photo stoke test

[jimk]

I am going to test your ski stoke levels by posting some photos. This will also test my ability to do a photo blast on this site, which I haven't done in a while. Please feel free to post some of your own photos.

Snowbird, UT, in the trees near Mach Schnell, 24 Jan 2017, this snow was good enough for me to remember the exact date :

Sunshine Banff, somewhere in the middle of this view is the border between Alberta and British Columbia, March 2018:

Jackson Hole, WY, my son dropping into Corbet's Couloir, March 2018:

Vail, CO, moi the back bowls, Feb 2015:

Sierra at Tahoe, CA, Castle Creek trees, Jan 2013:

Loveland, CO, Zip Basin, New Year's Eve, 2013:

Sunshine Banff, Delirium Dive, March 2018:

Snowbasin, UT, beneath the John Paul Express chair, Feb 2018:

Black Mountain, NH, summit lift line, March 2010:

Mad River Glen, VT, Chute/lift line, 2014:

That's all for now. =;

 

[EMSC]

Definitely the right time of year for stoke. I've been just a touch busy (this is my only full weekend in CO this entire month for example) so had missed seeing this until now. Interestingly, I think Black Mtn is the only one I've never been to/done as to pic locations.

 

[jimk]

Definitely the right time of year for stoke. I've been just a touch busy (this is my only full weekend in CO this entire month for example) so had missed seeing this until now. Interestingly, I think Black Mtn is the only one I've never been to/done as to pic locations.

Enjoyed your Loveland TR. Ski areas in Utah are behind CO and delaying openings: https://www.deseret.com/utah/2021/1...-ski-resorts-open-snow-forecast-opening-dates.
PS glad photo posts like this survived conversion, gives me encouragement to post more.

 

[Tony Crocker]

jimk's quoted article shows why I usually try to remove October snow from season-to-date totals. If Alta's 67 inches in October don't enhance its opening, that says a lot. The problem is that Alta has had only 15 inches in the first half of November. Alta averages 77 inches for the whole month of November, and as with most of the West, not much is predicted over the next week.

Utah's OpenSnow forecaster Evan Thayer:

The lesson here is that October snow doesn't mean much when November is so warm and so dry.

Targhee looks a bit more promising: 39 inches in October and 40 so far in November.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

99% of all the pix in my TRs are shots I take of other people so to make this an interesting exercise, I'm only posting shots of me, where I handed my camera/phone to my wife, or more likely a stranger, and nicely asked him/her to take a photo.

Sundance UT, January 2006:

Mad River Glen VT, March 2005

Grand Targhee, WY: Jan 2008

Monarch CO, March 2008

Whiteface NY, December 2008

Snowbasin UT, March 2009

Plattekill NY, January 2010 (pic by Harv!)

Grand Targhee WY, December 2010

Mary Jane CO, January 2011

Brandnertal AT, February 2015

Mythen CH, March 2016

Monarch CO, January 2017

Lenzerheide CH, December 2017

Auron FR, February 2018

Sunlight CO, January 2020

Silver Mountain ID, March 2021

 

[Harvey]

What I love about that Plattekill pic... typical Platty Powder day, lift full to capacity, almost no liftline, noone else beside James visible on the trail.

That was the day after Riley, 50 inches of snow:

Chairs loaded, trails empty

 

[jamesdeluxe]

What I love about that Plattekill pic... (...) chairs loaded, trails empty.

Despite it having a tiny footprint (how many acres? I'm guessing less than 150?), it's uncanny how Plattekill manages to spread skiers out so well.

 

[Harvey]

Despite it having a tiny footprint (how many acres? I'm guessing less than 150?), it's uncanny how Plattekill manages to spread skiers out so well.

Everyone measures acreage differently. Pretty sure Plattekill's acreage is old school .... acres of cleared trail. It's significantly bigger than the official number (130?) and getting bigger every year. And that doesn't include OZ:

 

[Tony Crocker]

Pretty sure Plattekill's acreage is old school .... acres of cleared trail.

There's lots of inconsistency in Northeast in that regard. I don't see much in the way of tree spacing in Harvey's pic above, but it's difficult to make these evaluations until you ski an area in person.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

I don't see much in the way of tree spacing in Harvey's pic above, but it's difficult to make these evaluations until you ski an area in person.

