Sunday River - Sunday 12/26

S

skibunni

New member
So.. Mother Nature is trying to make it up to me... I had to abandon my beloved Jay Peak because of boiler-plate conditions yesterday & took the drive to Maine. I have to say I thought the day was going to be boring (ho hum) skiing groomers... that's when I heard the snow guns.

I'm not a fan of man-made, but you take what you can get. SR's man-made is usually pretty good, and combined with the natural that was falling-- White Heat was a pretty sweet run.

The rest of the mountains were in decent shape-- if you like groomers.

There were death cookies hiding everywhere. BE CAREFUL! Playing on the edges can be hazardous to your health...

If you were there, I was the one falling on my face... My cartridges froze up! & my skis kept shooting off.. Waaaa. I still had fun. Just had to ski faster.

:wink:
 
atleast the visibility was better than last thursday (12/23). :x you could
barely see 15' in front of you. soft snow, but considering all the r@!n that
was falling the snow wasn't very sticky..........unless you went off trail or
ducked a rope to hit some "fresh powder". i did find the visibility to be
much better under the Jordan Bowl lift. i forget the name of that run, but
it was the best run i had all day. that should say something. :( the
groomers over in that area looked pretty fun too...........IF YOU COULD
SEE. i was bummed about the r@!n, but we tried to make the most of the
day, and did..........after all, i did pay $56 for the day. the drinks
should've been free at the faggy gaggle. ahhhhhh! mabye the
one day i decide to go ride while back for xmas will be a little better next
time.
 
don't ski faster :roll: ... ski slower 8) .. anyone can ski fast!!!!!! :roll: ... forcing yourself to slow down and try to make deliberate turns in the death cookies will make you a better skier :) ... if the conditions stink, why not use it to try and improve :? ... plus as all good skiers know, 99.9% of the time, there are no bad conditions, only bad skiers :wink:
 
Joey...

I have to say I've always lived by the motto(s)... 'What ever doesn't kill you, makes you a better skier' & 'You have to die of something'

But... with Ice cubes bigger than my head littering the trail edges.. I have to say I'd rather live to ski another Pow day.

I'm trying not to take offense at the "bad skier" line. But, ordinarily those are fightin' words...

KMA
:roll:
 
skibunni":1w395nhn said:
IWhite Heat was a pretty sweet run.
Click to expand...

Last night I caught the last half of a news report saying someone had died on White Heat on either Sunday or Monday.

Skier from Massachussets, White Heat, Sunday River. That's all I caught. I can't find anything about it online today.

Anyone have details?
 
kma, please don't mis-understand..
1) believe me, i am not advocating going out and seeking death cookie conditions to ski in... truth be told i've walked off the hill becasue of cookie-itis ( only once, at the cat- 2 years ago :roll: :evil: ) option 1 would probably be not going at all if that's all that's on the menu, i agree... i'm just saying that if you are out skiing, and you find yourself in the conditions that are not typically considered good, like cookies and cubes, make the best of it by trying to get something done, or doing something outside your normal ski box...and i'll repeat it, " anyone can ski fast, very few can turn em going slow "
2) the bad skier line was not directed at anyone specific at all, believe me... it is just the idea... often times i hear marginal skiers complaining about the fact that 100% perfect pp is not on the menu of the day or conditions are "icy"... while we certainly do get icy conditions here in the east, i think the terms is thrown around a little too loosely in a negative way.... " ice can be skied, and it can be skied well if it is skied properly... i'mnot saying everyone should be carving like bode or daron in WC g.s, but really... i sometimes wonder how many of the skiers of today would be skiing if snowmaking and conditions mirrored those of 50 years ago... these are probably the same skiers that would complain about a foot dump of fresh becasue it's " too hard to turn in " those types r the general intended direction of that crack about " bad skiers "
 
SNOW CONDITIONS were ok. it was the visibility that was the BAD
condition part of my day at sunday river. and don't give me any of that
crap about there are no bad days........etc. when the whole mtn has
boiler plate conditions and the edges of the trails have those death
cookies you all get from the manmade being pushed around, that's bad
conditions no matter how much light you try to shed on the situation. i
follow your train of thought though joegm. i think you might just be
looking for some spoice. :roll:
 
I think JoeGM is trying to redeem himself-- I understand where you're coming from. Point taken.

