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Isn't ChrisC the one who expressed skepticism about isolated volcanic peaks with chronic wind, rime icing and lift shutdowns? Ruapehu is Exhibit A of all of those. Like Bachelor, I think those places are best skied in spring. But the Ruapehu areas don't get as much snow, and my...

Supposedly a lab's average lifespan is 12 years. Samantha made it to 14 years 8 months. What is Toby's other ancestry besides lab which might account for the outlier longevity? Not going on walks is not a good sign. Not eating really means it's over.

Porters is a public ski area but lifts when I was there in 2010 were all T-bars. It's definitely worth visiting if conditions are right. In the modern era we may not love T-bars, but they are a piece of cake vs. those nutcracker rope tows.

I was in Cervinia the same last week of January 2018 that ChrisC was in Val d'Isere. Snow on roofs, piled high in parking lots was every bit the equal of what we see in big years at Mammoth or LCC.

4 hours, transfer provided to me by NASJA in 2009. My practice, in those days of subsidized annual meetings on a Wednesday-Sunday schedule, was to take the whole week and visit other ski areas in the region. In order to add Bohemia to that 2009 trip, I would have had to rent a car and spend...

Yes, and I've been sending him a North America version for a decade. These are on his site through 2022-23. He didn't publish what I sent him for 2023-24, possibly because he didn't have time to do the a Euro version for that season. Stuart was all over that Aosta Ikon announcement. It...

You have to take that seriously in Australia, home of 21 of the world's 25 most venomous snakes. Coyotes thrive in our area. This is on the 800 vertical hike in the park half a block above my house on July 22. In the evenings we routinely hear their yipping parties from our house. The next...

As I expected, same as both my days there. How are you driving to Queenstown, via West Coast or Mt. Cook? Via West Coast, doing the Fox or Franz Josef glacier walks is worthwhile. Via Mt. Cook, I presume the Tasman Glacier skiplane I did in 1982 is still available, weather permitting. That...

And Hunter for NYC. You have family in that region? NASJA lured me in 2009 to Lutsen, which is over twice the size of most Michigan hills and still well shy of Big Bear/Mt. High in subjective ski quality. Only Bohemia would lure me to return to the Midwest for skiing, and since it's at the...

Very uninspiring, confirms no club fields open. The max of a foot new over the upcoming weekend is unlikely to change that. In order to start from scratch surely they will want to know they can operate for a few weekends. What you need for Mt. Hutt is some calm and clear weather. There's...

The La Parva YTD might be incomplete. OpenSnow shows 54 inches last 7 days, 210 for season which is obviously based on models vs. 130 reported. Valle Nevado 64 inches last 7 days, 162 for season (OpenSnow matches both numbers, so presumably accessing the snow report) Portillo 36 inches last 7...

In general, yes. They are all out of Christchurch. You are probably in NZ for more than a week if you are doing both Canterbury and the Southern Lakes regions though. The other big caveat is snow conditions with no snowmaking or grooming. Fortunately no one is going to make you commit to a...

All the other areas are leeward, so I can believe Temple Basin gets the most snow of South Island lift service. Whether that's 330 inches I can't say. Even by NZ club standards, Temple Basin is quite rustic. It's a 45 minute walk from parking to lodging and the rope tows. It better get a...

It would seem to me that Vail should have a Triple Play type product strictly confined to some of these feeder regions. Like the ski-with-a-friend, they can do this because they own the areas. If Stuart's Rob Katz interview had happened after the Triple Play announcement, I suspect he would...

From Triple Play thread I wrote: Stuart's e-mail today is the first salvo of a very deep dive into Vail's pricing. As of now there's not a link to a web version. Vail has announced 2025-26 window prices. The peak window price at Vail/Beaver Creek will be $356, applicable on 52 days: the...

As the person responsible for this thread's drift, I've moved the content focused on Vail and Alterra to the already existing Vail management thread.

Good for Patrick, who is flying there this weekend I think.

I thought coastal California was the only place with this climatology. Boston has a typical July/August temperature peak with June being warmer than September. But once out into the Atlantic in colder water off Cape Cod, the California cold ocean/delayed seasons effect makes some sense. FYI...

There is no senior rate for day tickets? I looked up the numerous permutations of Epic Passes. Tahoe Value, Northeast Value and a handful of single area passes are the only ones that offer senior rates. So the big picture is that it's apples and oranges to compare a rare senior pass to day...

Around that 60th anniversary I watched this 2-hour PBS special Victory in the Pacific. The link has a good 9 paragraph summary of the show. My dad shot down a kamikaze from his destroyer off Okinawa. He never showed any bitterness toward the Japanese despite being a civilian internee in Hong...