Project101: USA Road Trip

[ChrisC]

I use the trip reports more as an "evergreen" resource to identify new (to me) places to go, where they don't need to be recent. As noted above, up-to-date conditions is one of the areas where Alpinfans is definitely the better ski forum. It's German-language so of course you'll see those regions more often. As far as France, someone is posting about his current road trip to follow up the one he did a year ago.

This dynamic plays out on the Austrian Ski Reporting site Bergfex as well.

Similar to OpenSnow, it appears that ski resorts submit reports for publication on Bergfex. Again, the German-speaking Alps all submit timely reports for their country-specific snow conditions page. The French resorts always lag, especially for new snow. Bases seem to get reported accurately, but never 24-hour snowfalls.

I'm not going to cross-examine him. The culture at the German ski forums is decidedly not to publicly discuss the planning of destination trips (and certainly not to second-guess them afterward!) as is done here.

A lot of us would get moderator-removed from these sites, and we would have to start Alpin-American.com to continue with commentary.

I politely asked him why he chose that route and his reply is toward the bottom of page 2 -- confirming that the itinerary was more or less set in stone.

I am a little surprised that a skier with such extensive travel and prior visits to the USA/Canada did not notice that the American Southwest (SoCal/AZ/NM/SW CO) is generally a poor choice for December & early January skiing. Most of the time, these resorts are <50% operational over the holidays - especially in New Mexico, AZ, NV, and natural snow SoCal (non-Big Bear). SW Colorado can be OK most years.

To me, this trip seemed doomed from inception. New Mexico has not really had a decent early season in many, many years.

Even Tahoe is iffy until its first big storm, which can happen anytime from early December to late January - or not at all some winters.

A lot of Americans who ski in Europe can pick up on the following after a few visits:

• The Dolomites typically have poor snowfall/off-piste,
• The Southern Alps are always iffy, and
• Expert terrain at Zermatt/Saas Fee takes a while, and
• Eastern Austrian resorts are low and snowmaking dependent
• Low elevation resorts <1500m base/ <2000m summit should be avoided in Spring/March-April.

But even Americans who want Global Skiing to be their careers make these mistakes: PeakRankings called Zermatt the "best mediocre ski resort in the world" in a popular YouTube video due to a less-than-perfect snow/challenge balance. However, paying attention, one might have noticed that very little off-piste is available before February, but a lot in April. Seems rookie for a professional.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Since this is no longer a western-only USA visit, I've moved the thread to the general forum and retitled it slightly. He's currently hitting some midwestern (including Illinois!) mounds that would barely rate as toboggan hills around here. To us, this seems masochistic given the abundance of riches where he's based; however, it appears that the trip has become more about winter cultural anthropology than skiing.

FYI: Google Translate often strips photos out of the translation when there are dozens of pix. Maybe look at the original German version first and then translate it to read his descriptions.

 

[Tony Crocker]

A lot of us would get moderator-removed from these sites

You mean like yours truly and SkiTalk?

All of ChrisC's points make sense, and he probably knew them before he became active on FTO. Still we are probably a well informed bubble in the big picture of recreational skiers.

I am a little surprised that a skier with such extensive travel and prior visits to the USA/Canada....................

Nonetheless how can someone with a level of travel that probably blows away everyone on this forum be that ill-informed????

 

[ChrisC]

Since this is no longer a western-only USA visit, I've moved the thread to the general forum and retitled it slightly. He's hitting some molehills that non-locals wouldn't even consider visiting.

No comments. Multi-hour drives to ski a bunch of random molehills (nice euphemism). Seems insane. It's like an American taking an early-season trip through Germany (minus Garmisch/Zugspitze), hitting all its small resorts. And observing that they all have poor snow conditions or limited operations.

No indication of trying to ski Mount Bohemia (so far from everywhere). I guess he will get to Lutsen.

