Killington 5/19&20/03

According to the white book of ski areas the summit elevation at Woodbury ski area is 850ft with a base of 550ft for a vertical drop of 300ft. <BR>Elevation therefore was not an issue in beating out Killington by one day. I have skied this area a few times and I've heard that this area is located in a "cold pocket" of west central Connecticut. The owner who's name I dont recall is very devoted to the sport, apparently he runs most aspects of the resort himself such as snowmaking, staffing the chairlift and running the ski shop. I read in an old issue of ski magazine that he was out making snow on the mountain one night in a snowcat with a fan jet type snow cannon mounted on top. The story goes that he fell asleep and was buried by the snow cannon during the night and had to be dug out the next morning!!!!. If a tiny ski area that is located about 50 miles inland from the coast of <BR>Connecticut can beat Killington by one day, I think that ASC really has lost interest in extended skiing. In fact looking back at an issue of SKI magazine, from November 1984, there is an advertisement for Killington boasting of a 9 month long ski season from mid October to mid June. I wonder if ASC would put there money were there mouth is today with such advertising? I would love to see Killington take advantage of new technology and push skiing into July, how long will we have to wait?.
 
Hahaha great story about the owner of Woodbury ! It looks like the owner of Mt Alta. This guy do : grooming, cashier, rarely chairlift, but all the maintenance of it, he's at ski shop + repairing center + clearing trails and woods during summer, (so each year, it looks to have some new lines in the woods yeah !) + he does almost all... It's a chance he have his wife with him and their 3 daughters that are getting older, so they begin to help them. Obviously, the 3 are in the best young skiers in the region and they look to be often in the top 3 (even #1) in the competitions they do in the region. Their youngest is now ± on the moguls competition team and she takes easily, with great style, the big pitch under the chairlift and she's ... 6 years old. Many mogul skiers I know think she's directly going for Olympic games, if she continues in her way. <BR> <BR>Back for Killington, mid oct to mid june = 8 months... so if they really said 9, they're enough liers. But to see them reach 8 months of skiing, I think they'd need another owner !
 
I think that new owners that are more commited to skiing than to profit are in order, but do such people with the money and the will exist? I was a <BR>SKII stock holder from 1992-june 1996 when ASC bought them out. The skiing experience at all of there resorts seemed to be more enjoyable with more of a happy go lucky attitude, than oh no we can't do this, or that because it wont be profitable. Im happy that I did not buy into ASC <BR>which lost money from the start in 1996, but Im not so happy that they are still struggling because the skiers are the ones that suffer in the end.
 
As I go in a high business school (brainwash school), I understand somehow many things I didn't understand before going there. Ok, the mentality in Canada (and particularly Quebec) is really less "$$$$only$$$$" than USA, but all we do, all we check, all we calculate... is to be profitable. I got 2 courses which were really some brainwash courses, to make us become some real businessmen just wanting make $$$$$. I imagine it should be 20 courses (on 30) in USA colleges, instead of 2. In fact, I somehow agree with that for the companies, but I don't consider a ski area like a company. I consider that like a non-profit organism which exist just for the fun of the skiers. If I ever lead a ski area in my life, I would like it to be like that. <BR> <BR>The poor thing is that we're surely thousands of frustrated skiers in New England + QC. We just would have to join us together to buy a mountain (lol) that we would lead as we want. Why is it only few people that often even not do ski that own all the ski areas ? (Obviously, it would be tough to satisfy everybody, especially for the geographic location, but this have to happen... with us or without) <BR> <BR>We should put Joegm director of opening/closing dates. I'm sure with him we would ski September to July 4 or more <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":)"> I would be financial director and I can tell you I would put some budget on snowmaking ! For Marc... hmm... At least webmaster + PR / Marketing director. Hmm, still looking for CEO. The trail designers would be a committee of all us, but large groomed boulevards won't be allowed ! lol <BR> <BR>hmm hmm, back to reality now. I just hope that some ski areas less money oriented (but still profitable) will compete against Killington in the next years. Tenney is actually the best opportunity of changing that we ever could find. I hope it will oblige Killington to open on October 1 also ! <BR> <BR>And changing of subject. My ski season is not over yet. No matter the lenght of the ski patch, I will ski on it next weekend on LG power.
 
