How did the EC mountains hold up after this last rain?
- Thread starter rfarren
- Start date
icelanticskier
New member
riverc0il":3lpeab89 said:
not so fast, the inevitable will just be delayed by 7-10 days or so from x-mas day. hot rain and warmth a comin. almost always does. the block is gonna break down.......
just glad we have some snow to melt down into something glacial for later purpose.
tux skied incredibly well on mon/tues this week btw. left gully is about as fat as it ever needs to be. no one else up there. :mrgreen:
rog
Dec. 23 trail counts are still mostly in the 50-60% range. Hunter leads with 83%, though Jay and Smuggs are 79/78%. Stowe is surprisingly only 40%. No question the surface conditions are good though.
jasoncapecod
Well-known member
Hunter percentage is closer to 90/95% open..The runs they have closed are used for race training exclusively ..
riverc0il
New member
You also have to factor in that it is still December. Trail counts will never be much higher than 80% in December. I certainly don't remember seeing any ski area with glades or steep/rocky terrain at 100% in December during my time. I think you'll see a bump in counts for the weekend as the vast majority of snow making trails are finally almost all online at the major areas.Tony Crocker":3no31627 said:
icelanticskier
New member
madriverglen has 40 out of 45? runs open. almost all natural. however, i wouldn't attempt it even on someone else's skis.
rog
rog
berkshireskier
Member
Tony Crocker":zsnwy882 said:
My local "mountain" is now 100% open, on 98% man made snow. Based on conditions last weekend, I would give the skiing a solid B+/A-, if your baseline is "average conditions" for a Northeastern ski area over the course of an entire winter and maybe even deserving of a better grade than that, considering we haven't even hit Xmas yet. Other than that one warm and very wet rainstorm two weeks ago, weather has been consistently cold and good for snowmaking. NO major thaw/freeze cycles YET!!
FYI my historical table is based upon conditions in the northern Vermont snowbelt.
Subjectively this December would move from "below average" to "above average" if there is no rain before the New Year.
Subjectively this December would move from "below average" to "above average" if there is no rain before the New Year.
jasoncapecod
Well-known member
Purna is opened..
/ \
J.Spin
New member
From my perspective here in Northern Vermont, there’s no way the skiing should be classified as anywhere in the “A” range right now. We’ve had some excellent powder skiing over the past couple of weekends, and a week ago Sunday I skied powder that would rate “A+” even on my demanding snow quality scale, but without all (or nearly all) of the local mountains’ steep, natural snow terrain open and skiing well, how can the overall conditions grade be an “A”? Where does one go from there once all the rest of that terrain opens? I’d argue that snow “quality” I’ve seen at Bolton over the past week could easily be placed in the “A” range, since the only areas with inferior snow quality are those where snowmaking has been done and high traffic has pushed away the natural snow, but “quantity” is not quite there yet. Based on the scale at the Best Snow website, which factors in the amount of terrain open, it sounds like the grade should be a “B” anyway. Things could move into “A” territory after this next storm for some mountains, but we’ll just have to see how it plays out.Tony Crocker":1u0spird said:
For any mountain to get an “A”, I’d want to see good to excellent snow surfaces with great coverage boundary to boundary, so I’m not sure that a mountain should ever be getting an “A” if the off piste terrain isn’t yet skiable. I get the impression that especially the “A” part of the range is global, and not something relative to region. If that upper part of the range is scaled downward for a region, then there would have to be a grade above “A” for when it is exceeded.
riverc0il
New member
I don't know Tony's system, but shouldn't letter grading be done relative to time of year (i.e. relative to average for that time of year)? To say that December should never get an A rating because mountains are not 100% open and off piste and sidecountry options are not safe yet is severely under valuing actual conditions. Likewise, if we get 3' of snow in November, wouldn't that constitute something higher than a C even if only half of the available terrain opens? And late season in March, there are often times when 100% of the terrain is open but snow conditions are hard, firm, and scraped due to too little snow. That to me is C--at best--even if 100% of the terrain is open.
I think we need to look at conditions across the entire region as well. NoVT could have done a lot better if the storms had been clippers instead of retrograding coastals. On the flip side, an area normally slow to open terrain like Cannon could have everything open except Tramline by the end of this current storm. Damn near historic for Cannon to be skiing so well this early. In a matter of fact, I have only skied VT once so far this season out of 10 days but I have skied Cannon four times.
Many snow making dependent areas in SoVT and SoNH have also done extremely well due to great snow making temperatures and consistently cold temperatures with only a single warm up/rain event all month. December has not been epic by NoVT standards but excepting the Mount Washington Valley, everywhere else looks to be above average for December. It is easy to forget that many Decembers, we are still skiing on WRODs into the New Year with not much powder and many more above freezing and rain events.
This coming storm is going to be massive for December for many areas. Though NoVT again doesn't get in on the best of the action. But I think it will be enough for the region to warrant a solid A in Tony's book... regardless of month.
I think we need to look at conditions across the entire region as well. NoVT could have done a lot better if the storms had been clippers instead of retrograding coastals. On the flip side, an area normally slow to open terrain like Cannon could have everything open except Tramline by the end of this current storm. Damn near historic for Cannon to be skiing so well this early. In a matter of fact, I have only skied VT once so far this season out of 10 days but I have skied Cannon four times.
Many snow making dependent areas in SoVT and SoNH have also done extremely well due to great snow making temperatures and consistently cold temperatures with only a single warm up/rain event all month. December has not been epic by NoVT standards but excepting the Mount Washington Valley, everywhere else looks to be above average for December. It is easy to forget that many Decembers, we are still skiing on WRODs into the New Year with not much powder and many more above freezing and rain events.
This coming storm is going to be massive for December for many areas. Though NoVT again doesn't get in on the best of the action. But I think it will be enough for the region to warrant a solid A in Tony's book... regardless of month.
