Steamboat, CO 12-27/28/30/31-08

[EMSC]

Figured I'd create just one thread for this week (prob except the snowcat day). We'll see how that goes or if I have time to add much until the end of it.

Near white out drive over Rabbit Ears pass on the 26th. Mostly blowing snow and in the clouds, with some snow falling. Roads were not bad until leaving Summit county. Then snowpacked and slick. Had a BMW SUV pass me at a high rate of speed just outside of Silverthorne. We got to see them again....... ~20 feet off the road in the ditch just outside Kremmling. Don't wish them ill exactly, but karma seemed to catch up pretty quick on that one.

It's a big family get together 2 years in the making. Drove over in a borrowed Explorer (bigger than my Escape), loaded to the point I wondered if the tires would pop. Oldest brother and his family got hosed by the O'hare disaster (pick a day, any day, and traffic wise it's always a disaster).

Snow report was for 8" overnight so my wife and I decided to get out early. I bought the Intrawest super rocky pass (or something like that), for my wife I got a cheap add-on through her Eldora Pass. 5 days at the 'Boat for $130 I think it was. Anyway, my 70yr old parents were having none of the overcast light and stayed to wait for 9 others coming in today (brother is stuck till lat night Sunday flights now).

Great snow. anywhere from 5" to plenty of trees with knee deep. We hit storm peak for several runs, then Pony express for a couple more before heading up to the gondola where she decided to call it a day at ~12:30. I skied to the base with her before heading back up. This time hitting multiple laps on shadows - 4 I think? (lookers left of sundown lift).

Eventually, with my legs getting tired I headed to morningside. Wow. The trail map says blue & black. Not even close. Green except the first 100 yards immediately under the lift area. The only reason for it's existence in my book is to eliminate/reduce the hiking for the few short double diamonds they have a the 'Boat. Anyway, I hit Christmas tree bowl (forget which entry) and one more lap on Pony Express before my now screaming legs made me quit. Still getting reasonably fresh tracks the whole afternoon (cut up in places, not in others, etc...). I counted about 25K of vert with probably 80% powder - nearly all tree skiing.

Cold day. Temps maybe in the single digits and blue-ish sky for all of maybe an hour before it started flurrying again. There are a few 'bones' to avoid the last couple hundred verts on the upper lifts (they are 2K plus vert lifts after all), though not much and generally easily avoidable. The lower mtn as expected was scrapey on the way down in at the end of the day. fluff and snowmaking mixture of typical proportions.

Following my cousins and their families around the mtn tomorrow. Glad to get today in just like I did. Monday is cat skiing and who knows for the days after that.

 

[Harvey]

I'm also a guy who takes pics while driving. Usually it in an intense storm. :shock: Hope a cop doesn't see me.

Hard not to have a little schadenfreude on the guy who blows by at a insane speed and ends up in a speed or terrain trap.

I saw a guy in an uber Audi try to pass a car ON THE MEDIAN. He ended up stuck. And lucky not to be dead. 4WD in not a panacea for sure.

Nice report and pics. Love the aspens. Keep it comin.

 

[rfarren]

I'm also a guy who takes pics while driving. Usually it in an intense storm. :shock: Hope a cop doesn't see me.

Hard not to have a little schadenfreude on the guy who blows by at a insane speed and ends up in a speed or terrain trap.

I saw a guy in an uber Audi try to pass a car ON THE MEDIAN. He ended up stuck. And lucky not to be dead. 4WD in not a panacea for sure.

Nice report and pics. Love the aspens. Keep it comin.

Somehow people think that 4 wheel drive automatically means you can drive as fast as you want in inclement weather.

 

[Tony Crocker]

In the abstract I've often recommended Steamboat for Christmas week, given its snow record and presumed lack of Front Range daytrippers. Nice to read a report like this confirming my suspicions.

 

[EMSC]

An additional 4" of very light fluff today. But spent the entire am with the extended family. Top of the hill was in and out of the clouds which were precipitating water drops onto our goggles and putting some rime ice on everything else. In the afternoon got a few runs in partially tracked out pow in shadows again as well as Chute 1 among others. Sun finally made an appearance for the final hour of the day.

In the abstract I've often recommended Steamboat for Christmas week, given its snow record and presumed lack of Front Range daytrippers. Nice to read a report like this confirming my suspicions.

