Do You Count Days, Vertical, Both, or Neither?

A lot of folks include stats in their Trip Reports. Some included their total days for the season while others include Vertical Stats. Some do both and some do neither. So do stats matter in your skiing and why? Do you enjoy keep tracking or is it too much of a hassle for you to be bothered?

I keep count of Days only. Sometimes I count vertical but only when earning turns to measure how well my stamina held up against the challenge. I can not be bothered to keep track of all my runs and the vertical gain of each. Even a short day of ten to twelve runs would be too much hassle. Also, I do not believe vertical is a measure of quality since you can ski top to bottom on two thousand vertical feet all day long and have a blah day of skiing whereas you can also earn one run that is the best run of the year.

Days are important to me as it indicates how much I am getting onto skis. Even if it is just for a few runs or earning a single run, it is a day spent on the snow and every day spent on snow is precious whereas not every vertical feet is very precious. We only have so many days avaiable for us to ski in our lifetime. One of my goals as a skier is to maximize those available opportunities so that when I am (hopefully) approaching late life and no longer able to ski, I will have left nothing on the table. Earning turns also means days count much more than vertical as a measure of a season. So I count days.

Not included on the poll (because I wanted to keep the options to only four!), I also count dollars spent on lift tickets and divide that number by days to get an average dollar spent on lift tickets per day of skiing. Kind of a barometer of my seasonal spending habits per day of skiing. Not excessively important, but I am conscious of my limited financial resources and enjoy tracking my spending habits and maximizing my value per day ratio. I have debated adding into my Lift Ticket stats "true cost of skiing" stats including gas, on hill food, lodging, etc. and maybe even equipment costs. Equipment costs are hard to figure since they would (hopefully) need to be averaged out over several years and different equipment ages differently. I essentially decided against this option because these are non-controlable expenses based on my desire to ski certain locations at certain times and equipment needs to be replaced or bought based on need.

My tentative season total stats are here for reference. But I think I have at least one more day in me so I am not calling that the final season total quite yet.

I've been counting my days since 1981-82 with information on where I skied, with whom and which skis (added later). There also length of season, average day between ski days, BMI (Big Mountain Index) which is the cumulative vertical of ski areas skiied, average vertical of ski areas.

Recently, I've started counting (not always) number of runs - but not always keeping track of them in my database. I believe the 28 runs midweek cold day at Sugarloaf with Lucky Luke a few years back is probably a record on number of runs (big hills of course) and vertical (although I didn't do the math). I believe that Lucky Luke said we did Everest and a half. :twisted:

I've also calculated a few vertical days starting maybe last June at Mammoth and maybe half the time this season. These aspect of my stats aren't necessarily part of my normal records keeping.

Other stuff that I have counted in the past but never made in my database is price of lift tickets, temperature and snow quality.

Do I enjoy it? It's become more of habit. I find it very useful and helps me remember my season later on. However if I would ski at the same area everytime I would probably be hard to remember the difference between ski days and seasons.

Days only for me, more as a measure of how much I'm getting out skiing than anything else.

I gave up counting when I started summer skiing. I have no idea when counting begins & ends.

I suspect the detail of my records is exceeded on FTO only by Frank. Even though I have a "garbage can memory" after 30 years and 780 ski days you will forget stuff if you don't have some kind of records. There is some utility. For example, after the nice corn weekend of June 10-11 at Mammoth, I did wonder, "how often is it like that?" and due to the recordkeeping I could look it up.

Vertical is more important as long as you don't let "the tail wag the dog" and let it influence choice of terrain. Even though I did it for 17 years by keeping a running chairlift total in my head, it's much better with the altimeter watch when I only need to check a few times a day.

I have a hard time saying just days is a good measure. To use Patrick as an example do you really want to equate a couple of hours at a local Ottawa hill to the wire-to-wire powderfest at Jackson on January 29? Vertical + powder vertical is the best crude/simple measure of quality IMHO, both at the day and season level of measurement. Counting that Jackson day as 43K (31 + 12 powder) puts it in my top 10 lifetime, which is where I would also rank it subjectively.

