more lame right coast skiing 4/16-4/18

[icelanticskier]

did a combo of lift assist and body assist skiing this week. sugarloaf u.s.a. was the 1st two day stop. with temps in the 60-70 range, bluebird skies and full coverage from a massive 216 inch snowfall winter, lol, with some of the best snow preservation in the east, the loaf never dissapoints this time of year. 2800 vert of above treeline steeps to some of the steepest, longest, most character filled bump runs to a, thank god it's smooth lower mountain, the loaf skies big and you better be in shape. only a couple of pics. sorry.

after 2 days of spring love at the loaf it was time to loosen the legs up a bit with a morning, before work tour up mount washington. started with a 2000 vert skin up the tucks trail to a 1500 additional vert boot pack up hillmans highway for the chosen morning descent of the classic dodges drop. getting to the top and peering over the edge into the 50+ degree drop in to the 45 degree gut for a total of 1500 vert of 4 inches of perfect untracked corn then additional 2000 vert to the car on the sherbie made for a nice 2.5 hour morning w/ 3500 vert up then down. not a bad way to start a work day. wore my dale sweater and old school varnets for added style in respect for the real skiers that dropped these shots with leathers, metal cable binders and long wooden skis. boy do we have it easy these days! a few pics

 

[rfarren]

Beautifully done sir! With your flexibility and good location you certainly make the east coast work for you. It makes me jealous a tiny bit.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

you certainly make the east coast work for you.

What he said. 216 inches?

What's with the postage stamp-sized pix? :wink:

 

[icelanticskier]

you certainly make the east coast work for you.

ya, the east is always good somewhere and never more than a two hour drive to have an experience go from zero to hero.

What he said. 216 inches?

yup, a big 216. funny thing is that the 1st 2 1/2 weeks of april last year they got 107 inches and let me tell ya, i skied there till mid may and coulda gone till mid-june easy.

What's with the postage stamp-sized pix? :wink:

help me out here, the postage sized pics is the only way i could get them on here. i still thank harv every time i hit submit for introducing me to shrinkpicture.com. maybe if i skied less i could figure out this computer stuff more betterer, ha!

crap! i gotta go get on my bike for my 28 mile commute day to work in this glorious seacoast sunshine.

rog

 

[icelanticskier]

see! i can't even get the quote thing right. oh well, we all have our strengths and less than strengths.
rog

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Mate, reduce them to 640 x 480 pixels.

Or the easier way... post 'em to biglines.com, then take the URLs for each photo and put them inside these two brackets:

http://biglines.com/blmystash

Photos come out bigger and it doesn't use Admin's bandwidth.

 

[Admin]

Mate, reduce them to 640 x 480 pixels.

Or the easier way... post 'em to biglines.com, then take the URLs for each photo and put them inside these two brackets:

http://biglines.com/blmystash

Photos come out bigger and it doesn't use Admin's bandwidth.

That's really unethical to use Biglines' bandwidth to post here.

It's all about compression. 640x480 needs ~30% JPG compression to fit under 110 KB. FastStone Image Viewer (www.faststone.org) is freeware and makes a really stellar full-screen image viewer/slide show producer in addition to possessing the capability of resizing in a snap. It's as good if not better than most commercial software for the task. Open the image in FSViewer and use the menus or Ctrl-R to open the resize dialog. Change to 640x480. "Save as" to choose a location to save the image, rename it if you wish, and click on the "Options" button in the "Save as" dialog box to bring up the compression slider. Choose the best compression that will squeeze it to under 110 KB and you're done!

Knowing how to do this is important, not just for FTO. It's really bad form, for example, to send off 3 MB photos in an email to a friend. Resize them and compress them to something reasonable.

 

[joegm]

2800 vert of above treeline steeps to some of the steepest, longest, most character filled bump runs to a, thank god it's smooth lower mountain

yet another hill that just doesn't get it... bumps only on the steepest runs that the average recreational person either cannot ski properly and or don't want to ski and groom the hell out of the less steep , more moderately pitched terrain on the bottom...unreal :roll: god , this industry is so stupid with some things

 

[icelanticskier]

Mate, reduce them to 640 x 480 pixels.

Or the easier way... post 'em to biglines.com, then take the URLs for each photo and put them inside these two brackets:

http://biglines.com/blmystash

Photos come out bigger and it doesn't use Admin's bandwidth.