The whole idea of skiing is to have fun whatever your ability. If it's not fun.. then what's the point?

I didn't hear anything about any fatalities @ Sunday River? Yikes--

Pray for snow!

:D

P.S. KMA is 'kiss my a...' Sorry for any confusion.. I apparently wasn't logged in under my 'handle.'
 
Conditions have been pretty icy since the rain last week. I'd say there's a good chance ice contributed to his fatal crash. Bummer. I wonder if he had a helmet on?
 
This is the most common class of ski fatality (like Michael Kennedy and Sonny Bono). Skiing fast on a groomed run, lose control, fly off the trail and hit a fixed object (usually a tree) at high speed. The hard/icy snow raises the chance of losing control. Helmets don't help at those speeds. Sun Valley has 1% of US skier visits but 10% of fatalities because high speed (and uncrowded) groomers on relatively hard snow are a common condition there. Even though the East has more frequent ice, I would guess that skier traffic and narrow trails hold down speed a lot relative to Sun Valley.
 
Does anyone know just how common this sort of thing is relative to deaths from people skiing ungroomed/off-trail? The ratio of injuries between the two?

The past couple of weeks I've been skiing a lot out west on hard groomers (no snow elsewhere, unfortunately!). And I certainly felt much more vulnerable at high speed on these runs than I ever do in my normal bump or tree-skiing at mrg. Partly it's because I stink on the groom, but partly I just never otherwise go very fast. I've hit several trees while tree-skiing, but I'll never hit one very hard while actually skiing the trees...

Recently I suffered my worst skiing injury to date on a headlong tumble at speed on a groomer (fortunately my worst wasn't so bad -- just a minor pull). But horrible to see what happens when someone catches an edge or the like in just the wrong place.
 
Average number of deaths per season inside U.S. lift serviced ski areas (all causes) is about 35. That's why I was blown away by a casual comment in one of the ski mags a few years back by a Sun Valley patroller that they see "3 or 4 deaths a year." But when you look at the Kennedy/Bono incidents and consider Sun Valley's terrain it makes sense.

The typical tree skier is in there in soft snow conditions and not going that fast. You can certainly get injured but the odds on dying are long. For deep powder skiing in the trees, the most likely way to die is probably suffocation in a tree well. There was an tree well suffocation accident at one of the CMH heli operations in the early 1990's which was the subject of a Sports Illustrated feature. The SI writer was a first time heli skier (before fat skis) and he found it very scary.
 
Tony Crocker":3dk6l8l9 said:
This is the most common class of ski fatality (like Michael Kennedy and Sonny Bono). Skiing fast on a groomed run, lose control, fly off the trail and hit a fixed object (usually a tree) at high speed.
Click to expand...

FWIW, White Heat is Sunday River's signature mogul run. While I don't know what condition it was in last Saturday, it would be reasonable to presume that since it had only recently been opened that it was covered with ungroomed manmade snow, potentially with large snowmaking whales and snowmaking still in progress (I believe that trail has fixed tower guns). Usually the combination of somewhat sticky fresh manmade, limited visibilty and large rollers tends to slow people down.
 
even though white heat is SR's signiture mogul run, i have only seen the trail half moguls, half groomed (more groomed than moguls from what i recall). i'd be surprised with SR's reputation for snow making and grooming that they would open a trial with whales. have they done this in the past? personally i have never enjoyed a trail with whales left on it and wonder why resorts even open a whaled trial.
 
Usually they leave stuff whaled early season.

The reason is that the new manmade needs time to drain before you put a groomer on it. If you just put a groomer straight onto it, the tracks tend to compress the snow into ice that you're stuck with for the rest of the season.

Most SR terrain is left whaled for 24-48 hours after snowmaking finishes, at least in the early season. Why? I dunno. I guess it lets them count the trail as "open" without waiting to groom it.

Personally, I prefer a whaled trail to a groomed one most days. More interesting to ski.

I'd forgotten about them often doing a split groom on it White Heat though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top