I do have plenty of respect for the backcountry, earn-you-turns skiing, even though I've done only a little of that. It's logical to track that separately, as both river and I do. I have little doubt some people consider their best backcountry days among their best overall. But I would also contend that any day where vertical + powder is close to 40K would rank highly in anybody's book.

In an overall context I do have a good idea of the $ as well. For 10+ "family years" it was around $5-6K per year, which I hope is not an unrealistic budget for many skiing families. This covered around 60 ski days distributed (not equally) among 4 family members and was inclusive of things like equipment, travel/lodging cost and day care for kids when below skiing age. The "Warren Miller years" raised that budget 50% or so, and the last 2 years, unconstrained by a non-skiing ex-wife, are in a different league due to indulgences like Las Lenas and Mike Wiegele.

Good point seperating out regular vertical from powder vertical. You are right in that one earned run in powder does not compare to 7 straight hours of lift serviced powder. Though in New England, rare is the day that powder lasts all day. I remember one time at Cannon last year (I think it was early season so limited terrain was open and a lift delay on the summit lift did not help), I only got one single "powder" run, then it was all sloppy seconds. Obviously mid- to late- season (especially when sidecountry options are on the table) is a different story as I have had almost every run on a Cannon day be a powder run, and days like those are unreal. Same with a few days at Jay earlier this year. That is why I also track powder days, which I had 9 this year out of 32 total days. Of those nine, 5 lift serviced 5 back country. I am generally more fond of the backcountry powder days to be frank. No competition, top to bottom untracked, and no competition, and the days of 1.5-2 feet certainly was better than anything I got lift serviced too.

I can see that the limitations of eastern terrain vs. number of bodies on the hill might make the backcountry powder days more rewarding. Larry Schick in Seattle blends the two in an impressive way at Crystal Mt, which has lift accessible backcountry covering at least as much acreage as the in-bounds. In the mornings he's probably out there in the feeding frenzy like I would be at Mammoth or Snowbird. But once the in-bounds is cut up much he'll do the 20 minute traverse/ short hikes into the North or South Backcountry (which is still avy-controlled by patrol).

I tried to get him to figure out what his vertical is on these powder days but he doesn't really know. He had one March 9 that was nearly all in-bounds due to light crowds and we guessed that one was at least 25K, 20 in powder (comparable to my 27/22 day at Baldy in 1991). The finale to March 9 was a North Backcountry bowl long enough for 43 turns in the 2-3 feet of untracked. Better than heliskiing he said, and I won't argue with that.

Larry made it clear that if there's much skier traffic he'd rather do the traverses and continue to ski fresh lines. My guess is that he has a lot of 15/10 days but of very impressive quality. He says the North and South Backcountry never really get tracked out; it's more a matter of whether the fickle NW weather eventually messes up the powder via warmth, humidity or rain. But some years up there (1999, 2002, 2006) the temps stay low enough and it snows so often that he can get some powder most days he goes out. And this year he arranged a flexible enough job schedule that he could cherry pick 10 midweek powder days of 1+ foot new snow minimum.

I think riverc0il would enjoy living in the Northwest.

Geoff":1ikcoki8 said:

I gave up counting when I started summer skiing. I have no idea when counting begins & ends.

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A quandry indeed. Which season does it fall in?

salida":3j6mn2cs said:

Geoff":3j6mn2cs said:

I gave up counting when I started summer skiing. I have no idea when counting begins & ends.

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A quandry indeed. Which season does it fall in?

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We had to discussion before in the old FTO a few years back.

Personnally I would count everything before October here (in the East or the West) as being the start of a new season, however I've never had a summer season before. I also believe that Skistreak.com guy also count that way.

I believe Tony mentioned that he counted his Southern Hemisphere days seperately.

