2022-23 Season Recap

18 Ski Days
4 Solitude, UT
1 Belleayre, NY
1 Bardonnechia, IT
2 Serre Chevalier, FR
1 Puy Saint Vincent, FR
1 Vars, FR
½ Ceillac, FR
½ Arvieux, FR
1 St. Véran, FR
1 Les Contamines, FR
1 Megève, FR
1 Bonneval sur Arc, FR
1 Val Cenis, FR
2 Les Trois Vallées, FR

A happy return to non-pandemic travel with a few notes for posterity:

• My four days at Solitude in mid-December were a pleasant season warmup but one of very few stretches all winter when the Cottonwoods didn't receive any new snow.
• Following last year's cancellation due to well below average cover, I was happy to have a yin/yang visit in southern France of large interconnected Serre Chevalier and Vars along with little-known but worthwhile locals areas in the Queyras region.
• My second Alps trip started out inauspiciously but finished with two excellent days at the Trois Vallées, which I'd not planned to visit.
• I closed out my season with a return to the Catskills for a close to perfect spring day at Belleayre.

I'm going to try to do a detailed, illustrated post recapping my outstanding winter in Utah in a separate thread in the next few days, but here's a numerical summary similar to James' above.

64 ski days
2 Copper Mtn, CO
15 Solitude, UT
38 Snowbird, UT
1 Park City, UT
1 Alta, UT
1 Sundance, UT
4 Brighton, UT
1 Solitude-Brighton combo day
1 Snowbird-Solitude combo day

My seasons tend to be back loaded due to late season skiing available in UT, monthly breakdown:
Jan - 10 days (including 10 out of the last 13 days of the month)
Feb - 11 days (about a week off to attend funeral of loved one in San Diego)
Mar - 17 days (big month for powder)
Apr - 10 days (about a week off to attend daughter's wedding in San Diego, also got a mildly sprained shoulder which kept me out for 6 days)
May - 16 days (many partial spring ski days)

Final ski day was yesterday, 29 May 2023 (Memorial Day), at Snowbird, UT. 64 days in one season is a personal record for me. Lift served skiing on 29 May is a record late date for me as well. I'm super grateful to enjoy this wonderful sport in my retirement years. I turn age 70 later in 2023.

jimk said:

64 days in one season is a personal record for me. Lift served skiing on 29 May is a record late date for me as well. I'm super grateful to enjoy this wonderful sport in my retirement years. I turn age 70 later in 2023.

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I had 65 days in 2018-19 before I turned 64, but it took skiing July 1-3. You are going to have to try hard to ski your age. Or you could try to go 70 mph as Klaus Obermeyer did at 70. I also skied my age in 1975-77 when I lived close to and mostly skied what is now Palisades Tahoe. I'm not yet posting my recap as I'm hoping I'm not done. I am over 1M vertical this season. I'd thought about skiing Sunday at Palisades Alpine, then closing day on the Olympic Valley side yesterday, but lack of overnight freeze and earlier in day than usual thunderstorms kept me home.

My "ski your age" examples are distributed like tseeb's but I have few more of them: 30 at age 26, 41 at age 29, 35 at age 30. Not again until retirement: 72 at age 58, 71 at age 59, 67 at age 62, 73 at age 64 and 70 at age 66. You could say I should get there in a season like this one but I'm only at 60 now due to the non-ski vacation in April.

tseeb said:

Or you could try to go 70 mph as Klaus Obermeyer did at 70

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Not a good idea. Lonnie was a competitive high school and college racer, and at age 69 he combines Patrick's technique/form and Tseeb's stamina. On March 31 at Taos he was cruising "at 50mph" when he hit a roller, launched considerable distance and landed in the back seat breaking his femur. This required emergency surgery in New Mexico, which left the surgery leg an inch shorter than the other one. On April 18 the surgery had to be redone "by a team of doctors at Cedars-Sinai for 8 hours."

The injured list is a downer in this season's recap. On May 4 Garry Klassen had a collision on the same run (Solitude at Mammoth) as mine in April 2008. He has a fractured tibia plateau and a torn thumb ligament. Yesterday Patrick took a core shot from a previously buried metal pole barely exposed by melting snow. It threw him off balance and he fell, disclocating his elbow. Patrick is with a friend at Mammoth and will remain there long enough to get a June ski day in, but likely go home earlier than the June 13 scheduled.

