Project 101: USA Road Trip

jamesdeluxe said:
Laugh at the vert of the ski areas all you want but he's scoring nice conditions
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Nice conditions? Maybe surface OK - just a few inches creating PP, but nothing amazing.

But single digit / 0s F and below zero wind chills all day?! No thanks.

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However, this would have been an excellent ski day at Mt Bohemia (below): 10 inches of new snow, 2 feet for the week, and great terrain/vertical for the Midwest!

Avoiding this premium/iconic/best/few times-per-winter experience makes this Swiss guy not 'a skier' but some weird stats-obsessed odball. I also noticed woldskitravller has a "chairlift fetish". And why not? One crazy behavior after another. Collect lifts too!

Why doesn't he care about conditions, ski experience, or specific ski slopes/trails/terrain?

Also, he only allows enough time at a ski area to ride each chairlift once! Therefore, the Midwest mountains only require 60-120 minutes max! Even Lutsen Mountain (the largest MW ski area) was only allotted 2 hours to so.

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I like to "Hate-Watch" some things. Like this Coast-to-Coast ski trip, because it's something I would never execute in the way skiworldtraveler.

My favorite hate-watch show for 2025 was 2 seasons of: the Duchess of Sussex's lifestyle series With Love, Meghan, which focuses on cooking, gardening, and entertaining. Those ex-royals are tiresome.
 
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ChrisC said:
However, this would have been an excellent ski day at Mt Bohemia (below): 10 inches of new snow, 2 feet for the week, and great terrain/vertical for the Midwest!
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+10 Mt. Bohemia is surely one of skiing's unique experiences. These are the type of experiences I like to collect for my ski area count. But from where I live I could get to Niseko faster. It's almost criminal that Project 101 drove across UP Michigan from Jackson Creek (the former Indianhead) in the west to Nub's Nob in Mainland Michigan and turned his nose up at the modest detour to Mt. Bohemia in its prime with 2 feet of powder!
James: AND scoring nice conditions at each brief stop:
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:eusa-think: Most Midwest molehills are way too flat to ski powder. You would grind to a halt in anything over 6 inches. I'm sure everything is groomed to prevent that scenario. James knows all of this. It's not much more convenient for him than it is for me, but surely Mt. Bohemia is James' kind of place. He would make a beeline for it if he were ever as close as Project 101 was this week.

What's with the rampant renaming of Michigan ski areas? I have all that he has skied on this trip in my Google Earth .kml file but four of them have changed their names since 2015.
 
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Today Project 101 drove 470 miles and skied Alpine Valley, Ohio. It looks like he's on his way to upstate NY. Harvey? James? FYI he skied Whiteface, Gore and West in 2019, so anywhere else is fair game.
 
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jamesdeluxe said:
AND scoring nice conditions
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ChrisC said:
Nice conditions? Maybe surface OK - just a few inches creating PP, but nothing amazing.
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Tony Crocker said:
:eusa-think: Most Midwest molehills are way too flat to ski powder. You would grind to a halt in anything over 6 inches. I'm sure everything is groomed to prevent that scenario. James knows all of this.
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You'll note that I posted "scoring nice conditions" and not "powder skiing," because yes, they're too flat/short for anything over six inches.


At least Chris admits what's behind his rage: :icon-lol:
ChrisC said:
I like to "Hate-Watch" some things.
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Tony Crocker said:
Today Project 101 drove 470 miles and skied Alpine Valley, Ohio. It looks like he's on his way to upstate NY. Harvey? James? FYI he skied Whiteface, Gore and West in 2019, so anywhere else is fair game.
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jamesdeluxe said:
He's in western NY: Peek 'n Peak and Holiday Valley yesterday. I assume that Holimont, Swain, and Bristol are next (he appears to have passed on Kissing Bridge?) followed by Central NY: Greek Peak, Cazenovia, Skaneateles, Song, and Labrador.
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Yes, as soon as I saw that he did not get on a plane in Detroit and pushed into Ohio, it became obvious he was simply going to drive. Also, if he was going to ski for 2 months (and has 1 month remaining), there's no reason to fly to Boston/Portland and backtrack, or puddle-jump to Buffalo/Cleveland.

This makes sense: one should try to find the best rate for a monthly car rental. Interesting, he chose Milwaukee as his gateway to the Midwest/East Coast. Assume his West Coast schedule adjustment/upheaval required new airfare, city, or car rental. Maybe not.

Seems like Minneapolis or Chicago might have led to shorter, better-formed driving loops than backtracking from Iowa and Illinois back to Minnesota and up to the UP of Michigan. However, car rentals can be more expensive at major airports (lots of fees added) or expensive one-way rentals.


Assume his schedule will look like this:
  • Indy - it will form the core route through the Northeast.
  • Epic - Mid Atlantic. I have even done multiple ski areas in one day (Liberty & Roundtop - day/night skiing, same lift ticket), (Seven Springs & Hidden Valley - day/night - same lift ticket - now Laurel Mt is added).
  • Epic - Northeast (areas he has not yet skied.)

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Ikon has fewer "collectables" - especially multi-mountain in 8-hour ski areas - besides Blue Mountain/Camelback - and obviously Killington/Pico if he has not already done Pico.

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jamesdeluxe said:
followed by Central NY: Greek Peak, Cazenovia, Skaneateles, Song, and Labrad
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Assume Kissing Bridge is not on a pass product? It's one of the best in Western NY, and one time better than Holiday Mountain. I am surprised he didn't just dive by Holiday Mt. due to cold temps and snow - like all the best mountains in the Midwest.

You can see his Greek Peak Indy Pass cluster.

How long will he ski at Greek Peak - 2 hours? Ride all the lifts once? Make it to Greek Peak East? Definitely not 4 hours.

This guy, until this trip detour, was fully content to ski huge mountains only once (Vail, Breckenridge, Whistler, AltaBird, etc.).), since he'd checked the box/collected the ski areas.


One interesting note: worldskitraveller might complete Harvey's New York State ski areas project by mid-February, and might have "collected" more NY ski areas than him within a few weeks. Two very different styles, motivations, and execution of a NY Ski Area Wish List.
 
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jamesdeluxe said:
At least Chris admits what's behind his rage: :icon-lol:
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Reality TV has become too scripted, manipulated, scenes reshot, focus groups used, etc. It's no longer interesting.

I only like "Below Deck" and any spin-off (Caribbean, Mediterranean, Australia, etc) because they only rent boats for a month to film on and cannot redo scenes.

For me, Coast-to-Coast is a gem because it's so insane and not how any skier would do things.

To me, his trip is a satirical misadventure on how not to take a ski trip.

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ChrisC said:
Assume Kissing Bridge is not on a pass product? It's one of the best in Western NY, and one time better than Holiday Mountain.
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We'll find out later today if he backtracks west to Kissing Bridge.

Also, let's see how extensive his research efforts are when he arrives in CNY -- according to its website, East Hill (100-ish verts), a ten-minute walk from my childhood home, is still open with rope tow access/conditions permitting. Between booting up and skiing the one slope, he'll be able to check that box in about ten minutes. Wow, SnowBrains recently posted an article about it!

Skiing/boarding on the looker's left, tubing on the far right:
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Here I am slaying it in the late 00s while closed on Xmas Day:
 
One could have a bonanza in Upstate/Central New York for collecting ski areas.

Candidated for a single ski day - Day (8/9 AM) to Night (10-11 PM). Although night-skiing seems to have shortened hours these days.
  • Greek Peak
  • Song (same day ticket as Lab)
  • Labrador
  • Cazenovia
  • Skaneateles
  • East Hill

This will impress me! 2hrs 15min of driving, 6 ski areas, and likely 12-14 hours of ski resort operating hours over Fri/Sat/Sun weekend days.

That's Iron Man!


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And I see no reason to waste years in the Catskills trying to ski every different area.

It's really just a day trip with 1 hr 20 min in the car.

One can ski Windham, Hunter, Belleayre, and Plattekill in one day, spending an hour at each (maybe 2 hours at Hunter and 30 minutes at Plattekil)


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ChrisC said:
To me, his trip is a satirical misadventure on how not to take a ski trip.
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lol. Or perhaps how not to take any trip ever?

Very ironic in many ways given the week long stays at Club Med/slow travel methodology of so much of Europe compared to the typically busier US method of holidays.

I haven't been and won't be looking at his online page as I lost interest in anything he actually does or reports; but I am having fun watching the various horrified reactions on FTO.
 
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