I had a business partner in Wausau, WI, near Granite Peak, but never required a winter visit. Did visit Cleveland, OH, in January, but was unmotivated to bring skis to ski Boston Mills/Brandywine (most lifts closed until night-skiing during the week). Instead, I only visited the Cuyahoga National Park. I have been visiting National Parks for 20+ years, and this was one of the worst. More like a State Park or Rec zone. Only Hot Springs, Arkansas, ranked lower for me. I have now been to all the Lower 48 NPs except Voyageurs and Isle Royale in Minnesota and Michigan, respectively. Not interested in the expense of remote Alaska NPs outside of my ski-focused visits. Eventually will get to Hawaii, Big Island, for mantas and Volcanoes NP (was to visit Hawaii proper for a destination wedding/groom's home, but the bride and groom broke up a few weeks before).

Also, I am definitely not allowed to discuss the itineraries below on this forum.

After a night in Oshkosh (!), I started the first full day of this second half of my trip well-rested and drove to Granite Peak. This area had given me quite a headache during the trip planning, as it's one of the best ski areas in Wisconsin, but it's located right in the middle of the state and therefore involves some extra effort. Initially, I wanted to approach it from the north, essentially on my way back from Minnesota, but then I decided to include it from the south right at the beginning of the trip. Since I also want to "include" Iowa and Illinois, this adds up to quite a bit of driving.

 

[Tony Crocker]

This is a good summation:

The snow sports area feels like an indoor ski slope without the building.

The weather and often snow surfaces are better inside the building.

I also see a high-speed rope tow for the first time, something I've seen only before. Stormskiing Podcasts I've only heard about it so far. This rope tow has pylons with pulleys over the only return rope is guided, while the uphill rope lies free in the snow or is higher in the air. Other differences to New Zealand are: The distance is shorter, and the rope runs faster.

Implies he's skied a New Zealand club field. James, you HAVE to ask his total ski area count; he mentioned hitting the 100 mark in the US. And try to work in the Taos/CB/Zermatt inquiry. You can leave out the about the Midwest itinerary.

FYI here are our FTO ski area counts for US only: ChrisC 190, Lonnie 157, TonyC 121, Liz 108, MarzNC 98, Jimk 88, James 71, Patrick 54.

No wonder Project101 guy likes Stuart; they have the same MO: no days off (see his daily itinerary in post #2) with some serious driving, sometimes multiple ski areas in one day, obscure places running up the count.

Before we throw too many , recall that Glen Plake and his wife took an extensive motorhome trip through Midwest ski areas a few years back.

And as for the time of year he is doing this, maybe he knows the skiing at home is better in March and wants to be around for that.

 

[Tony Crocker]

James, you HAVE to ask his total ski area count

His Alpinfans page shows him at 717 as of today.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

No wonder Project101 guy likes Stuart; they have the same MO: no days off (see his daily itinerary in post #2) with some serious driving, sometimes multiple ski areas in one day, obscure places running up the count. (...) His Alpinfans page shows him at 717 as of today.

Without doing a full forum search or asking him directly about his motivations; correct, existing clues appear to confirm that we have a Swiss guy using Stuart's roadtrip playbook (or vice versa) to rack up ski areas -- possibly in a bid to outdo Jimmy/Arnie -- so the mystery and handwringing should be over.

Alpinfans is set up to compile massive detail from its posters.

I suppose that if I get sufficiently motivated, I can fill out my own profile page like the one below. Tony now has a working template to recreate his skiing profile on FTO (so people don't need to be referred to his 1998-era website or viewer-unfriendly spreadsheets ).

 

[ChrisC]

Project101/WorldSkiTaveller is not a skier; he's just a hoarder of ski areas trying collect as many as he can and visiting 30-50+ new ones per year. He obviously does not care much about ski quality, experiencing a ski resort at its prime, or catching certain runs open. It's all about the stats, records, and accruing visits! And adding new names to his ski area list. A list of 700 ski areas - many likely skied in marginal conditions and inopportune times since they were "new." The Santa Fe, NM, family visit was just a ruse to justify skiing in New Mexico during its normal early-season drought.

This guy does not really care that he planned his USA Coast-to-Coast ski trip to some of the least snowy parts of the West Coast for January; it was all about checking boxes off of new ski resorts, no matter how bad the conditions were. And Project101 does not care that Banff was having its best early season in history; he's been there and checked those boxes. He was likely more upset that the road to Mountain High got washed out, preventing access. WorldSkiTraveller can change all his lodging on short notice; similarly, one can as easily change flights and rental cars these days.


This is toxic behavior, and I cannot support it. Pure insanity.