That's really unethical to use Biglines' bandwidth to post here.

It's all about compression. 640x480 needs ~30% JPG compression to fit under 110 KB. FastStone Image Viewer (www.faststone.org) is freeware and makes a really stellar full-screen image viewer/slide show producer in addition to possessing the capability of resizing in a snap. It's as good if not better than most commercial software for the task. Open the image in FSViewer and use the menus or Ctrl-R to open the resize dialog. Change to 640x480. "Save as" to choose a location to save the image, rename it if you wish, and click on the "Options" button in the "Save as" dialog box to bring up the compression slider. Choose the best compression that will squeeze it to under 110 KB and you're done!

Knowing how to do this is important, not just for FTO. It's really bad form, for example, to send off 3 MB photos in an email to a friend. Resize them and compress them to something reasonable.

thanx admin and everyone else for the help. lesley's gonna help walk me through it later.

 

[icelanticskier]

2800 vert of above treeline steeps to some of the steepest, longest, most character filled bump runs to a, thank god it's smooth lower mountain

yet another hill that just doesn't get it... bumps only on the steepest runs that the average recreational person either cannot ski properly and or don't want to ski and groom the hell out of the less steep , more moderately pitched terrain on the bottom...unreal :roll: god , this industry is so stupid with some things

thanx for the input joegm but, i think the loaf does a good job of keeping grooming to a minimum compared to many other resorts that could ski so much better. as you know, boyne owns sunday river and the loaf and if you look at the grooming count at sunday river it always seems that it's like 90+% of terrain and the loaf is usually around 75% or less leaving many great runs with varying pitches with the little piles that you like to bounce down through with yer knees real close together.

now, i'll be damed if yer gonna turn my thread into another dreaded whining episode about mounds of snow. i love skiing bumps of all shapes on all pitches and wish more mountains limited the grooming they do. i'm with ya there. i'm not sayin that i don't bitch about stuff but, my momma once told me, "whats bitchin gonna do for ya?" enjoy what ya got the best ya can and shut up!" love that woman.

rog

 

[Tony Crocker]

As I see it, Boyne is making a positive contribution to eastern skiing. Sunday River is a snowmaking-dependent, mostly groomer type hill, traditional early season leader. Sugarloaf is more big-mountain, natural terrain, and often skis best very late. I recall hearing whining in the past about Sugarloaf closing when it's at its best for the usual reasons of remote location. It looks like Boyne is at least somewhat recognizing Sugarloaf's virtues by keeping it open later.

I'm with icelantic on this one. joegm needs to go up and check it out for himself, and on an appropriate day with warm weather. I know joegm had a very bad experience a couple of years ago, misled by the area's snow report. This time the report is independent and credible.

 

[icelanticskier]

exactly tony. boyne has recognized the two mountains skier markets and the terrain and climates that both mountains possess. i ran into a group of skiers that i know and enjoy skiing with from sunday river and they were all about the groomers and cruizers at the loaf but wanted to sample the snowfields that are unique to the loaf.
the place was by no means dead either mid-week as the folks there were there knowing how good the loaf typically is in the late season. big plus, you can access all of the loafs terrain from 2 lifts and even though 4 were running, to access the same amount of trails at the river they'd have to run at least 10 lifts as sunday river is a horizontal ski resort that's vertically challenged as no single peak is more than 1400 vert.
rog

 

[jamesdeluxe]

That's really unethical to use Biglines' bandwidth to post here.

After helping myself to the money hidden in the mattress of the old lady down the street, I figured that Biglines was another easy target.
:-s

For the record, pretty much all of my photos have been posted using the 640 x 480 process. However, if I have committed any other internet sins, I'd like to apologize for them here.

If it doesn't already exist, it would be nice to provide quick step-by-step FTO instructions for people to post photos and video. I bet that would get more people (in addition to the usual suspects) to include visuals in their TRs and avoid etiquette breaches. I would've added videos to my threads long ago (and learned how to shoot them better) if I had known how easy it is to post them.