I was just curious if you know if the north side of Tremblant has any snow left? My brother lives in Kirkland but I have to admit that I have not been up there in a few years. I only was at Tremblant in early October to see the foliage. The mountain seems similar to Okemo and not really worth a 6+ hour drive past Killington, Sugarbush etc. Is my thinking correct or is it worth a visit in the winter? I've skied Owls Head <BR>and Mt Sutton both being near Jay Peak, but thats <BR>it in eastern Canada. Are Mt Saint Anne or Mt Orford worth visiting from the U.S?
 
The north side of Tremblant still certainly have a little bit of snow. Especially on the snowpark place, on upper north side. Unfortunately, they don't have some cams there, this winter. Even the south side have a tiny bit of snow remaining that we see on the mountain cams. <BR> <BR>Effectively, from Long Island, it's a little bit far, even though Tremblant is rated #1 in the East, far before K, both Sugar, Sunday and the other ones. (I still try to understand why, cause according to me, it su***). It's my 8th best ski area on my chart just because of 1 trail, the "CBC", which is my 6th best trail ever. <BR> <BR>Never skied Okemo, but I think Tremblant is much bigger, with in fact 6 mountain sides. (I must admit I don't remember if the Jackson Gore side is now open at Okemo ?) <BR> <BR>For the worth of Tremblant, Orford, Ste-Anne and Le Massif (that I add), it depends of what you like in ski. Most of the people here that skied both Orford + Owl's Head would prefer Orford. Owl's Head have the best view in QC with Le Massif (equal), but the terrain is incredibly boring and there is almost nothing except groomed boulevards. Every year, there is at least 1 wild trail that become wider, to be a big boulevard. Orford is the opposite. In the 80s, it was a boulevard mountain with lot of potential undevelopped at all. Even the old trails were closed with big gates to be sure nobody would take those trails. Since they reopened them 10 years ago, they began to add many many glades all over the mountain and for glades, I think it's #1 in Quebec, with le Massif du Sud. Sutton =NOT glade anyway, it's just slopes with 1 tree and they call that a glade. I definitively prefer the glades of Orford to the ones of Jay Peak, but I don't think many people here share my opinion. <BR> <BR>On my top 10 of very best trails ever, there is 7 at Orford (1 at Tremblant + 2 at Massif du Sud). They're some big double black diamonds trails, but there is also a lot of terrain for the beginner / intermediate + some steep advanced trails like la Maxi / Sherbrooke / Magnum and Trois-Ruisseaux which are all in the best steep groomed trail of the province (honestly, I have the time to ski them once by 5-6 years cause the extreme trails are too much good) <BR> <BR>This is the link for my first day here this winter, if you didn't read it... it's where I explained why "Frankontour" <BR> <BR><A HREF="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/16/1997.html?1047095721" TARGET="_top">http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/16/1997.html?1047095721</A> <BR> <BR>(hmm, me I could talk of this mountain during 2h if I don't stop now... normal, this is my #1 mountain for the trails... and on his side, Alta is my #1 mountain for the mountain) <BR> <BR>For Tremblant, there is some varied terrain, but generally, the conditions can't be really good and never expect powder, except on the "Edge" side, cause there is too much chairlifts for the size of the snowstorms here ! lol ! On the Edge, the quad is so slow that there is less crowds. The big problem is the crowd (I went at -20 degrees farenheit this winter and there was a little bit of waiting, so imagine at 20 degrees...) <BR> <BR>Ste-Anne have nice long steep terrain, good lift network, lot of snowfalls, but very few treeskiing and damn it's far from NY ! lol <BR> <BR>Le Massif is quite higher, more snow, but now, it has lost a lot of his "something special" that he had in the past. The destruction of "la 42" have been a huge shame for a ton of skiers that didn't see that come. It was possibly the best ***lift serviced*** trail in the east and now...... I prefer not to comment. <BR> <BR>So that's it for our 4 main resorts. (Viva Orford) <BR> <BR>(every people that have ever taken the old "42" know why I put some *** between the words : lift serviced)
 