I took WorldSkiTraveller/Project101's Lifetime data set and just stripped out the Winter Year and the Number of New Ski Areas visited. It's located here at the bottom of the page under Season Overview. LINK Generally, an entry looks like this:

2018/19: ( 41 first visits ) Ischgl/Samnaun – Silvretta Arena (3) Bromont (2) Scuol – Motta Naluns (2) Corvatsch/Furtschellas (2)Zermatt/Breuil-Cervinia/Valtournenche – Matterhorn Saas-Fee Świeradów Zdrój (Bad Flinsberg) Śnieżka (Schneekoppe) – Karpacz (Krummhübel) Herlíkovice-Bubákov Černá hora – Janské Lázně Spindlermühle (Špindlerův Mlýn) Atzmännig – Goldingen Walmendingerhorn/Heuberg – Mittelberg/Hirschegg Söllereck – Oberstdorf Nebelhorn – Oberstdorf Ifen Oberjoch (Bad Hindelang) – Iseler Skizentrum Pfronten Jungholz Tegelberg – Schwangau Spieserlifte – Unterjoch Breitenberg/Hochalpe – Pfronten Hahnenkamm – Höfen/Reutte Schattwald/Zöblen Nesselwang – Alpspitze (Alpspitzbahn) Neunerköpfle – Tannheim Buron – Wertach Füssener Jöchle – Grän Sonnenhanglifte – Unterjoch Glacier 3000 – Les Diablerets Whiteface – Lake Placid West Mountain Gore Mountain Okemo Mount Snow Stratton Killington Sugarbush Pico Mountain Stowe Sommet Gabriel Sommet Saint-Sauveur Tremblant Morin Heights Sommet Olympia Diavolezza/Lagalb St. Moritz – Corviglia​

​

Here are only the season year and the number of first visits extracted cleanly from Project101's data:

• 2025/26 — 29
• 2024/25 — 20
• 2023/24 — 11
• 2022/23 — 27
• 2021/22 — 42
• 2020/21 — 33
• 2019/20 — 20
• 2018/19 — 41
• 2017/18 — 43
• 2016/17 — 39
• 2015/16 — 41
• 2014/15 — 45
• 2013/14 — 51
• 2012/13 — 35
• 2011/12 — 32
• 2010/11 — 43
• 2009/10 — 40
• 2008/09 — 22
• 2007/08 — 28
• 2006/07 — 40
• 2005/06 — 33
• 2003/04 — 2
• 2002/03 — 1

It does not take a rocket scientist to see the pattern of priority: new ski resorts! Need to hit a quota of 25-50 per year. Impressive to have only started with just SkiWelt in Winter 2002/03.

James - ask him how many ski resorts the Arlberg, 3 Vallees, SkiWelt, or Saalbach contain?


I think I am self-banning from Alpinfans. The forums are good for current conditions, but I couldn't care less about the heavy stat focus. Maybe I'll just avoid the User Profiles.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

I think I am self-banning from Alpinfans.

Hah! I should have known in advance that bringing up Project101 was going to trigger you and Tony.

He obviously does not care much about ski quality, experiencing a ski resort at its prime, or catching certain runs open.

Who does this sound like?

James - ask him how many ski resorts does The Arlberg, 3 Vallees, SkiWelt, or Saalbach contain?

To be fair, certain people here also count individual villages as part of their ski-area list.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I couldn't care less about the heavy stat focus.

I love the stat focus. It shows that there are ski nutcases worse than Patrick and I are! We are dissecting one of those in this thread. If you look down at the 366 day ski matrix, you can see he (188 days) has a long way to go to catch me (266) or Patrick (282 I think).

Another fascinating point about Worldskiraveller (note no T in that screen name) is that his ski day count is quite modest. He's only averaged 26 days/year for the past 7 seasons. There was a stretch from 2005-06 to 2013-14 where he averaged over 40 days. During these past 7 years the overseas trips have been like this one in late December through January. He has not been skiing in February/March much at all (Does that remind us of anyone not skiing top tier areas during prime season? ). Perhaps he has a real job that ties down those months.

Worldskiraveller's focus is extreme, but Stuart Winchester has these tendencies. His objective is to ski every area in the USA, and he uses some of the same techniques of hitting multiple areas in the same day with sometimes nontrivial drives between them. In fairness, you can do that while skiing nearly every run at some of these NY and Midwest molehills.

