Patrick's Eastern Closing Thread

jamesdeluxe said:
None whatsoever. I broke my femur at The Canyons in April 2002 and was skiing eight months later, then broke my tibia at the end of January. The tibia took far longer to heal but I was back on the snow the following December. No injuries since then!
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Good on you. I nurse a dodgy meniscus permanently. I can only imagine what effort it takes to recover from a genuine leg injury.

Oh I did dislocate the sternum end of my collarbone and skiers break my thumb in a particularly bad crash in the Dolomites a few years ago. I didn’t miss a days skiing as the injuries were only confirmed when I got X-rays back in Australia two weeks later. Plain stupidity looking back now.
 
Case in point, Gore Mountain.

Here is my buddy's yard, 200 vertical feet below the base of Gore:

278892796_10225060964250212_4746729776669879833_n.jpg


Gore reported 6 inches.
 
It's fascinating how more than a decade of Harv nudging Gore's marketing department to provide accurate snow reports hasn't paid off. I guess they don't think that it's worth the effort for their core audience.
 
This year they hired Stephanie to be the marketing person to replace Emily who now works for Mike in LP. She was responsive, although we had some disagreements on amounts. She was trying to take it to the next level. She didn't last a year, she quit at the end of March.

If anyone cares, I will tell my webcam story when I get some time.
 
So after posting 6" yesterday hours after the snowfall stopped, Gore just updated the storm total to 18" which I'm sure is more accurate.

Still WTAF.

@Tony Crocker if you are indexing NY mountains to Killington remove an extra 10-15% for the (lack of ) green mountain effect. Method probably works well as is for mtns in SoVT.

14 year NYSB Gore average snowfall stands at 121 inches.

nyskiblog.com

Gore Mountain Annual Snowfall

A definitive summary since 2008.
nyskiblog.com nyskiblog.com
 
Harv, do you have the "official" numbers from the ski area to compare to yours?

Time to break out this Gore discussion from the Eastern Closing thread.
 
I'm not sure Harvey understands what the indexing means. During the 52 common months of data Gore averaged 25.60 inches per month while Killington averaged 41.63. So that difference incorporates "green mountain effect" and any other inherent differences between the areas. Indexing applies that ratio of 61.5% to Killington's long term Nov-Apr average of 239 inches to get a 147 inch Nov-Apr average for Gore. This compensates for Gore not measuring complete months in November and April and also implicitly accounts for many years prior to Harvey's tracking starting in 2008.
 
Tony Crocker said:
I'm not sure Harvey understands what the indexing means. During the 52 common months of data Gore averaged 25.60 inches per month while Killington averaged 41.63. So that difference incorporates "green mountain effect" and any other inherent differences between the areas. Indexing applies that ratio of 61.5% to Killington's long term Nov-Apr average of 239 inches to get a 147 inch Nov-Apr average for Gore. This compensates for Gore not measuring complete months in November and April and also implicitly accounts for many years prior to Harvey's tracking starting in 2008.
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Thanks for clearing it up.

I was just looking at it thinking that 147 is too high. What's Killington's total for the period you cover? 41.63 x 6?

How far back do your numbers go?
 
The Killington numbers go back to 1967, which is the max I have for anyone. The monthly average since then is 47.28, more than the 41.63 since 2008.

So at some point that can be considered evidence of declining snowfall. 15 years is about the time one might consider that possibility, now about one standard deviation below that 55 year average.

The last huge season in the northeast was 2000-01 with 2007-08 being next best over that time. 2016-17 had snowfall similar to 2007-08 but had too much rain and thaw to be a comparable ski season.
 
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Tony Crocker said:
Patrick might disagree with my criteria that an area has to be at least half open to be worth skiing and merit a C grade and any points on that chart. However that criteria has been applied consistently over the past 20 years so this season stacks up poorly compared to most eastern seasons.

Eastern Canada must have escaped some of the adverse weather because Trmeblant was 90% open last weekend and Mt. St. Anne 100%. Nonetheless Patrick chose this week to cross the border for his first time since the pandemic. :eusa-wall: Why? He has an Indy Pass. The Indy Pass has some interesting places as I visited 5 of them last season.
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Yes, my observation has been in an overall geographical sense from someone living north of the border plus hearing and seeing various reports posted. Yes, it was the first crossing in the US, but northern Vermont and Maine have bounced back from a very slow start to the season. My trip started in the US, but continued East. I also have a weak spot for big verticals.