My season is now updated after skiing June 30 - July 2, July 19 and August 4-5 after a month+ hiatus.

* = new area

Mammoth was worth skiing by Nov. 5 this season but my bunion surgery Sept. 8 delayed my start to Nov. 23. Still, Nov. 23 and Dec. 14 were new calendar dates, and I have now skied every calendar date from Nov. 21 - June 2. This is a trivia stat where I've filled in all the obvious holes, now total 265 dates after adding 3 more this summer, but I doubt I'll catch Patrick for this stat which is aided by his eccentric ski schedule.

After 3 lean years, this one was slightly above average for powder (lift served 9.2% vs. 8.7% lifetime average). You could say, "how could it not be?" but there's a lot of variability on how often powder coincides with scheduled trips. 2016-17 was below average for example, and my best by far was 2011-12, though that one was enhanced by 12 snowcat and 2 heli days. Iron Blosam week had 27 inches, but that was the driest March week of Snowbird's 214 inch total. The road trip after Iron Blosam had some powder most days.

The Euro trip was the opposite. We scored localized powder in the Via Lattea during what was overall a poor season in the Alps. I also had a top tier cat ski tour at Island Lake with almost 2 feet fresh during a below average season in Canada.

This was my age 70 ski season, and I noticed increased altitude sensitivity Dec. 12-14 at Mammoth on terms of taking longer "suck wind" breaks while skiing challenging terrain/conditions. This was evident during Iron Blosam week also, but fortunately not so much at lower elevations like Mt. Baldy or in Canada. Last year I noted vertical per day was up due to perhaps skiing a higher proportion of groomers. This year it's down a little to 18,600 due to the longer rest stops on higher effort terrain/conditions. The more telling sign is that my maximum vertical day this season was 27,700, lowest since 1995 and one of only two seasons since then with no day over 30K.

This was the highest SoCal snowfall season since El Nino 1998 though it didn't get going in terms of natural snow terrain until late February. In retirement I'm likely to be away when it snows here, but this year I was lucky in that the big storms hit at the end of my Canada trip. With limited road and lift operation plus wind affected snow, I did not get lot of powder in SoCal, but March 7 and April 7 were probably my best local ski days since 2010 and 9 local ski days is far above average.

2022-23 was a strong year for variety with 31 different areas and 13 new ones. I've skied 31 days on Ikon. Age 70 gives me free skiing at Mt. High (2 days), and that applies to Powder Alliance (1 day at Lost Trail). Liz had 42 days and 16 new areas. My ski area count is now 276 and hers is 213.

Headline number is 48 ski days, my highest in a while.

38 days in Colorado and 10 in Canada across 14 different resorts.

* New to me
^Ikon pass


By time of year:
Nov 0
Dec 10
Jan 10
Feb 8
Mar 12
Apr 7
May 1

Excluding Mustang, I averaged $36.32 per day for lift access despite paying more ticket $ for my sons non-Ikon race days and Guys trip than I did for the Ikon pass itself. Of course tickets is only a portion of ski costs, but always interesting to see.

Only a couple of days (Mustang, Steamboat, Copper) with more than ~6" of new snow, but lots of very soft day-after leftovers or 2-6" days mixed in there.

I'm a few ski days short of my age, though not hugely short.

@EMSC, I could've sworn that you had several days at Copper.

Unfortunately not. I'd have preferred if a couple of the Winter Park days had been Copper, skiing wise. But races, I70 hassles etc...

On your side, I still find it incredible that you don't have at least a few more local days mixed in between your bigger trips.

EMSC said:

On your side, I still find it incredible that you don't have at least a few more local days mixed in between your bigger trips.

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I would not like to be limited to an 18 day ski season, and since 1979 I only had one that low when Adam was born in December 1984. But given James' work/family constraints it's hard to argue the quality even though quantity is restricted. I'd critique more not getting in a couple days on his Colorado trip than schlepping on the weekends from NJ during a mediocre eastern season. There have been 3 seasons when I skied zero days in SoCal.