My next question is with language, having crossed the border by Sugarloaf at Coburn Gore, nobody spoke ANY english in Woburn or Notre-Dame des-Bois. How is that situation at larger resorts? My knowledge of french is limited. Do you think that Mt Ste-Anne is doable in a day trip (very long day trip) from Sugarloaf? <BR>On the map it does not look far but those small roads can be a killer. Is Mt Orford worth a shot instead? Sorry for all of the questions but I would like to ski more of Quebec. The main drawback is that U.S customs comming back are a pain in the neck, especially at the remote border crossings.
 
Kevin, that's a pleasure to answer to your questions <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":)"> <BR> <BR>You said that it was only french in Woburn and ND des Bois ??? wow, it's amazing, I was sure it was something like 50% english or more. In fact, in the townships, there is almost the same amount of english people than french people, depending of the villages. <BR> <BR>For Tremblant, I must say when I went in january, I talked once in french in chairlift and about 15 times in english. In fact, for the french conversation, we began in english to understand few seconds later we were both mainly talking french ! lol ! The official language at Tremblant is english. Sainte-Anne is a pretty different thing. dans ce coin-là, c'est vraiment du français <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":)"> I'm almost sure you can have all the services in english, but in the chairlifts, it's sure you won't hear a lot of english. In the townships, this is really not a problem. Orford and Bromont are more french, Sutton and Owl's Head are 50/50. Glen and Shefford are more english, but in every places, you don't have a problem to communicate in english ! <BR> <BR>There is also some "english ski areas" in the Laurentians, like Ski Morin Heights and Alta. and of course, the ski areas in Outaouais are really english. <BR> <BR>For the trip. I've already did Sugarloaf - Orford, 6-7 years ago. It is about 2h15-2h30 of road. Road 27 in USA is pretty roller coaster and I imagine it, in winter... ishhh, but road 212 just don't have curves, so it's not a dangerous one. After that, road 108 don't represent problem if I remember. As Sherbrooke is a little bit complicated, may be it's better to reach road 112, on which you can stay until I-10. For terrain, it's quite less high than Sugarloaf with 1615' of *real* vertical drop (you can't do 1772 in a single run), but it's a big worth for the extreme terrain and the long cruisers like Trois-Ruisseaux + Grande-Coulée that have been named the 2 best cruisers in the East, few years ago, by I don't remember which US ski magazine. <BR> <BR>I never did the way from Sugarloaf to Sainte-Anne, but from Lac-Mégantic to Quebec, it's 214km, so we can say near 350km from Sugarloaf to Ste-Anne... about 215 miles, so between 3h30 and 4h of road, that's quite long. For the roads, by taking roads 161 to reach 112 and after I-73, I-40 east and road 138, it's some enough main roads, so they shouldn't be killer roads, but I never took them (except 40 and 138 that I drived 2 weeks ago) <BR> <BR>And for customs... there is nothing to do, except to pass early in the morning, when there is no crowd. When we went to Burke, in january, for the First Tracks Online day, we didn't get problem, except on Canadian borders, cause I was driving and that the car is not registered as mine... but as I was with the owner, it have been OK.
 
kevin i didn't mean to sound like a jerk with you.. i'm just overly sensitve about the late season skiing thing.. i am relatively new to skiing (7 years ) and really new to the k late season scene after having discovered the joy of mogul skiing in corn about 3 years ago.. and right now, after seeing charts like frank and patrick put up, it just seems to be shrinking right before my eyes ... especially after hearing all the old war stories from people on this site and k locals about how it used to be in the early 90's. you say you were a SKII STOCK HOLDER..what was that?.. i assume it was a corp that owned ski areas? how did the stock do when you owned it or was it a co-op like mad river glen? and aside to patrick... i am 99.99 % sure your question about the free ski day at sunday is moot.. i believe they shut it down about a week prior to may 1st this year.. unbelievable, huh?... (L.O.S.S.) !!!!!!
 
