alyeska 12/31/11

J

jojo_obrien

Member
3" new snow this am.

367" since October 1.

I'm still not used to this .......starting out at 10:30 AM . One of the best parts of skiing is getting up at the crack of dawn and getting my a in gear..........ever since i was a kid, I loved waking up at 530 am, excited as a kid on Christmas day. Well, here in AK, you can practically get 17 things done , pay the bills, make lunch, etc. before having to leave the house....

The day goes from 1030 to .....330. At 330....it's done. The light even at 3 pm SUCKS. Might as well go hit the bar at 3:15.........

Figure w/ a 30 minute lunch that leave you about......3-4 hours of skiing.

The whole mountain setup here at Alyeska just......seems to miss the mark? Maybe I'm :dead horse: ......but sometimes it seems the whole mountain setup wasn't done w/ any logic... There are essentially two major lifts servicing advance/expert terrain: a high speed quad and a tram. The high speed quad does not service a significant vertical drop and the tram........is just.....cumbersome.

Now that I"m done ranting........trip report.

Spent all 3-4 hours lapping North Face. It was .........pretty solid.........really great in the lower bottom. I can't complain that I'm skiing thigh to waist high deep snow in many sections, slightly tracked.

All in all........I could be skiing rocks back home at Baldy.

https://plus.google.com/photos/10821492 ... 6JLh1LiWLg

jojo
 
jojo_obrien":5ra83k37 said:
Figure w/ a 30 minute lunch that leave you about......3-4 hours of skiing.
Click to expand...

With that set up I'd skip lunch. With that kind of window, eat a late breakfast, have a power bar or such on the lift for 'lunch' (esp if you are using the tram) and head in when the light gets bad for a larger snack.
 
EMSC":3gtc1k7r said:
With that set up I'd skip lunch.
Click to expand...
+1
jojo_obrien":3gtc1k7r said:
There are essentially two major lifts servicing advance/expert terrain: a high speed quad and a tram. The high speed quad does not service a significant vertical drop and the tram........is just.....cumbersome.
Click to expand...
I was impressed with Alyeska's tram. 2,000 vertical climb in 4 minutes. The top 1,500 vertical of skiing is sustained 30+ degrees. What's not to like? Skiing about the same number of hours you have now (not skiing bell-to-bell and taking a full lunch break) I had a 25/11 powder day in 2007 and a 29K packed snow day in 2011.

The lift system seems sensible for the terrain they have. Putting another lift up higher would be great for the experts, but the existing terrain is already skewed advanced, so not sure how much economic motivation there is to do that. The current catski terrain would make a good intermediate expansion.

That said, Alyeska is a medium sized, not large mountain by acreage. So if that's all you get to ski for an entire season it could get old after awhile, except for the powder days of course. Soulskier is working to change that; I'm not sure you want to stay up there that long. :lol:

jojo_obrien":3gtc1k7r said:
rocks back home at Baldy
Click to expand...
That would be no skiing other than the bunny hill. The rocks would be at Mammoth after the thundering hordes of Zoo Week have trashed the manmade base during unseasonably warm weather.
 
i dunno tony......it's got some good stuff but.....by no means is it "big mountain" like Park City, Snowbird, or Alta......

and i will say......(and some will knock me) that I think Baldy is a special place.......there is a beauty to that place and a spirit to that place that is awesome. it's a bit sad to see what they've done marketing-wise this year....but that's subject for another e-mail thread.

i took a spill on the last run of the day yesterday (it's always the last run of the day , isn't it!!) and my shoulder is........no bueno. i resolve to quit skiing at 3:15 from now on because the light gets....impossible to see contrast......i'm sure glad the sun is heading in the right direction!

jojo
 
The light was still good at 3:18 today. Maybe the days are getting longer?

4 degrees and it felt it.

No crowds.

This is not the kind of place you could ski every day without wanting a bigger playground.
 
Someone whom thinks Baldy is a special place would surely like Alyeska better than Park City. Nonetheless I agree with Skrad.

Marketing is the least of Baldy's problems. Evidently Tom Treaccar (who spent the $ on improvements in 2009) has had a falling out with the long time owners. We should all hope that Treaccar prevails, but I suspect Baldy will be operated in an even more half-baked manner than usual while the situation is unsettled.
 
Tony...........

I see where you're coming from but.........Park City is the sh*...........comon..........the place is a machine.......

And I won't make any mention about the quality of women at Park City v Alyeska.........

I have yet to venture to great state of Colorado but I'm very much looking forward to spending some time there before I become an old man.........
 
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