Tony Crocker said:

But given James' work/family constraints it's hard to argue the quality even though quantity is restricted.

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It's at most a partial 'complaint'. I totally get the prioritizing of big skiing; but maybe I need to treat Jersey as more like SoCal where many years the only decent 'local' skiing is 6 hours away and thus not quite 'local' anymore. Having grown up not too far away though, my brain thinks of all the local hills in the region differently than that (obviously).

EMSC said:

Jersey as more like SoCal

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Jersey and the Poconos are a conspicuous cut below SoCal. The Catskills are a more interesting comparison. Baldy's terrain is much better than anything in the Catskills and and Big Bear's snow reliability is moderately better. Snow reliability other than Big Bear is worse. Both regions have infrequent scenarios where conditions at say, Plattekill or Mt. High, make a short notice day trip worthwhile.

I'd guess Gore is the closest mountain to James (~3.5 hours) that you could argue is consistently better than Big Bear, and it's twice as far as Big Bear is to me.

My ski days for 2022/23. New ski areas in Italics. In fact, most of my skiing was at new places. Almost half in Europe. I might have broken even on an IKON pass, but I like the flexibility to 'go with the snow'.

USA - 16 days

• Palisades Tahoe: 3
• Sugar Bowl: 1
• Sierra-at-Tahoe: 1
• Mammoth Mountain: 2
• Telluride: 4
• Mountain High - East: 0.5
• Mountain High - West: 0.5
• Mount Baldy: 2
• Snow Valley: 1
• Snow Summit: 0.5
• Bear Mountain: 0.5

Europe - 14 days

• Via Lattea - Sauze D'Oulx: 1
• Serre Chevalier: 1
• Les 2 Alpes: 1
• Alpe d'Huez: 1
• Courmayeur: 3
• Heliski Courmayeur: 1
• La Thuile: 1
• Monterosa - Champoluc, Gressoney, Alagna: 1
• Grand Massif - Flaine, Les Carroz, Samoens, Morillon: 1
• Portes du Soleil - Avoriaz, Chatel, Champery, Les Crossets: 1
• Portes du Soliel - Les Gets-Mont Chery, Morzine: 1
• Crans Montana: 1

Might add a day at Mammoth in July with a Yosemite visit. Wish I kept track of my summer ski months - can't always remember where I skied every month:

ChrisC, any October ski days? I have four. One was Upper Cascade at Killington in 1988 after a business trip and definitely targeting my last unskied month, as I had first skied August and September in New Zealand in 1982. AT at Mammoth in 2011 was to push a streak into the next season. Oct. 30, 2004 at Snow Summit and October 29, 2021 at Mammoth were quality ski days that probably met ChrisC's standards.

Tony Crocker said:

ChrisC, any October ski days?

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Yes.

• Killington - Once Pre K1 Gondola when Downdraft trail was its focus, Once with K1 Gondola access when Rime trail was its focus (A tractor ride was required. There is now a stairway from the K1 summit terminal to the Glades/North Ridge lift.)
• Mammoth - October 22-23, 2004 after the 85" blizzard. Everything opened including Hangman's, MJB, Huevos, Phillipe's, etc. Not sure about Starr because I am not totally familiar with that sector.

Never was interested in Boreal's 500 vertical feet WROD that they would open in October. Sunday River would have a short offering off of its Locke Triple Chair mid-station - T2 - but the drive never made it worthwhile. Sugarbush used to open its Mt. Ellen/Sugarbush North Mountain in October with Rim Run trail - perhaps a stronger offering than Killington since it is 1000 vertical ft.

Tried skiing in October in Colorado before a 2015 Denver conference, but not enough snow at ABasin or Loveland yet. Drove up Pikes Peak and visited Great Sand Dunes National Park instead.

ChrisC said:

• June - Killington, Crystal Mt., Mount Baker, Palisades/Squaw, others (?)
• July - Crystal Mt (?), Zermatt, Cervinia, Timberline Lodge, Mount Rainier.
• August - Timberline Lodge.
• September - Timberline Lodge.

