Early vs. Late vs. Off-Season Skiing

CWHappyRN":2jupc0xj said:

Tony is usually not very enthusiastic about early snow. I am! (...) It was nice. No rocks at all, not hard, not crowded. Folks are not very interested early or late season.

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My experience with the early is slightly different. I love skiing anything anywhere, but I have bigger issue related to crowds on limited terrain on far from perfect conditions area charging almost full price. However this might be an Eastern thing only.

We had this discussion her before I believe, but people (in the East anyways) tends to be more motivated skiing in November and early season than Spring even if the coverage, quality and price are much better. :roll:

Admin might be able to confirm this? How much traffic is on his website in the Fall versus in the Spring (official start in late march)?

Patrick, site traffic is much busier in fall that in spring, indicative of the phenomenon you describe.

For the first few years I tracked my website traffic and the peak was late November/early December.

CWHappyRN did not experience crowds on Loveland's limited runs because she was there midweek. Weekend skier density is at its worst in November due to limited trails open. Claudia Carbone's (past NASJA President) broken pelvis and fused vertebrae surgery are the result of an errant snowboarder in November 2004 at Breckenridge. With a high speed six and a just a handful of runs open on manmade snow I'm sure we can all visualize what it was like.

The required quality for a ski day rises as we expend 1) vacation days, 2) lodging costs and/or 3) airline tickets. It is not worth expending any of the above IMHO for WROD skiing in October/November. At the other end of the season I'm delighted to expend #2 at Mammoth as late as July as the skiing is far more interesting.

I'm pretty stingy with the vacation days and save them for destination travel, of which a bit over half is skiing. I'll only take off midweek for SoCal local if it's a powder day, average less than once a season. In the Northern Hemisphere I've only once paid for an airline ticket to go skiing before January, and that time I had free lodging and there was lots of November snow on the ground before I booked.

If you live in Colorado this weekend's upcoming skiing is definitely worthwhile.

Tony,

Just so you know, your praise of spring skiing does win converts. I skied 20+ days a year in my early 20s, took 10 years off for professional reasons (college basketball beat reporter, almost impossible to take a day off from mid-Nov to the Final 4), then got back into it heavy 3 years ago.

My heart wants to hop a plane in November, but instead I stamp down that desire and hold out for better conditions. Had a great week in Colorado 2 years ago. Was worried about snow conditions (silly Midwesterner), but jumped in at least partially because of your posts. Was rewarded with fantastic conditions, including the storm of '05 that shut down the Denver airport for a day.

20 days last year, all in Colorado, Utah and Wyo. Hope to do at least that this year, at least a week of which will be in the spring.

Patrick":3rmid6wm said:

... I love skiing anything anywhere, but I have bigger issue related to crowds on limited terrain on far from perfect conditions area charging almost full price. However this might be an Eastern thing only....

... people (in the East anyways) tends to be more motivated skiing in November and early season than Spring even if the coverage, quality and price are much better....

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In the fall I have difficulty envisioning any ski trip because I am still trying to catch up with my work backlog that accumulated during the previous late spring skiing trips. Even so, some years I cannot resist an early season trip if the conditions are really good and the majority of the area's terrain is open. Such trips always seem to have a low skier density. But any fall trip will be 2-3 days at most.

Tony's formula for maximizing ski trip enjoyment pretty much describes ours too. We abhor lines and the threats existent on crowded trails. The formula heavily favors late spring trips over fall ones. As a result, more than half of our seasonal ski-days are accumulated in late March-April.

Cheers,
Jeff

look'n4powder":10jevdw3 said:

In the fall I have difficulty envisioning any ski trip because I am still trying to catch up with my work backlog that accumulated during the previous late spring skiing trips.

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Same here. :roll:

look'n4powder":10jevdw3 said:

more than half of our seasonal ski-days are accumulated in late March-April.

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I was curious, so I decided to look at my numbers (since 1981, excluding Wednesday)

October: 2
November: 24
December: 61
January: 198
February: 142
March: 160
April: 96
May: 55
June: 21
July: 4
August: 2
September: 2

Pretty much what I suspected...Spring wins hands down. An amazing stat is that I've almost skied the same number of days in November and June.

skibum4ever":10jevdw3 said:

That said, the top will open tomorrow and the new terrain should help spread out the crowds. We plan to be there before 9 am. This is how it looked today:

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Thanks for the update skibum4now, happy to see that your getting some October regardless of the issues mentioned.