Merci Beaucoup for the information. I plan on a family vacation to Sugarloaf next February and I <BR>want to ski in Quebec, most likely at Mt Orford because it is close. Route 27 is quite hazardous <BR>in winter and it takes about 45 minutes just to reach Canada with so-so road conditions, so a closer resort would be a better choice. Beyond Coburn Gore the terrain in Canada looks fairly level compared with Maine so the traveling gets <BR>easier I suppose. <BR> <BR>Thanks Again
 
S.K.I limited was the company that owned several resorts in the U.S until it was bought out by Les Otten and American Skiing Company. I can only find my annual report from 1994, but at this time the company owned Killington, Mt Snow/Haystack, <BR>Sugarloaf/USA, Waterville Valley and Bear Mt in California. The stock went public in 1985 as an outgrowth from the Sherburne Company which was formed in September 1957 to fund and build Killington. Funny as it may sound The Sherburne <BR>Company bought controling interest in Sunday River <BR>in November 1972 ,but management did not see future potential in the resort and it was sold to the then manager of Sunday river (you guessed it: <BR>Les Otten) Killington top management is said to have later regretted giving up on the area to soon <BR>but such is life. The stock was marginallly profitable but ASC bought out each shareholder at $18 per share so I had no complaints. The only reason that I bought the stock was to have more of an interest in the mountain that at the time (1992) I loved to ski alot. I never skied a whole lot every year (about 20-30 days) but I like the sport and like snow even more. I've seen better days at Killington and Pico is really suffering from neglect by being Killington's dishoned. sister. I honestly feel that skiing was more enjoyable under the old management and I have taken some of my ski days elsewere to avoid disapointment, but there are not many other places left. Sorry for such a long post.
 
It's a pleasure Kevin <BR> <BR>Near the border, we have Mt Gosford, 3900' high and Mt Megantic : 3600' high, so it's not necessary level as you say, but after Mt Megantic, it's quite flat until Mt Orford (2800' high). Thanks for the indication about road 27. I didn't remember how long it was exactly. From Sugarloaf, the closest Quebec ski area is Mt Adstock, about 1h45 of Sugarloaf, but it's just 1100' high, despite it looks to be a very interesting steep and wide ski area. Orford is the closest big Ski area from Sugarloaf. <BR> <BR>Joe : mogul skiing in corn : Hmmmmmmmmm <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":)"><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":)"><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":)"><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":)"><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":)"> I agree that with you and as I didn't skied in moguls since april 27, I wonder how I'll wait until nov or dec. Wow, just 7 years of experience and you already have "the flame" like if you were doing ski for 20 years, congrats !! <BR> <BR>For Sunday River, they finally closed on may 1, after been closed from april 27 to april 30. It was free with 18 trails open on the Barker Mountain + the one on left on map (is it Locke ?) For the next years, it's a good question if it's gonna be free. They probably got a great year this winter, there is more chance for that than if it was a season like last year !!
 
long post ? <BR>I'm sure your historic of the ownership of the resorts have been liked by all us (at least me). <BR> <BR>It's always fun to have a historic perspective of the ski areas we talk so much often. <BR> <BR>For Sunday River, looking to this view in the early 70s, I admit it was tough to think it could become what it is today... (from NELSAP) <BR> <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2408.jpg" ALT="Sunday River early 1970s">
 
Not another email (I will try to make short this time, it's getting late and this Monday is not a holiday in Canada)

Joe:SKI Ltd was like ASC, it included Killington, Sugarloaf.... There was eventually a take over by the rival group which included Sunday River, Sugarbush.

