Sutton - Dec 10th 2006 - Powder again!

B

BigJay

New member
Day no5.
Vertical gain: 3231 ft

After the day we had at Jay, i had to get some more. Sutton was far from being fully open... so they had excellent coverage!

We climbed from the parking lot (yellow) and did 3 runs. The first run (purple) was down a steep pitch with mixed cover... THere was snow but not enough to really lean into... So we switched to the trail next to chair no7. That trail was deep and sweet! Knee deep snow all over... nothing to hit... GREAT!

We met with the AT guys we saw earlier. We decided to follow in there skin track (orange). Spliboard are harder to climb with because they are so flexible... it's hard to get a good grip when traversing... We made it to the top again and went down the trail on the far left of the mountain (blue). By far the best run of the day! Smooth and wide open and needless to say, deeper then anything else available! You could really lean into it and not be afraid to it stuff...

We climbed again (orange) following the skin pack to the top for our last run. The last one was fun... but i decided to drop a small cliff under the chair... MISTAKE! I did a huge core shot on my new splitboard! I'll have to fix it at the shop... The board isn't damaged bad... Just took off some base along the edge... but not delam... pisses me off... but what else can i do! I'll fix it and it will look brand new again! The run was however fun... Lots of snow and little drops all over... precious!

Enjoy the movie:
.... to be updated...

Sutton_CARTE_PS.jpg
 
Great reports Big J

What are you going to do when ski areas starts opening all their terrain?

I guess that might explain your name? (enough said). :-#
 
Patrick":1w8bsrhg said:
Great reports Big J

What are you going to do when ski areas starts opening all their terrain?

I guess that might explain your name? (enough said). :-#
Click to expand...

maybe...

Or maybe i stay on the groomers at Bromont... You never know!

This year is the first year i don't have a season's pass... For close to 20 years i've had a season's pass at Jay and now i decided to do a season of primarly backcountry... I'll buy a few tickets here and there on big storms... I figure i can spend 400-500$ on lift tickets... so that's about 10-15 times on the slopes... Rest of the time, i'll be out there exploring the mountains in the region... and other very well known places...
 
Hey BigJay, I really like the way your GPS track data are comprised of various colors and different types of nice thin lines. It really lets you put a lot of detail into the plot and you can easily still see the data even when you've passed over an area multiple times. I think your December 10th representation from Sutton is the best Google Earth backcountry ski plot I've see yet. Thus far, I've just been using the default (thicker) lines that come in when I bring my GPS data into Google Earth, but I was wondering if you could share any techniques and tips on how to get the different types of lines in there. I sent this frontchannel because I bet there are others out there that might be interested. I think the Google Earth plots of GPS data are one of the most informative ways to represent a backcountry tour and share it with others. Thanks for any help you can provide.

J.Spin
 
Here's the scoop: It's all a big cheat!

Here's what i do:

- I snap a pic of the GPS data in google earth.
- I snap a second pic of the exact same area but without the data
- I open Adobe Illustrator and put both image on top of each other.
- I redraw the lines over the data with the colors and linetype that i want. I takes away some of the accuracy but what does it matter, really?
- I turn off the layer with GPS data on it and save as a JPG file.

It's really easy to do... takes only a couple minutes... And for the elevation graphic i just take exactly what MapSource gives me... i don't have anything to modify on that one...

Hope this helps!
 
That's so slick!

I wish there was a way to make Google Earth do it for me, but the representation is so informative and nice that I think the little extra work is worth it.

I've got Illustrator, so I'll have to give the technique a try on my next backcountry outing. It looks like more powder is on the way for next week! :)

Also, do you just use "Print Screen" to get a copy of your MapSource elevation plot? MapSource didn't seem to have any mention of a way to export it in the program, and the only technique I discovered when I searched the web was to use "Print Screen". I tried using this method to get the MapSource elevation plot from my Dec 31st outing at Bolton, but it didn't seem to work (at least as a first shot on my laptop computer). Thus far I've just been posting the barometric elevation data from my Suunto S6 watch, but it would be nice to display the GPS elevation plot as well.

Thanks again for the great insight into your GPS plotting technique; I can't wait to try it!

J.Spin
 
Yep unfortunately "print screen" is all i got for the elevation data... I run my screen at 1600x1200 so it makes an ok picture to post on the net... I just resize it to what i want and voila!

What i'm looking for now is a way to take the "vector" that you see in google earth and bring it into Illustrator... that way, i could duplicate the exact same line and play with it as much as i want... It would be easier to color-code the line...

I'll try and see if a PDF can be done with Google Earth... maybe that vector could be use then...

Next step is marking the elevation data with the same colors as the Google Earth picture... It would take some more time to generate... and then you have to choose (or try first!) to see if it's worth the extra work...

I wish that vector graphics would be more often used... there are a lot more convenient then bitmap graphics... anyways...

Anyone seen snow lately?
 
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