 

[joegm]

2800 vert of above treeline steeps to some of the steepest, longest, most character filled bump runs to a, thank god it's smooth lower mountain

yet another hill that just doesn't get it... bumps only on the steepest runs that the average recreational person either cannot ski properly and or don't want to ski and groom the hell out of the less steep , more moderately pitched terrain on the bottom...unreal :roll: god , this industry is so stupid with some things

thanx for the input joegm but, i think the loaf does a good job of keeping grooming to a minimum compared to many other resorts that could ski so much better. as you know, boyne owns sunday river and the loaf and if you look at the grooming count at sunday river it always seems that it's like 90+% of terrain and the loaf is usually around 75% or less leaving many great runs with varying pitches with the little piles that you like to bounce down through with yer knees real close together.

now, i'll be damed if yer gonna turn my thread into another dreaded whining episode about mounds of snow. i love skiing bumps of all shapes on all pitches and wish more mountains limited the grooming they do. i'm with ya there. i'm not sayin that i don't bitch about stuff but, my momma once told me, "whats bitchin gonna do for ya?" enjoy what ya got the best ya can and shut up!" love that woman.

rog

rog also wrote in another thread
"just tellin ya like it is "



just tellin ya like it is rog :roll:

 

[icelanticskier]

joegm, yer not tellin it like it is, you have no clue how it is and that's that.
may sound a bit harsh but, it's true.
you'll evolve someday and adopt a credible style that you can call yer own but, till then, i here a ringing, oh it's the clue phone and it must be for you.

and by the way, go check out the loaf if you like to ski bumps. this is the last time i'll pay you my mind on this thread.

rog

 

[joegm]

joegm, yer not tellin it like it is, you have no clue how it is and that's that.
may sound a bit harsh but, it's true.
you'll evolve someday and adopt a credible style that you can call yer own but, till then, i here a ringing, oh it's the clue phone and it must be for you.

and by the way, go check out the loaf if you like to ski bumps. this is the last time i'll pay you my mind on this thread.

rog

:-({|= :roll:

 

[Patrick]

I recall hearing whining in the past about Sugarloaf closing when it's at its best for the usual reasons of remote location. It looks like Boyne is at least somewhat recognizing Sugarloaf's virtues by keeping it open later.

=D> =D> =D>

To Ice and Boyne.

If only RCR (MSA) or Intrawest or whatever (Tremblant) would do the same.

As being one that what been mentioning over the years about the great late season cover at all these places...you have always been skeptic Tony. :roll: I would say nothing beats first hand experiences.

 

[icelanticskier]

true dat!
you just gotta be here to see it for yerself which is hard to do from cali and from the sounds of it, you don't have much interest which i can understand.

and about the comments on how flexible and free my life is to hit the goods on a daily basis out here. i work 5 days a week like most folks, don't make a bunch of cash but, do have some from some smart investments made in my younger years which certainly helps and yes i'm not stuck in my situation here and could easily pack up everything i own in one load in my paid for honda and move back to foofyland making the same money i make here, pay cash for a house in the avenues or sugarhouse and ski untracked pow in the b.c. 120 days a year like i used to but, the truth is, i just like livin and skiing 100+ days a year out here more always searchin out the goods skiing all kinds of funky stuff in all kinds of conditions, mostly excellent i might add. and then when i need a foofyfix, hop on a plane, ski awhile and come back here to get strong again, to learn to ski again.

here's another example of the east's simple pleasures

 

[Tony Crocker]

With regard to the "great late season cover," I would note that several reports have been mentioning that it might only last another week. Eastern snow preservation in general does not impress me when it will mostly gone at most lift served areas by May 1 of a consensus outstanding season. We've had a mediocre year in the Sierra with maybe 2 feet new since March 1 and there will still be much more snow here on May 1.

That said we do have demonstration of Sugarloaf's late season edge over its eastern competition. 216 inches snowfall vs. ~350 in the northern Vermont snowbelt, yet the snowpack will likely last as long.

 

[ChrisC]

bumps only on the steepest runs that the average recreational person either cannot ski properly and or don't want to ski and groom the hell out of the less steep , more moderately pitched terrain on the bottom...unreal :roll: god , this industry is so stupid with some things

Sugarloaf grooms a lot of key steep runs - Gondy, Spillway, Narrow Gauge, more, etc.

Yet it has some of the best bumps in the East. Bubblecuffer, Winter's Way, more than I remember.

And then the Snowfields. Open more often the Slides, almost an on top of the world feeling.

Sugarloaf is easily a top 5 or more destination in the East. If not higher.


I love some Spring bumps on Flume - great - but Sugarloaf really is good.