Sunday River: they closed the Sunday before May1st, only to re-open with free skiing on Thursday May1st. It was FREE, but for how long. Frank, I am still willing to drive 4hr to go skiing (that's why some people at work call me crazy, especially when I have to add an extra 2hr to get to Montreal) - I was planning to be at Sunday River this year, but I wouldn't miss my 5 yr old daughter playing the grand'ma in the Little Red Riding Hood on that day. Anyway, it rained all day.

Skiing in Quebec: <BR>Frank, the last time I skied Orford was 1982...It was the first of many times I used my mother's car to go skiing. I never felt the urge to go back, especially when they had cheesy commercial with the owner 10-15 yr ago (much like a used car dealer).

I never did a top ski area list, but for me, Ste.Anne wins easily in Quebec. Tremblant is maybe a distant second or third - Le Massif is in there somewhere (3?). Ste-Anne has some nice long steep cruiser when they are groomed, a bit like Sugarloaf runs are. Tremblant is more an atmosphere/experience mountain - it would be number #1 on my list for intermediate skier. There is a few good black runs (Dynamite is one of the best in Quebec). If you never knew what the old Massif was (ie. school bus instead of lifts) -it is a goodplace to go. I was just a bit dissapointed when I went on Easter 2001 - the last year of the 'old 42' trail. With the exception of the '42', this mountain has alot of short steep pitch, but no long steep fall-line skiing. Mind you, the mountain is very different since it became a Canadian Ski Team training centre.

Frankontour, that Easter we did:
Friday: Ottawa-Whiteface-Montreal (left my daughter with my mom in MTL).
Saturday: Montreal-Ste-Anne
Sunday: Ste-Anne-Le Massif-Montreal (left my wife with my daughter for the Monday).
Monday: Montreal-Glen-Montreal-Ottawa and work the next day. It is not always that crazy.


Kevin: if you want to try a few areas - Quebec City (ste-Anne) and the Townships ski areas (mainly along the Vermont border). The advantage of going to Ste-Anne, is that you can ski both Ste-Anne (2050'*) and le Massif-de-la-Petite-Rivière-St-François (2500'* according to the table above). Plus the scenery, it different, but it rivals the best.

Like Frank said, the Townships has slightly smaller hill. Sutton, Owl's Head and Orford are good choices. There is Bromont which is OK, but is one of my two favorites areas for night skiing (the other is Ste-Anne, but better than the Laurentians).

Insurance cost:
The new snowparks are probably might not helping. BTW, Tremblant has an amazing one. When I think skipatrols would treaten you for taking a bit of speed and jumping a few years back.

Shareholder - Closing:
Mountain owned by skier. Hmmm!!! MAD RIVER GLEN, unfornately they also had a debate about the closing policy - some people were complaining about the early closing. Unfortunately, they do not have deep pockets to push the big ones.
I was tired of seeing what the ski industry were doing to the best mountain in the East, so instead of being depressed, I became a MRG shareholder.

List (note to Kevin - about Quebec vs New England):

Best of the East according to the SKI Magazine survey (great, I found this table on my computer, I made it in 1995):

I presume most of you have heard of it. They ask they readers to rate ... according to 11 criterias, the results are weighted on the importance the criteria are to the readers (I am sure we would rate the mountains very differently for the same categories).

On the left, the SKI 1995 results - on the right, the results when only snow conditions, terrain, value and challenge are only tabulated - no weighting. (Hey, I am Research Analyst - what can I do about it?) How revealing - Jay jumps from 12 to 1.

1 Tremblant Jay *
2 Stowe Sunday River *
3 Killington Tremblant *
4 Sunday Rv. Whiteface *
5 Whiteface Stowe *
6 Pico Sugarloaf *
7 Loon Cannon *
8 Sugarloaf Wildcat
9 Holiday Killington *
10 Sugarbush Pico
11 Seven Spr. Holiday (NY)
12 Jay Smugglers *
13 Stratton Sugarbush *
14 Okemo Gore
15 Bromley Loon
16 Smugglers Elk (PA)
17 Mt Snow Bromley
18 Cannon Okemo
19 Wildcat Stratton
20 Attitash Mt Snow

Know, I try to make a list of my own (without much thought) * - indicate places I have been, so don't be surprise if Wildcat is not included, they were always closed when I go to Tucks. I skiied them all on day trip from Montreal, a very few times I would stay in a motel.