Cannon on closing day, April 10.
Saddleback on April 11-12 (skied every single open run and then some).
Sugarloaf on April 13 (everything was skiable).
Le Valinouet on April 14 - record 921cm snowfall this season - skied every run on the mountain.
Mont Edouard on April 15-16 - biggest mountain East of Le Massif.
Le Valinouet on April 17 - in the snow again.
Mont Lac Vert on April 18 - turned out to be their last day as they announced that the ski area wouldn't reopen this weekend. Turned out to be a glorious day where I skied all open runs (open or run) on the mountain, except one glade (ran out of time). Skied 26 runs for 6200m vert with is pretty good for a slow lift.

So 9 days in a row, 6 different ski areas, over one hundred runs. Pretty good trips considering that there was some type of precipitations at one point every day except 2 days.

Those 9 days bring the total amount of days this season to 85, only slightly behind 2017-2018 at this point.

I haven't able to get my brain around posted on ski forums, but I've been at least trying to post update on FB (Ski Mad World) and IG (madpatski). My stuff on the social media are quite ironic as they are TR with mostly pictures only versus on FTO's TR which were texts with no pictures.
 
Patrick said:
Sugarloaf on April 13 (everything was skiable)
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I’m calling :bs: on that since Sugarloaf was 35% open on April 9 and the weather was not favorable the next week though there has been snow more recently.

Is there historical data for Le Valinouet? It was obvious that eastern Canada had a much better year than New England but yes the 362 inches are by far the most in the East this season.
 
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Tony Crocker said:
I’m calling BS on that since Sugarloaf was 35% open on April 9 and the weather was not favorable the next week though there has been snow more recently.

Is there historical data for Le Vallinouet? It was obvious that eastern Canada had a much better year than New England but yes the 362 inches are by far the most in the East this season.
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Attached info Sugarloaf from April 13th. I was missing 3 major runs, but I was getting wet. Started snowing and rain at 2ish in the afternoon. Stopped skiing at 3pm. I just had a tiny vest, my jacket was in the car far away.

Below cut & paste from Valinouet website: https://valinouet.qc.ca/montagne/

Up to 921cm this season. 38cm this month. 24 out of 33 open. Northwest is closed for the season; it's generally closed midweek during the season. I also skied every runs on that side last Sunday, the NW runs were closed on the Thursday last week.They have 0% snowmaking, so they didn't even make it to April last season due to the terrible year in term of snow accumulation and thaws. I know we didn't see any period thaw for 6 weeks this winter in Ottawa, so I just imagine what their weather was like.

Okay, I got to go to bed. Going skiing tomorrow.

2020 2021​

473 cm

2019 2020​

915 cm

2018 2019​

812 cm

2017 2018​

714 cm

2016 2017​

703 cm

2015 2016​

724 cm

2014 2015​

521 cm

2013 2014​

656 cm

2012 2013​

534 cm

2011 2012​

608 cm

2010 2011​

655 cm

2009 2010​

435 cm

2008 2009​

629 cm

2007 2008​

909 cm

2006 2007​

610 cm

2005 2006​

681 cm

2004 2005​

515 cm

2003 2004​

620 cm
 

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Sugarloaf has 162 trails. So that's 45% open. This has been a bad year for Sugarloaf. Mid-February (86%) was the only time over 58% open this season.

Thanks for the Valinouet info. Is that your first trip out there? I think former admin skied Valinouet and Edouard about 20 years ago.
 
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Checking records I see that Le Valinouet led the East in snowfall in 2015-16 and 2019-20 as well as this year.
 
Tony Crocker said:
Thanks for the Valinouet info. Is that your first trip out there? I think former admin skied Valinouet and Edouard about 20 years ago.
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At the bottom of my Mont Édouard thread from 2010, there's a link to the article Guido posted after his 2002 powder day there. The formatting is messed up but you can still read it.

Valinouët was on my itinerary for that 2010 visit; however, it was having a poor season and my hosts told me not to bother. I mountain biked and camped at nearby Mont Valins National Park in 1997, which was memorable.
 
Tony Crocker said:
Sugarloaf has 162 trails. So that's 45% open. This has been a bad year for Sugarloaf. Mid-February (86%) was the only time over 58% open this season.

Thanks for the Valinouet info. Is that your first trip out there? I think former admin skied Valinouet and Edouard about 20 years ago.
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Didn't feel like it was only 45%, but I guess they named many runs on the snowfields? All major runs were open.

About the trip into the Saguenay, these two areas had been on the bucket list since Admin went 20 years ago. I worked on a ski camp at Mont Edouard in February 2020, but it was my first visit to Le Valinouet.
 
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