Tony Crocker":3j6mn2cs said:

I have a hard time saying just days is a good measure. To use Patrick as an example do you really want to equate a couple of hours at a local Ottawa hill to the wire-to-wire powderfest at Jackson on January 29? Vertical + powder vertical is the best crude/simple measure of quality IMHO, both at the day and season level of measurement. Counting that Jackson day as 43K (31 + 12 powder) puts it in my top 10 lifetime, which is where I would also rank it subjectively.

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Personnally I find vertical as interesting measure, however it just another number. The best example is that someone could probably rank up the vertical at a place like Bromont or St.Sauveur with only HSQ and probably easily surpase the possible day verts from a place like Mad River. The only limitation is probably the boredom (especially for MSS). I've calculated my verts for a two hour of night skiing at Edelweiss (Ottawa local), however I have the number at home.

The best example of that this measure doesn't necessarily correlate with degree of satisfaction is my May 7th at Tuckerman. Total skiing vertical was something like 440 meters in one day or just over two runs at Edelweiss.

The best measure would definitely be a ORGASMATRON :shock: :shock: :shock: tied in to your brain waves, there you could measure best satisfaction for the day, year, favorite run, favorite day lifetime, etc... This wouldn't be a subjective opinion anymore. :twisted:

As far as I'm concerned, summer skiing is an extension of the ski season. I therefore consider those days as part of the preceding season, up to until ski lifts start officially spinning in the Northern Hemisphere.

In that old discussion I said I drew the line at October 1. Before that you are usually skiing on the residue of the previous winter. In October it's more likely to be the first dusting of the new season (admin along Alta's rope tows last year for example). And the Southern Hemisphere season all fits in at the end too, as virtually none of us northerners are down there for their spring skiing in October.

With regard to Patrick's point I admitted that vertical could be distorted by yoyoing groomers off a HSQ all day but that mine generally isn't. Out here nearly any day I consider worth skiing will have a good dose of off trail natural terrain. If it's restricted to a handful of WROD's I'm inclined to stay home. I realize that those standards would greatly restrict the amount of days and/or vertical that an eastern skier could get.

On April 28-29, 1990 I skied 3 runs in Tucks one day and 12K of slop at Killington the next. It's perfectly understandable to me why many easterners would prefer the former. Out here I'm much less inclined to suck wind at 11,000+ above Tioga Pass given the variety and quality of what's still lift served at Mammoth. Patrick may have the opportunity to make this comparison next weekend.

I count days, but not really on purpose but just because I have so few days that it easy to remember. :x And the only time I have counted vertical is when I went up Mt. Washington for the first two times this year. My first Tucks trip I got around 4,200 ft. and my GoS trip I got around 4,800 of uphill hiking but only 3,000 ft was skiable. In the next few years I want to go for a 10,000 ft. day.

Perhaps some of you have have heard of Greg Hill, who combines my tracking of vertical with riverc0il's appreciation of the backcountry :wink: :
http://www.pawprince.com/pawprince/writ ... rnings.htm

Another one of the ski stories that tend to make amateurs such as myself very humble.

a daily average of almost 7k verts earned over the course of 145 days! with one day clocking in 40k earned verts in less than a 24 period 8-[ give this man a =D> !!! that is more than most folks get lift serviced in a single day!

I wonder if his skinned burned onto his skis, or if he used wax.

I only keep track of the number of days skied in the past year, and a rough mental record of previous years.

So I know that I skied only 4 days this year, more than that last year (not sure how many though), and that my most ever was about 35 days when I was in high school.

That being said, I may just start keeping track of days and estimates of vertical from now on..

None of the above.

I count nothing but good days when I arrive home safely, smile on my face, crash into bed and sleep like a baby. At my age, there is nothing I need to prove and nobody to impress; I make the most of each day; you never know when it could be your last.

What billski said!!!!!!

'Cept this year I'm probably gonna count it as the first one in 8 yrs. we didn't ski in January. Caramba!

But......., making plans for late March/early April!