The following list only take to account lift-serviced and not the price of lift-ticket. If so, some would fall off the list.

1 Whiteface
2 Stowe
3 Sugarloaf
4 MadRiver
(gap the top 4 and the 5-6-7)
5 Sunday River
6 Killington (weekday only)
7 Ste.Anne (best value for the $)
(another gap)
8 Smugglers (only after a snowstorm)
9 Cannon
10 Sugarbush
11 Tremblant (this is the place where I skied the most in my life, so I am bit tired of it - it might be higher rated if I didn't know this mountain so much)
12 Massif-de-la-petite-rivière-st-françois

Another gap, followed by the rest (i indicated where they were located. Townships, Vermont, Laurentians/Lanaudiere, Outaouais(near Ottawa),R(near Rimouski - look at a map, if you don't know where it is):
13 Sutton -T
14 Burke -V
15 Owl's Head -T
16 Orford -T
17 Bromont T
18 Garceau -L (sorry, frank I never skiied LaReserve)
19 Stoneham -Q
20 Gray Rocks -L
21 Mt.Blanc -L
22 Glen - T (never skied Shefford)
23 Val d'Irene -R
24 Abstock -T
25 Mt.Comi -R
26 Ste.Marie -O
27 St.Sauveur -L

This is the top 27 out of maybe 40-50 I skied in the East. Ask me this list again tomorrow and it could be very different, except for the top 7. Mind you, if I take my 5 yr old daughter into account, this would probably be very very different list, to include a lot of the small Laurentians and Outaouais ski areas.

Good Night.
 
OOOps, I forgot Jay Peak on my top 27. <BR>Jay would be somewhere between 5 and 9. Probably #8 after Ste.Anne and before Smugglers. <BR> <BR>Frank, how many pictures do you have? Happy, you mentioned Abstock near Thetford Mines - only skiied there one weekend, it seemed nice, especially the trail we had on a race on. I had two races on the weekend that Kerrin-Lee Gartner won the Women's DH for Canada at the Albertville Olympics in 1992.
 