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I need to write things down. All my Chile ski days were in August - Portillo, La Parva, El Colorado, and Valle Nevado.

Perhaps surprisingly being in Colo, I have exactly zero ski days for July-Sept. I guess I like summer activities too much compared to some. Love a cold snowy winter, but just as much, love a warm sunny summer.

Québec / Ontario : 50 (10 areas)
Edelweiss QC : 33
Ste-Marie QC : 6
Cascades QC : 3 ($ paid for one evening only)
Blanc QC : 3
Fortune QC : 1
St-Sauveur QC : 1
$ Avila QC : 1
Vorlage QC : 1
Calabogie ON : 1
*$ Martin ON : 1

New England : 7 (3 areas)
^Sunday River ME : 4
^Sugarbush VT : 2
^Killington VT : 1

West : 33 (15 areas)
^Revelstoke BC : 5
$ Nakiska AB : 4
^Mammoth CA : 3
^Palisades CA : 3
*^Red BC : 3
^Louise AB : 2
^Sunshine AB : 2
^Panorama BC : 2
*^Sun Peaks BC : 2
*^Alpine Meadows CA : 2
^Norquay AB : 1
*$ Big White BC : 1
*$ Silverstar BC : 1
*$ Kicking Horse BC : 1
*$ Baldy CA : 1
Total doesn't equal 90. Skied Edelweiss during day and Cascades during evening = counted as one day.

*New to me
^Ikon pass

Season 2022-23 so far: 90
November 17 to July 2
28 ski areas : 90 days
13 Ikon areas : 32 (on 22-23 pass, 16 days prior to actual season)
8 non-pass lift areas : 10 lift tickets
8 new areas : 12 days
cost total: $1195 CDN : $11.17/day-ticket - includes Ikon days from this pass done between May and October 2022).

By time of year:
Oct (counted as 2021-22)
Nov 3
Dec 4 (worst December since 2009)
Jan 15
Feb 18
Mar 16
Apr 23 (best month ever)
May 9 (tied best May)
Jun 1
July 1

Year of injuries:
Three broken ribs on Dec 9 - skied/coached 3 days at Sunday River (Dec 9-11). Accident happened when I tripped in Hotel room at Sunday River at 6am). Missed 4 big weeks of skiing/coaching. Returned early, but skied in discomfort. Avoided going on trips when not coaching in January. February and March are often busy ski coaching wise.
Dislocated elbow on May 29 which cost me 2 weeks in California. First serious skiing injury in 1857 ski days (clavicle fracture in Jan 87). Currently in rehab, so I don't have any current plans.

Well after bailing early in 2020 as it looked like borders were closing, missing 2021 as travel was impossible to the USA and then missing 2022 as it wasn't clear early enough in 2021 for me to book flights and time off work etc it was finally time to get back to Discovery MT and it did not disappoint!

I flew into Seattle on Friday March 3rd and stayed overnight in Des Moines before finishing 2nd in the Des Moines Creek Parkrun over 5k on the Saturday morning and heading to Philipsburg after a quick shower. On Saturday 11th March I headed to Anaconda to race in the Ancient Order of Hibernians St Paddys Day 6 Mile race. Led for 5.5 miles before a week of boozing and high elevation sucked the life out of me and I finished 2nd again. I even met Tony and Liz this trip although we never quite managed a run on the ski hill.

Anyway I was here for the skiing and March was without any shadow of a doubt the best year I have ever had at Discovery. The consistently cold temperatures along with constant refreshes made for a brilliant season with many lines we've barely skied before being slayed and out of bounds was absolutely off the scale. Most rocks and even cliffs were damn near buried. I skied every day from Sunday 5th March to Saturday 1st April with exception of one day in the last week where I had car issues and had to get a replacement in Missoula.

My final day on Saturday 1st April was one of the wildest. Petrified of heights I'd got stuck on Limelight for 25 minutes on the Friday afternoon and really struggled to not have a full blown panic attack. Never liked heights but a similar experience on Granite 6 or 7 years back has made chairs awkward to say the least. Anyway I bailed and went to the bar for a few beers, On the Saturday it was a lazy day but wanted to get back on Limelight one more time for the season. I've never experienced a storm like it, the cloud/snow rolling into the distance looked like the fallout from an atom bomb approaching. When it hit it was absolutely brutal with driving wind and snow so myself Jim and Jim headed to the lodge for a beer to warm up. At 3pm we headed back to Limelight and I had my last lap of the season.

