When Should Eastern Skiers Go West?

I think it depends on the attitude of the less avid skiing spouse. But in general if the older kid is enthusiastic about skiing, taking that kid out of the house for a day/weekend, etc. makes it easier to take care of the younger one. If you can take both kids obviously that's even better.

In my case all trips would potentially draw comment, so I thought it was best to "spend the political capital" on the best areas/conditions rather than when/where it was marginal. The local skiing must be completely non-controversial for Patrick in view of how much of it there is, but it's also Morgane's official seasonal weekend activity.

I knew the split of areas was subject to judgment, particularly the assignment of "Upper Laurentians" to local. I guess I was reflecting admin's disparaging remarks about Tremblant, as I've never skied there. But FTO reports do seem to favor Whiteface, Eastern Townships, Quebec City and the northern half of VT/NH/ME in terms of ski quality.

Vertical of the ski area is a very crude measure of ski quality once you get much over even 1,000. Kirkwood, Sugar Bowl, Mt. Rose and Alpine Meadows are all under 2,000 and all would blow away anything lift serviced in the East.
 
Okay, so here are the changes to better fit Tony's local versus large.

Small - everything smaller than 1,500 includes Bromont, Titus NY, Stoneham, Glen.
Midside - Sutton, Orford, Owl's Head, Bolton VT
Larger East - Tremblant, Ste.Anne, Massif, Burke VT, MRG, Kmart, etc.

Up to 84-85:
8.3 small (generally local)
0.5 midsize (1500-2000 verts)
17.0 larger East (over 2000 verts)
no destination

Looks a lot like my learning years, though we know the reason was $ not ability.
Yes $, but remember that during this period I was aged between 16 and 20. I had family near Tremblant some we would spend time there, but also I would also take the ski buses that would leave daily for downtown Montreal for Tremblant, Lower Laurentians, Jay and Smuggs.

Up to 91-92:
24.9 small
0.8 midsize
5.4 larger East
2.2 destination

There are probably many young SoCal snowboard "park rats" with a profile like this, but the "official" ski teams mostly have their events at Mammoth.

All our training was done on the closer local hills with the exception of a few weekend training one year on the Can-Am SuperTrail at Jay. Training camps were held on all type of hill from small (Blanc, Chanteclerc, Comi), mid (Owl's Head), larger (Burke) and destination (Flaine, FR). All the races that I did fell into the small / local (regardless of distance) category like Bromont and Stoneham.

BTW these two hills hosted World Cup events in GS and Slalom in 1986 and 1993, so even if they fall into the small category, they were big and steep enough to host the World Cup.

Up to 93-94:
5.5 small
2.0 midsize
15.5 larger East
3.5 destination

Looks just like my "new convert" years.
The Ski Free years, no training. Rediscovering big verts and skiing away for gates.

Up to 99-00:
2.7 small
1.2 midsize
14.8 larger East
3.0 destination

To present:
22.2 small
0.5 midsize
11.7 larger East
7.0 destination
Patrick's are so close that they are accessible for night and partial day trips, which I haven't done for a long time here.

The local skiing must be completely non-controversial for Patrick in view of how much of it there is, but it's also Morgane's official seasonal weekend activity.

Although I was happy to rediscover skiing to big verticals after my university days, Masters racing has brought me back into challenging myself on smaller hills. Some people go to the gym, play hockey with the boys. I go and race from +5c and rain to -25c and windy every Wednesday night. :mrgreen: I love it, it gets me out of the house and enjoy the winter air.

I knew the split of areas was subject to judgment, particularly the assignment of "Upper Laurentians" to local. I guess I was reflecting admin's disparaging remarks about Tremblant, as I've never skied there. But FTO reports do seem to favor Whiteface, Eastern Townships, Quebec City and the northern half of VT/NH/ME in terms of ski quality.

Although I'm not a big fan of Tremblant, I believe that it belongs in Quebec top 3 with le Massif. Orford and Sutton would be follow. #1 is Ste.Anne is my books. This said, of all the areas I skied in the East, the only area in the Quebec that I would place in my personal top10 in the East is Ste.Anne.

Vertical of the ski area is a very crude measure of ski quality once you get much over even 1,000. Kirkwood, Sugar Bowl, Mt. Rose and Alpine Meadows are all under 2,000 and all would blow away anything lift serviced in the East.

Sorry, I don't agree. It's Apples and Orange again. You can't compare East and West. :lol:
 
Tony Crocker":2p30s8zi said:
Vertical of the ski area is a very crude measure of ski quality once you get much over even 1,000. Kirkwood, Sugar Bowl, Mt. Rose and Alpine Meadows are all under 2,000 and all would blow away anything lift serviced in the East.

A more reasonable quality metric is average snowfall and f(skiable acres, uphill capacity, skier visits). To get the best skiing surface, you want lots of natural snow and very few people tracking it up.

Examples:
I used to love Whistler when it was all rickety fixed-grip lifts and unknown to Americans. You could find untracked spots days after a big dump. I think the skiing quality really degraded as they added all the high speed lifts and went from a few hundred thousand skier visits to a couple million.

Killington used to have a (relatively) great skiing surface back in the early 1980's when I first landed there. They now have 3x the uphill capacity and the skiing surface is lousy. Skier visits have been fairly constant so what actually happened is the people got moved from liftlines to the trails and people get many more runs per day.

For our western trips, we now gravitate to smaller ski areas with lots of snow and fixed-grip lifts. We caught Monarch last March when it was overrun by Texans on "spring break". 4 or 5 days after the last significant dump, anything with any pitch to it was still lightly cut-up powder. The Texans would only ski the groomed wrap-around trails. There were moderate liftlines but the resort can't pump enough people up on the hill to degrade the skiing surface.
 
My Mt. Rose experience on Sunday of President's weekend 2005 was much like Geoff's at Monarch. Mt. Rose heavily publicized the opening of the Chutes for that season, but most of the people there were on the 2 main chairs and intermediate terrain. So the Chutes had not only the powder from the 8 inches overnight, but also from another 8 inches 3 days prior.

Mt. Rose and Sugar Bowl are examples of western areas that are considered "small," but have runs of a pitch that is far beyond anything in eastern lift-service (the original comment from riverc0il that started this thread). A-Basin is another example.
 
Tony Crocker":nbqitkiw said:
Mt. Rose and Sugar Bowl are examples of western areas that are considered "small," but have runs of a pitch that is far beyond anything in eastern lift-service (the original comment from riverc0il that started this thread). A-Basin is another example.

You're taking about steep and long steep stuff. I like variety, all kidding aside, The Slides at Whiteface are pretty steep and long for the East or West. (okay, it's rarely open).
 
If I see the Slides at Whiteface right from Google Earth, they are hike-above-the-lift terrain analogous to the Ridge at Bridger or Highlands Bowl. Same grunt work required, limiting how many times a day you can ski there. And the Slides are probably skiable about 5% as often as the Ridge.
 
Tony Crocker":2jyhcjf4 said:
If I see the Slides at Whiteface right from Google Earth, they are hike-above-the-lift terrain analogous to the Ridge at Bridger or Highlands Bowl. Same grunt work required, limiting how many times a day you can ski there. And the Slides are probably skiable about 5% as often as the Ridge.

Actually they're basically on the same level as the top of the summit chair, only slightly uphill to reach some of the lines. I suspect that you're looking at the chutes off the summit.
 
Admin is correct.. You come off the top lift and turn right . The gate with the toll keeper is right there. I have only seen the slides opened once . That time you need full avi gear and partner with the same to ski them.
 
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