How many pictures I have ? lol <BR>Actually, on my computer, I have about 5000 pics and I probably have the same number burned on cd. More, to be less big, I often do some mosaic with some pics to reduce the number, when they're really similar. Example : I have ± 30-40 pics of Timberline from April to November each year, to see the evolution of the skiing. So doing mosaic with them make easy to see the differences. <BR> <BR>For my pics, I took this winter nearly 1500 pics of skiing. I really like to always have a pic for a topic of ski conversation I have. (Don't say I'm crazy, I know this) <BR> <BR>For the chart, I must say I could tell you my best ski areas chart of 1992-93... even at 12, I was doing many stats of skiing. In fact, I invented a formula to rate the size of the ski area at 9 years old and I still use it today exactly the same way. I began to be a trail map drawer at this era and for the 2003-04 season, there is some good chance that the official trail map of Mt Alta will be... mine. lol even though I'm just an amateur. <BR> <BR>If you really went at Orford during the Fernand Magnan era and didn't come back after, you seriously miss something, let me tell you ! They got some little PR problems this year, as you know, but for the extreme terrain, I wouldn't expect any ski area in the East to beat it. The worst is that it's unknown. Few years ago, it was rare to see 1 other people, in a run into Contour. Now, it's seriously more popular, since the super 2000-01 season where there was almost no rocks in the trail, but it's still from far the best trail I ever skied on over 1000 trails. And she's not alone... <BR> <BR>In fact.... another chart, this is the top 15 of my "31 perfect trails" <BR> <BR>1 Orford Contour <BR>2 Orford Chevreuil <BR>HUGE GAP <BR>3 Massif du Sud "8" <BR>4 Massif du Sud Surprenante ("5") <BR>5 Orford Écureuil <BR>6 Tremblant CBC <BR>7 Orford Super <BR>8 Orford Labrecque <BR>9 Orford Lacroix <BR>10 Orford Passe de l'ours <BR>11 Orford Porc Épic <BR>12 Massif du Sud "4" <BR>13 Orford Dubreuil <BR>14 Orford Cascade <BR>15 Mad River Glen Antelope lower <BR> <BR>As you can see, there is a little monopoly for Orford into that. Even the Fall Line, Paradise, Chute, Lower Antelope, Beaver and the other nice places of MRG just don't compete with the Orford trails (at least for me) <BR> <BR>By the way, don't try to find Chevreuil on the trail map of the ski area. They finally opened it this winter and they just count like there is 2 "Porc-Epic" This trail (Chevreuil) is really mythical for me, as it's where I did almost all my top 5 of best runs ever. (my very best run of all time is when I discovered it by luck, on april 2, 1997) (my second is certainly when I rediscovered it totally by luck 4 years later) Of course, in that time, Porc-Epic was not an open trail (although it ± existed, like many lines that become some trails in Orford in the past years) so it was really harder to find. For the treeskiing lovers, L'Écureuil is almost always closed, but don't care to take it, I've never seen a ski patrol in that trail and it's the ultimate crazy tree skiing official trail in Quebec (may be even in the East). <BR> <BR>Back to your message : Easter 2001..... Ok, I'm not the only Crazy skier in Quebec : CRAAAZZZZYYYY this is over 1000 miles in less than 100 hours. (remark that I recently drove Laval - Manoir Richelieu - Laval in 36 hours, for near 600 miles), but I just skied once on that.) <BR> <BR>For the Top chart in the East (by ski survey), yes, I also have it here, but I mean in 2000 or 2001, they've been selected #1 in the East. (I think for more than 1 year) (I talk of Tremblant here) <BR> <BR>About your top chart, I see you skied a lot of big ski areas I didn't (lol). It's not really surprising as you prefer the big verticals and that the canadian dollar in the 80s was particularly better than the one in the laaate 90s and 2000 to 2002, when I was ok to drive & ski. Now, it's more OK, but few years before, to pay 80$ for a Smuggs ticket was not a worth for me. Now, 67$ begins to be more interesting... with the decrease of the USA money. Anyway, if this resort is far far far on my chart, it's that it was an organized trip with school and we were just not lucky. It was on mid january 96 and first : Madonna lift 1 was closed. There was no snow on the ground except snowmaking, in the 60s degrees, raining hard, extremely foggy, we didn't see nothing at all and of course... gusty winds of something like 40-50mph. Imagine how it was fun to see swing the old double chairlifts... Even with that, I got some fun on Upper Exhibition (which had more brown than white but anyway...) so fun to run down Meadowlark, with less than 1 inch of snowdepth and many streams to jump. I think I won't forget this date soon... jan 19, 1996. <BR> <BR>On my chart, there is Alta & Orford far alone in first position. After... far far far, you have le Massif du Sud alone. 10000 miles later, you have both La Reserve and Mad River Glen almost equal, 250 years later, you have Val Saint-Côme to Smuggler's Notch where the gap between the ski areas are not too big (despite a huge gap if you just compare VSC to smuggs.) And after Smuggs, there is an enormous gap before St-Sauveur and all the rest. <BR> <BR>Sad that you got a race at Adstock... did you at least skied the "Défi Adstock ?) (literally Adstock's Challenge). This looks to be a great super extreme one.
 
Near The End... may 25 <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/2409.jpg" ALT="Superstar bare may 25"> <BR>from basinski.com
 
The 2002-03 lift-serviced ski season is now over, in the east. <BR> <BR>I hope for all us there is still few worth snowpatches in the big mountains (and some little down here)
 
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