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This is why I :brick: at sbooker's reluctance to rent skis on powder days. That would be in January. Sbooker has scheduled this trip for late March, which might be the only time all 6 people are available. Yes, but if staying in Chamonix you're doing a round trip through the Mont Blanc...

Me neither. I divided by lift ticket domain, Verbier proper plus Nendaz-Veysonnaz. I have a vague recollection that you have to have a combined ticket to go up Mont Fort. Staying in Sierre in April 2002, we drove to the Nendaz base, skied to Veysonnaz and still had time for one run up Mont...

I'd question Castle because they have very little snowmaking. There could be many areas that will do it for their local race programs when weather cooperates. But I presume elite race programs want to be confident with the combination of early season climate and snowmaking power that Sun...

Goat's Eye has no chance of ever lasting this long. I've seen melt/freeze there in February and rocks emerging in April. Standish and Strawberry are north facing but very intermediate. The groomers very much need to be salted or the corn window will be short or nonexistent. I'd very much...

Yes, and I need to figure out how to get it into my suitcase for our trips. This list above is mostly the usual suspects. Davos/Klosters is interesting because it was the first place in the Alps that I had a whole day of non-competitive powder in what is a primarily intermediate resort. It's...

I just happened to know about Sun Peaks. A quick Google search revealed that Nakiska and Panorama do it too. I also inquired about Lake Louise, but it's in a National Park so the public is prioritized over restricted race training. Kicking Horse has a local alpine race team that may get on...

This seems like the correct advice. Late March should be more filled in and less sketchy than what Jimk reported, surely within Kylie's comfort zone from a skiing perspective more like Liz and I had in 2018. I agree. Guides surely won't commit to a 5-6 hour day with significant odds of bad...

Sun Peaks competes in that market too (early November before public opening). So the top racers prefer fresh manmade to leftover melt/frozen glacier snow?

AFAIK that has always been true, and thus the reason almost no one counts Orelle separate. To me the "right number" of areas of that massive complex is four, but I defer to the consensus of defining the boundaries by lift ticket domain. Lift ticket domain is also useful for sorting out the...

Welcome to Hombre de las Nieves and thanks! We are still waiting for @ChrisC's TR from Aug/Sep 2024.

Blackcomb did not exit until 1980 and the Hortsman/Showcase T-bars did not open until 1986. Whistler's alpine T-bars were open at its 1966 inception and possibly had year round snow that long ago. My impression is that the racers are more interested in September with the firmer snow and closer...

Goegraphy says Orelle is the 4th area, but lift ticket boundaries, the vast majority of skiers and history (Les Menuires was built first, then Val Thorens, and last Orelle) say Les Menuires is the 4th area. I decided to yield to consensus on this one.

They were combined when I skied there about 4 hours. I count as one even though they fit the Skitistics no-piste connection as two. Obvious, as they are 45 minutes and 3 lifts apart. Grindelwald-First, which Jimk skied but Liz and I did not, is a third area a half hour train ride separated...

Mammoth went to RFID in 2011. Both areas took beyond RFID implementation to process Mountain Collective cleanly.

Southwest is CA, NV, AZ, same definition as Kottke/NSAA. ChrisC: This is precisely the reason for my bias in favor of them. Often we can examine a trail map before we set foot on a new place and figure out how to avoid crowds. I love all those Q&As ChrisC posted!:eusa-clap:

Good luck on that in South America aside from Portillo and maybe Valle Nevado. The Alps may not be so easy either. I think Fraser made a serious effort at it, which he has essentially abandoned. He has not published a "Who Got the Most Snow in the Alps" feature for the past two seasons. The...

Big picture our lists are overall constructed similarly. ChrisC's results are very marginally more liberal than mine. Because I count vertical within each ski area, I have a geography bias toward requiring defined boundaries. Fortunately that fits well with the Euros' Skististics criteria...

Evolution of From 1996-2008 I was a guest during Iron Blosam week, skiing 3 or 4 days there. In those olden days I'd buy tickets at SLC ski shops. The best deal for Snowbird was a 2-out-of-5-days ticket that was probably at least 1/3 off 2 window tickets. From 2009-2013 I had finally bought...

How far off piste can you go there without falling into a crevasse? :icon-lol: When we were there all the pistes were winter packed powder without a trace of firm subsurface on the top 3,000 vertical at least. Ungroomed near the pistes was nearly all wind blown sastrugi with some breakable...

Updated through June 2026: Region ChrisC TonyC James Patrick Liz Lonnie EMSC JimK MarzNC Eastern Canada 4 4 18 80 4 0 0 2 2 US Northeast 67 8 30 33 23 1 35 29 27 US Atlantic+Southeast+Midwest 25 1 7 3 3 0 13 16 19 US Northwest 18 16 2 4 7 30 2 1 2 US Southwest 24 28 0 4 18 34 9 9 9...