On my own starting a road trip in 3 weeks, I had plans to run up my area count some, but I have quality standards. I don't see Willamette Pass, Hoodoo, Mt. Hood Ski Bowl, Mt. Spokane or Red Lodge happening if the current awful conditions/limited operations persist.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Today FTO readers can truly have a head-exploding moment following Project 101.

Ski resort collecting sometimes requires difficult decisions. Today is one of those days, on which I have to temporarily bury a long-cherished dream. On the agenda was Lutsen, according to various sources the best ski resort in the Midwest.........I'm probably getting old, but the prospect of a six-hour or more drive in a snowstorm significantly reduces my enthusiasm for Lutsen. .................. Admittedly, that's a long explanation for why Lutsen will remain off my list. Consequently, I'm also skipping Mount Bohemia to keep the likelihood of a future visit to this region high.

So here you are, about to ski "the best ski resort in the Midwest" on a powder day, and you skip it because you HAVE TO BE in Ironwood that night to stay on track for running up your count of molehills. Anything wrong with STAYING in Lutsen overnight, maybe getting 2 powder days??? Or maybe with that forecast you actually make the effort to get to Bohemia???

All of this must be making James' day!

 

[jamesdeluxe]

All of this must be making James' day!

You mean this melodramatic morality play that you and Chris are staging? While I agree that the whole thing is bonkers compared to what I want to accomplish on a destination trip (even though I often go on a series of one-off visits), isn't this more or less the same animal as Patrick's streak?

 

[Tony Crocker]

isn't this more or less the same animal as Patrick's streak?

I think that's an insult to Patrick, actually. Patrick skis at molehills because it's his in-season job. Skiing a whole bunch of them not on your home continent on your own dime is on an entirely different level.

The T has been included in Worldskitraveller's Ski Challenge page name as of today but not in the TRs.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

I think that's an insult to Patrick, actually. Patrick skis at molehills because it's his in-season job.

That's not the point and you know it. I just don't understand the pearl clutching about Project101 and not The Streak. If someone enjoys skiing as a way to reach some desired number, why get so annoyed?

 

[Tony Crocker]

It's not as if the The Streak has received no criticism on these boards. But it's now over 20 years and that discussion has been exhausted.

Project 101 has unfolded gradually over the past 3 weeks and evolved into gradually increasing degrees of insanity.
Stage 1: Doesn't somebody who travels that much track snow conditions at all?
Stage 2: He's locked in and won't deviate come hell or high water. This is quite common among destination skiers (remember GPaul) but in most cases involves losing mucho prepaid expense. But we suspect cost is not much of a factor considering the places he's going and by car.
Stage 3: It finally dawns on us that top priority is running up the ski area count. His Ski Challenge page reveals just how far over-the-top this pursuit is.
Stage 4: We realize that pursuit extends to Midwest molehills with marathon drives between them.
Stage 5: He won't visit the two most interesting places in the Midwest because it would cut down on the number of molehills to add to his list.
Is there more?????
Be warned. He's already been to the Northeast and skied 13 areas in VT,NY,QC in March 2019.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the highlighted sentence below is the second time in this thread (the first was his inaugural post in California) where our protagonist openly states his MO: "Collecting ski areas sometimes requires hard decisions." There's no mention of maximizing the likelihood of good conditions or skiing the best area(s) in a given region.

Gotta love the train schedule-eque planning documents, which fittingly require a Swiss-like adherence to timing.

He finally scores fresh snow at these ski areas alongside and near Lake Superior -- none of which I'd even heard mentioned before (which indicates that I haven't been paying attention to Stuart's adventures). Ouch, no one bothered to proofread this sign:

evolved into gradually increasing degrees of insanity.

You should view this undertaking as a skiing variant of the guy who ate nothing but McDonald's for 100 days. It must be exhausting keeping up this pace for two straight months.

Be warned. He's already been to the Northeast and skied 13 areas in VT,NY,QC in March 2019.

I sent a DM to see if the Poconos are on his list for this visit and offered to join him for a couple runs while he presumably tries to hit all six ski areas in one day. It's entirely possible given that all but one have night skiing.