2 feet + on the Tug

[rfarren]

I have to agree with Tirolpeter on this one. The hardest part for me and living in NYC is watching great conditions past me by 5 hours to the north because of my job. Sure, a turn is a turn, and you can learn a lot about all sorts of conditions around here. I have a pass at mountain creek not because its an amazing mountain, but because skiing is that important to me. The truth is though, that there are years in the east coast where, for a New Yorker, powder is a rarity. I love Jay, and stay up in burlington, lake placid quite often. My experience is: you get powder and great conditions when you work for it. I.E. you make unscheduled vacations by the seat of your pants. You do it because bestskiweather tells you to. If you just hope the conditions are going to be great, fuggetabowdit! 8)

 

[Tony Crocker]

I'd take my chances with being the spoiled baby. It must be frustrating for people like cweinman (in the other post) to read River's reports (with his .700 powder batting average) and then have to deal with the rain and freeze later this week because he scheduled the trip more than a week in advance.

River has demonstrated time and time again that flexibility is the key. If you can't be flexible you need a different strategy; go somewhere more reliable for scheduled destination trips.

I do believe the easterners on the subject of driving. Out here, most of us do not live in the snow, thus don't have snow tires and feel the dependence upon AWD or chains. But I've read and heard enough from the experts to believe what they say about good snow tires being the most important factor if you have to deal with full time winter driving.

butter-smooth corn. They are far more elusive than mid-winter powder days

That's definitely a "Utah spoiled baby" comment. I can assure MarcC that the the corn days are far more common than the powder days in California (can we trade a few of each?). Scarcity plays a big part in the reasoning why 99% of dedicated skiers value powder the most.

I bring sunshine to Utah just like Sharon. I also brought sun and T-shirt weather to Vermont in 2003 :wink: .

 

[Harvey]

And why on earth are we posting this stuff in the Eastern forum, to say nothing of once again stirring the pointless debate of East vs West?

Yeah go pick on the mid-western forum for a while.

Per James D....maybe we could start yet another forum called the Food Fight Forum.

 

[cweinman]

Wait, they ski in the midwest?

 

[riverc0il]

This is funny to me personally...your first sentence and last
sentence here...if you could only see my driveway, you'd probably
consider changing your stance...it's one of two reasons I own an
AWD Subaru...One to make it out of my driveway...Two to make
it to Smuggs and then back up the f'r on a powder morning... :wink:
Maybe with chains...forgot about that...but who wants to deal
with that just for their own driveway when AWD can suffice?

HogbackVT... you got me on that one, kinda. I was primarily thinking of typical skiers heading up from the flatlands on pavement. I have lived in VT and know some of the roads up there... certainly a major need for AWD and all terrain vehicles to get from the drive way to the road in many rural areas. I had a few scares myself when I lived in VT of "oh boy, I hope I can get out this morning to go chase this storm." But for those not challenged by drive ways, my point does stand. Not so much passing off personal experience but I did not include qualifiers to my statement. For 99% of skiers, especially those that only drive on pavement and do not have drive way access issues nor have to go over mountain roads that have poor plowing, I stand by my statement.

 

[riverc0il]

If we had powder every day, we'd end up being spoiled babies like Admin and the rest of the Utards :wink:

Don't forget about me, I consider myself a spoiled baby Even if I am not a Utard.