Day count is quite similar in total to Patrick's and far more similar in distribution than I would have expected. Only in the January to March core of the season do we see the expected difference between East and West. For July 9 days are at Mammoth and 4 in the Southern Hemisphere.

October: 2
November: 13
December: 70
January: 140
February: 171
March: 197
April: 100
May: 55
June: 7
July: 13
August: 10
September: 8

Median midpoint of my season is Feb. 28 for days, March 3 for vertical.

Tony Crocker":3vud5y3v said:

Day count is quite similar in total to Patrick's and far more similar in distribution than I would have expected. Only in the January to March core of the season do we see the expected difference between East and West. For July 9 days are at Mammoth and 4 in the Southern Hemisphere.

October: 2
November: 13
December: 70
January: 140
February: 171
March: 197
April: 100
May: 55
June: 7
July: 13
August: 10
September: 8

Median midpoint of my season is Feb. 28 for days, March 3 for vertical.

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It kinda scares me how detailed you guys are with your stats..

I couldn't even telll you what I had for lunch yesterday! :lol:

snowave":2tbewaul said:

It kinda scares me how detailed you guys are with your stats..

I couldn't even telll you what I had for lunch yesterday! :lol:

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Ditto.

Admin":bv0ukd17 said:

snowave":bv0ukd17 said:

It kinda scares me how detailed you guys are with your stats..

I couldn't even telll you what I had for lunch yesterday! :lol:

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Ditto.

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And with the danger to killing a kitten: ditto for me too!!!

Actually, I must confess jealousy of the days Tony & Patrick have logged between June-Oct. I have yet to ski in those months. The closest I came was in 1999 when my wife and I began plans for an August/September ski trip to Las Lenas and New Zealand. But then I found a surgeon that could scrape out some cartilage damage in my hip (remaining from a broken femur from long ago; dang ice!), so I opted for the knife--not fun but worth it. I know that off-season skiing is usually overrated, but I'd still like to log days in those months.

Jeff

All of my July-September skiing has been on "mixed vacations" where I've done other things. Tioga Pass is always open so I have usually spent close to equal time in Mammoth and Yosemite (or river rafting) on the 4th of July holiday trips. Sometimes Tioga is still closed in June, but those are the years when Mammoth is loaded with snow and it's usually worth skiing both days of the weekend. Even then you're done skiing at 1-2PM and it's daylight until 8:30.

The same is true for the Southern Hemisphere vacations. New Zealand is particularly suited to varied activities, which is fortunate due to snow reliability which is not the greatest. Air travel to the Southern Hemisphere is not cheap, so it makes sense to stay down there for at least 2 weeks.

look'n4powder":1x1ajivs said:

Actually, I must confess jealousy of the days Tony & Patrick have logged between June-Oct.

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Last year was the first season I even skiied in October, July, August & September. The season became a quest when I realized I could ski maybe 12 months in a row. All this because of those days on that freak snowstorm at Wildcat back in October 05.

As for those 21 June days, 8 of them were done at Killington in the good old days, 7 at Mammoth in the last two seasons and 6 at Blackcomb back in 1988.

If you look at the average distribution per year, it isn't that extraordinary. Were talking 25 seasons.

October: 0.1
November: 1.0
December: 2.4
January: 7.9
February: 5.7
March: 6.4
April: 3.8
May: 2.2
June: 0.8
July: 0.2
August: 0.1
September: 0.1

Year: 30.7

Tony Crocker":1x1ajivs said:

Day count is quite similar in total to Patrick's and far more similar in distribution than I would have expected. Only in the January to March core of the season do we see the expected difference between East and West.

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I don't know if we're representative of the East versus West. Mind you that I was a student for over 11 seasons in those stats. Skiing on weekend and days off (christmas break and march).

While in university, I virtually didn't ski late November till after Christmas, same type of things for late March and April.

I can easily breakdown the analysts since I left university, however I think that enough of the detailed analysis that some of you can take. :lol:

snowave":1x1ajivs said:

It kinda scares me how detailed you guys are with your stats..

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Happy Halloween...remember there will be an exam on this later. :twisted:

I'm happy to see outside that today marks the first day where the snow is accumulating on my front lawn.