That was one of the first things I remember you saying to Guido in the mid-00s when he stilled lived in the northeast: rabbit warrens.

 

[Harvey]

There's lots of inconsistency in Northeast in that regard. I don't see much in the way of tree spacing in Harvey's pic above, but it's difficult to make these evaluations until you ski an area in person.

That pic up top is from the "sunny side." It doesn't hold snow very well, so it doesn't get any attention on our annual workday. THAT DAY, the snow was so deep, it was totally skiable. And because it never gets skied, it never gets skied, if you know what I mean. There were no recent tracks, just maybe one or two from before the most recent storm.

It was mid afternoon(!) and Scottski and I came out after lunch and decide to check it out. It had been REALLY windy and some of the places we normally skied were scoured out and others were hugely deep. We went in off of Powder Puff and it was insanely good. The snow was deep and good quality and I had an out of body experience full confident and charging forward. I felt like that day I left the back seat behind for good, finally out of terminal intermediate land, at age 62.

All of that said, yea you Western guys are pussies, our trees are tight, and you can suck it!

Just kidding, I'm as envious of your terrain and snowfall as I can be, but still proud to be an eastern skier.

Plattekill Powderdaize 2021

The full story.

nyskiblog.com

 

[Harvey]

Holy carp, I just realized you were talking about the IG pic not the one I posted in the other thread.

THAT IG pic is Plattekill sidecountry, state land you can access from the top of the double, with maybe a 100 foot vertical climb. Those trees are insanely well spaced and if you can't ski those I don't know what to tell you bro!

 

[EMSC]

Same trip, different ski days... (Fernie & Castle ski areas). Hell of a trip. Here hoping for some of this somewhere this winter...

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Fernie & Castle ski areas

Nice sequence, EMSC. The third pic is a poster boy for "steep and deep." As my photos exemplify, I'm the king of low-angle pow.

 

[jimk]

I see what you guys did there...pow, pow, pow! Nice.

Snowbird, April powder day 2019, Mineral Basin

Snowbird, April powder day 2021, Upper Cirque

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Snowbird, April powder day 2019, Mineral Basin

At what point in the season does MB's southern exposure affect fresh snow? It looks nice in those April pix.

 

[jimk]

At what point in the season does MB's southern exposure affect fresh snow? It looks nice in those April pix.

I suppose anytime in March you can get some mush back there on milder sunny days, but it starts happening more frequently in late March. But even well through April there are some outlying cooler powder days. The second photo was actually taken Apr 27 of this year and just about the last real light powdery day.
The great thing about Snowbird during normal sunny spring conditions in April is the ability to ski Mineral in the AM and front side of mtn in PM. After a cool spring night the first place where the sun hits is Mineral. You can head to Mineral in the morning sunshine where things will soften quickly both on and off the groom making for good skiing. Then in the afternoon as things get mushy back there you move to front side of the mtn as it softens. And April is so nice because the crowds are light.

Another 27 Apr 2021 photo, from Little Cloud bowl:

 

[EMSC]

How about:

Kid Stoke

Or Backcounty Stoke:

 

[Tony Crocker]

At what point in the season does MB's southern exposure affect fresh snow?

Mid-February is the correct answer if the sun is out and air temps are > about 20F. Skiers should recall that the entire mountain at Jackson Hole has a similar exposure distribution as MB.

Obviously the process of sun melting gets faster every week as the calendar advances past mid-February. If you get an early morning rope drop in April, you'll still get powder. But after an entire day of sun in mid-February, the south facing surfaces will be unpleasant the second day after a storm.

A couple of weeks ago we had dinner with Jimmy Petterson, who has lived in Austria for a few decades though he grew up in SoCal. St. Anton has a similar exposure profile as Jackson/Mineral Basin. Jimmy said that years ago if they got a dump in late March/April, St. Anton would keep the Valluga closed for 2-3 days after a storm, then open when the snow turned to supportable corn.

Today's powder fanatics with fat skis would go ballistic over such a policy, but I see Jimmy's point that it makes sense. If you open that terrain immediately, you get 2-3 hours of powder skiing but then you have unconsolidated refrozen or mashed potatoes for at least a week or two. But once the good corn has set up, it will persist for every clear day with an overnight freeze.

 

[jimk]

19 Nov 2021, nice lunar eclipse this morning, photo taken from the Wash DC area: