Tony Crocker":3gouv2dp said:
Do any east coaster agree with my sentiment?
From what I read here, JSpin seems as much of a powder snob as Larry Schick in Seattle or many Alta locals. It's what he demands, and he's willing to work for it.
In my opinion if one lives in an appropriate climate and has some level of flexibility, there's not much need to spend too many days on conditions other than powder unless you really want to experience those other conditions, or you've got some quest to get well past 100 days of skiing in a season. Now not every day will necessarily be
fresh powder, but with sidecountry and backcountry in the picture there's essentially an unlimited supply of powder during the heart of the season aside from those generally brief periods after a thaw before the next storm rolls in.
A look at my own valley weather data from the past three seasons (individual storm accumulation numbers are available at the bottom of the post) reveals that we've had the following numbers of individual “storms” that featured snow (the amount of valley snowfall for that season follows in parentheses):
2006-2007: 37 storms (153.4”)
2007-2008: 53 storms (203.2”)
2008-2009: 46 storms (179.4”)
Our climate around here has a fairly consistent supply of moisture, and with all the different sizes and types of snowstorms or “events” we can get in this area (nor’easters, clippers, cold frontal passages, warm air advections, upslope events, norluns, mixed events, etc.) I didn’t think there would necessarily be a strong correlation between the number of events and the amount of snowfall. However, the numbers above certainly suggest that there’s some decent correlation between those two values. I’ve only got three seasons worth of data, but there are 136 storms in those three seasons and that n value should provide some power supporting the trend that more storms equals more snowfall. Anyway, if one averages the numbers from the past three seasons it comes out to about 45 storms a season. Now a few of those events will probably have some mixed precipitation that might ruin the chance for powder, but since the numbers are derived from valley observations, those events would easily be compensated by the number of storms (especially early and late season) that don’t even make my list because we didn’t get any snow in the valley. So, I’ll use my average number of valley storms as a rough estimate of the number of storms that the mountains get per season as well. Dividing the snowfall for a place like Bolton Valley (300”/season) by 45 events reveals an average of 6 to 7 inches per storm. So right there you’ve got 45 “powder days” (yes some will be bigger and some will be smaller than the average). For all but a few of those storms, the “day after” is going to offer plenty of powder as well. There might be a few storms that are back to back without a day between them, or a few that are somehow followed by warm air that would ruin the powder, but most storms are followed by colder air that will preserve the snow. So right there you’ve got probably 80 days with relatively easy access to powder. Then add on the rest of the days where the resort might not have had a fresh dump, but there is still plenty of fresh snow available in the trees, sidecountry, or backcountry, and you’ve got a large number of days with powder around.
In theory with Bolton Valley only a few miles away, local backcountry up behind the house, dawn patrol, night skiing, headlamp skiing, etc. I could probably ski just about every day of the season if I really had the drive to want to do that, likely just being limited when I’m out of town. Of course E would probably kill me, but we’re talking theory here. But like EMSC indicated can happen in the Ski Day Count thread, I’m generally looking for reasons NOT to ski, to catch up on everything else in life. It’s one of the reasons I’m not all that disappointed, and in fact partly relieved, when we have a thaw or something around here. Although I’m never really wishing for warm weather or rain since it’s not particularly good for the snowpack, it’s certainly a welcomed break at times. When the skiing was rather lame for that stretch during the holidays this season, I was able to finally install an additional wall of shelving in our pantry. I’d wanted to get that done for quite a while. Frankly I’m amazed at how some people keep up with everything else in life with all the skiing they do.
So in general I’m only going to have somewhere in the range of 40 to 60 ski outings a season, but I’m not going to bust my butt too hard just to add another 50 days on more marginal conditions, especially when I’ve got plenty of other stuff that needs to be done. I’m certainly happy to throw in some good days of corn skiing in the spring or other periods when that’s an option, but during the winter if the snow on the trails is decent, there’s probably powder out there somewhere and I’ll usually try to get to it.
Being a big fan of powder, one thing I do struggle with is making planned destination trips to resorts, especially ones that need air travel. We haven’t been taking big destination trips the past few seasons since it’s not really been worth it with Ty and Dylan’s abilities and stamina levels. Ty is probably ready now in that he could make good use of a several day trip and ski a lot of the terrain at most resorts, certainly when he’s on his alpine skis, but Dylan isn’t really there yet. I know we’ll eventually get around to doing some bigger trips again, but I’ve never been happy with the thought of spending a couple grand to go and ski second rate snow. When the whole family can ski an entire season up at Bolton, and now much of the season at Stowe as well, with the option to hand pick the best days and skip the crappy ones, for half the price of one trip out to the Rockies, it just doesn’t seem to make a lot of economic sense. The thing that will ultimately make trips sensible as the boys get older will be the chance to experience other places and ski different types of terrain, even though we’ll be rolling the dice on snow conditions. I don’t think big heli skiing trips will ever be economically practical for the family, but cat skiing trips like Leigh Daboll of SkiVT-L sets up, or backcountry hut trips depending on how the boys feel about earning turns, could be ways to ensure better snow quality. I don’t recall hearing about too many big destination ski trips from the Utah locals that frequent this forum, so I’d suspect there’s a similar sort of thing going on with more investment in season’s passes to focus on local snow vs. spending money to explore lots of destinations.
Details on Waterbury accumulations from storms over the past three seasons follow below:
-J
