, much of the treed areas at Lost Trail are of similar density to the typical woods at a northern Vermont area. In fact, most of the trees on the bottom 2/3 of the Chair 4 area (which constitutes a substantial amount of Lost Trail's terrain) are far too dense to be considered skiable by most people. Whether the old growth was brought down though clear cutting or fire I'm not sure, but the new growth is extremely dense. We're talking typical tree spacing of 0.5 to 2 feet, and at times you'd have to wonder if you could even get a ski through the spaces, let alone your body. At other areas that I've skied, like Alpental or Discovery, a lot of the trees between the trails are typical of what one might find in northern Vermont in terms of spacing, yet that terrain seems to be factored into their acreage. I've found areas of dense trees of one kind or another at nearly every resort I've been to in the U.S. and Canada, including large areas in the lower elevations of places like Whistler/Blackcomb and Fernie, but one doesn't get the impression that these areas have been removed from the reported acreage. Something is definitely askew when a small area like Lost Trail would even appear to be on the same scale as some of the larger Vermont resorts, some of which are among the largest in the country in terms of terrain area. The bottom line is that any attempts at designating "skiable" terrain are arbitrary, and probably wrong, and the most objective way to report terrain is to simply state how many acres are within an area's boundaries. Having thought about this topic now, the concept of reporting only cut trails as total acreage in any area that has boundary to boundary skiing seems absolutely archaic. Let's hope that resorts will eventually leave the idea in the past like they did with the concept that you could only ski on marked runs.

Tony Crocker":1pxlukby said:

Do we think Jay's marketing people want to understate its off-piste/glade acreage?

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For some strange reason (possibly one of the reasons I stated above) they do. One has to the think they are aware that the entire mountain is inherently skiable, especially since Jay Peak was one of the pioneers in boundary to boundary skiing in the east. I'll have to do a little research to try and get some answers. Hopefully some of the experts on SkiVT-L can help us get to the bottom of this.

J.Spin

But, the difficult question is, what establishes whether an acre is skiable?

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which is the question that makes acreage measurements in new england worthless as a stat to measure a mountain by, because people will never be able to agree on what constitutes a skiable acre.

you could measure total boundary acres and that works very well for places like jay peak and mad river glen which are natural terrain parks and have LOTS of assisted lines opened up by trail work. but that wouldn't work with the dense northern new hampshire woods in which naturally occuring lines are few and far between within boundaries, even for the excelling figure 11 tree skier. so boundary to boundary acre measurements compares apples to oranges in new england and do not measure acurately areas that are huge area wise but lack 'skiable terrain' due to dense woods that don't open up even during the deepest of snow storms.

you could just measure skiable acres by the number of acres of official trails. this stat however also compares apples to oranges when you look at a place like mad river glen versus an area of similar size but wider trails, take cannon for an example. cannon trumps mad river in the amount of acres that are skiable on open trails compared to mad river, but i would argue there is much more terrain 'options' at mad river.

i think an essential element of statistic usage should be comparing items of the same measurement. i don't think acreage can be easily compared in the east. whereas in the west with it's sparse trees, open bowls, and general open feel to most of the ski areas... it seems more of a consistant statistic from resort to resort. i think is why we see ski areas in the east measured against each other in terms of trail count instead of acrage. this brings into the discussion the problem and issue of renaming trails upper/middle/lower just to increase trail count which is entirely different topic all together!

This is a really interesting discussion -- thanks to Marc for pointing those of us in the eastern section over here.

My feeling though is that skiable acreage, however it could reasonably be reported, is not a measure of the amount of terrain a place has. A giant open bowl in a western ski area may constitute a lot of acreage, but is really only one piece of terrain. It's nice to have more room on a powder day, so you get more untracked runs, but other than that it doesn't really matter where in the bowl you ski, it's all more or less the same. That same acreage in typical eastern tree-and-creekbed areas (or in a rocky chute-riddled western face), however, will have a multitude of lines that may ski very differently -- and hence offer much more terrain, as I think of it.

20thSkier":3qdgce8y said:

A giant open bowl in a western ski area may constitute a lot of acreage, but is really only one piece of terrain. It's nice to have more room on a powder day, so you get more untracked runs, but other than that it doesn't really matter where in the bowl you ski, it's all more or less the same. That same acreage in typical eastern tree-and-creekbed areas (or in a rocky chute-riddled western face), however, will have a multitude of lines that may ski very differently -- and hence offer much more terrain, as I think of it.

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I used to think the same thing, but since moving here I now think differently. Something like a giant open bowl offers nearly infinitesimal changes in aspect and exposure, so really, one particular spot may be dry and fantastic, but change that aspect by a mere 5 degrees and it may be refrozen, sun-baked crud. Different lines have different pitches. Different lines may be wind-scoured, or wind-loaded. Dropping into an open bowl requires much more forethought to squeeze the maximum potential from it, much more than I'd previously realized. I'm slowly learning how to best read it, such that it's becoming more instinctive and intuitive now.

great point 20th skier, that is much the way i think about how much 'area' a ski area has in the east... how much 'terrain' is available and how many different options one can take. this certainly can not be measured in terms of acres in new england.

I think one answer, (though perhaps not "the" answer) is for Eastern ski areas to use two acreage figures. One figure would speak only to what's on the map. The other figure would be total acreage in the permit area or that is otherwise accessible. Of course the downside is that this would tend to confuse many consumers who are clueless to the whole process, but it would be more accurate.

I knew Marc would come around .... It only took a year!
I don't need to rehash the open bowl argument since Marc has already done it for me!

Marc and I discussed the eastern tree issue awhile back. Really extensive tree skiing in the East is ONLY available in northern Vermont snowbelt, above Marc's "brush line." In NH, most of Quebec, etc. it's almost a non-issue, and the trail acreage is a fairly accurate size measurement.

J.Spin's point about many western areas also having forest too dense is well taken, and his description of Lost Trail being well spaced at upper elevation near tree line and inadequately spaced lower down is quite common in the West. But the western areas that do have well spaced trees (Steamboat, Baldy, the whole Kootenay region of Red, Fernie, Big Mountain, Schweitzer etc.) are in a completely different league from Vermont.

J.Spin's point about what ski ability is needed to ski Vermont trees vs. Jackson steeps is a quite interesting one. No simple answer. Perhaps Patrick can weigh in after he's done here.

Part of it is prevailing snow conditions. Big Sky's steeps are spectacular, but some of them require such effort to reach and have such sketchy coverage (A-Z's, Headwaters farthest from the lift) that I would be hesitant to include them in a realistic measure of skiable terrain. Snowbird and Mammoth are the other way. Everything marked is fairly accessible and skiable for several months each season if you have the ability. Jackson falls somewhere in between.