Hi Kirby, <BR> <BR>Interesting thread, surely one that will spark some fun discussion. <BR> <BR>The things to keep in mind with trail rating are: <BR>1) It's set by each individual resort, often on a very subjective basis <BR>2) It's defined to relate only to other terrain at the same resort. <BR> <BR>Let's take Utah for example. An intermediate run at Alta or Snowbird, two particularly challenging hills, might well be a black diamond at Park City. Pretty tough to take snow quality into effect, as that's a constantly changing element. Most definitely, factors such as trail width, double fall lines, etc., should be taken into account. <BR> <BR>If you're going to compare it to Virginia, I think that you'll find things pumped up a notch in Utah compared to home. However, that's not necessarily an east-west thing. I'm reasonably confident that you'd find some blue squares at Vermont's Mad River Glen, for example, to be significantly more challenging than, say, your average advanced trail at Deer Valley. <BR> <BR>Any other comments from the peanut gallery?