On the 21st March after a day shredding Disco a buddy Art invited myself and my skiing buddies Jim, Jack and Marie to Wraith Hill as he has a property there. Wraith Hill has about 160 acres and 800ft drop over a pretty consistent pitch. Its still got the original T-bar towers and cables, old trail signs and the old top lift shack. Art has a converted jeep with tracks and he was happy to just drive up and down as the 4 of us drank beer and took a few runs. The snow was excellent in the shaded areas but very tricky in an areas the sun had touched. Our very own ski area.

I drove back to Seattle on Sunday 2nd and flew home on the Monday having had an absolutely fantastic trip meeting up with old friends and new friends alike.

Discovery - 27 Days
Wraith Hill - 1 Day

Patrick said:

Apr 23 (best month ever)

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I wondered about that, screened my data for it and found my max in one calendar month was 19 in March 2019 and again in March 2023. As for most in a 31 day period I knew it had to be one of those retirement road trips. I skied 27 out of 31 days from Jan. 13 - Feb. 12 in 2012. Tseeb may have done better because he doesn't like to take any days off on his road trips.

q said:

Petrified of heights I'd got stuck on Limelight for 25 minutes on the Friday afternoon and really struggled to not have a full blown panic attack.

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It's not rational, but I hardly think about it when chairs are moving, while if they stop I start to feel uncomfortable. Longest chair stoppage I've experienced was 55 minutes at Mountain High East in 1985. Scariest was Coronet Peak in pouring rain about 3:30PM in 1982. I don't recall how long that was, but the anxiety factor was highest because I was probably the only nutcase riding the lift under those conditions and I worried that the lift might be shut down for the night.

On a 28 day road-trip during Feb/March 2019, I skied 26 days. Trip was to Mustang (3) via Ashland, Crystal (2), Stevens, Apex and Revy. Return was through Calgary, Big Sky (3 ski days), Jackson (3), UT (9) and Heavenly (2). My only days not skiing were spent driving from Calgary to Bozeman and snowmobiling into Yellowstone.

I haven’t closed the book on 2022-23, but not sure it’s worth the drive to Mammoth in late July when I could make it. I’ve been in snow Tues and Thurs around Tahoe this week. Tues I tried to get my Pilot next to snow at 300K but 4th gate on Blue Lake Rd (E/SE of KIrkwood) was closed so we walked a mile up it. On Thursday there were a few patches between Lower and Upper Angora Lakes elev. under 7500’.

Tony Crocker said:

I wondered about that, screened my data for it and found my max in one calendar month was 19 in March 2019 and again in March 2023. As for most in a 31 day period I knew it had to be one of those retirement road trips. I skied 27 out of 31 days from Jan. 13 - Feb. 12 in 2012. Tseeb may have done better because he doesn't like to take any days off on his road trips.

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tseeb said:

On a 28 day road-trip during Feb/March 2019, I skied 26 days. Trip was to Mustang (3) via Ashland, Crystal (2), Stevens, Apex and Revy. Return was through Calgary, Big Sky (3 ski days), Jackson (3), UT (9) and Heavenly (2). My only days not skiing were spent driving from Calgary to Bozeman and snowmobiling into Yellowstone.

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As mentioned, April 2023 was my biggest month ever with 23 days. Previous record was 21 days in February 2016 and January 2019.

This April trip turned out to include 20 days out of 21. Forced day off on Easter Monday due to Panorama had just closed for the season and Rogers' Pass was closed on Easter Monday for Avy control. The total trip was 24 out of 27 with included one day in class for a course, 11 ski resorts and 4406km driving from Calgary to Kelowna twice.

That being said, not sure how many days I would have gotten out of the recent California if I didn't dislocate my elbow? I was hoping to hit day 100 on my bday meaning I would have skied 19 in 20 days... 20 days total on that trip.