Longer lift lines today though nothing over ~7-8minutes. By far the worst crowding was for lunch at Rendezvous. Of course with kids we were stuck with the noon timing on that. Surprised that the gondola in the am has been only a 2-3 minute line though. A couple areas seem to hold most of the crowd, avoid those and you're fine.

 

[rfarren]

I've always thought that steamboat was a bit laid out like an east coast mountain. Is any of it above the treeline?

 

[Tony Crocker]

No. Treeline in Colorado is very high 11,000+ and Steamboat only goes up to 10,000. This is compensated somewhat by Steamboat having good tree spacing for much more vertical than most places in Colorado.

 

[rfarren]

No. Treeline in Colorado is very high 11,000+ and Steamboat only goes up to 10,000. This is compensated somewhat by Steamboat having good tree spacing for much more vertical than most places in Colorado.

So it more or less does ski like an east coast ski mountain. Except that it probably has better snow due to the altitude.

 

[Tony Crocker]

And 2,965 acres. 374 inch average (measured mid-mountain) is considerably more than anywhere in the East.

Terrain wise, rfarren may have a point. No above timberline, and minimal super steep runs. One's experience and impressions are thus likely to be somewhat powder dependent. Fortunately they do get a lot of it, and it's somewhat more consistent and less feast or famine than most western areas.

I have daily Steamboat snow records for 23 years, which were used in the powder probability analysis viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6822

Powder odds for Steamboat, Dec. 1 - Mar. 31:
41% of weeks will have no days of 6+ inches.
31% will have one day of 6-11 inches.
16% will have 2 days of 6+ inches. For 1/4 of that 16% one of those days will be 12+.
Now for the lucky people:
The top 12% will have at least 3 days of 6+
The top 4% will have at least 2 days of 12+
The top 5% will have at least 4 days of 6+
The top 2% will have at least 5 days of 6+ including 3 days of 12+.

Weather patterns are not like most Colorado ski areas and are quite similar to Jackson Hole, which tends to be on the same storm track. Thus January, not March is the highest average snowfall month. January is also recommended, as at Jackson, due to sunny exposure.

 

[rfarren]

Is the increased acreage due to greater vertical drop, or because the trails are wider? Do east coast resorts not count trees into acreage totals?

Steamboat doesn't seem so large looking at the trail map. The snow totals aren't so much greater than Jay, but I think Jay is the only place in the east with 300+ average.

 

[Tony Crocker]

East Coast resort usually do not count trees in acreage, but Steamboat is still much bigger. Stowe including trees is in the 1,000 acre range IMHO. Jay is probably similar but Stowe skis bigger due to more consistent fall lines. Steamboat ~ 3x Stowe is a fair estimation IMHO, though others with more experience at both areas are welcome to comment.

At the risk of attracting more :dead horse: , the tighter spacing of eastern trees does result in the tree skiing being specific defined lines, often aided by judicious summer pruning. The best western tree areas (and there aren't that many that fit the definition) have wall-to-wall skiing between the cut runs and thus more skiable variety. I saw some well known sectors of Steamboat like that, and its general reputation is that it's one of the best for trees.

 

[rfarren]

But where does the increased acreage numbers come from concerning steamboat? Is it the vertical drop or is it just much more massive than east coast resorts in size? I mean Killington is fairly large, although it doesn't have much vert.

Alta to me has never seemed gigantic. When I talk about gigantic, I mean the physical mountain itself. The mountain seems to be about the same size as lets say whiteface in vert and breadth. The big difference is that you can ski everything at Alta. I suppose if I were a better tree skier I could get as much out of the east coast as I do out west, being as the major difference seems that the terrain is more conducive to skiing wherever you want. That being said, I really don't see anything all that special about steamboat other than the quantity of snow it gets.

In an effort not to offend anyone or start a whole other east/west argument, I must confess that I have not been to steamboat. It could indeed become my favorite mountain. My only point is if two mountains have around 3000' vert, then normally they should be around the same size. It makes me wonder why acreage numbers at a place like steamboat, which has no bowl skiing can be so much higher than a killington, or for that matter a sugarloaf.

 

[Tony Crocker]

n Acreage is surface area, thus horizontal variety. Variety in skiing is vertical variety IMHO. If Area X and Area Y have the same overall steepness (4 to 1 length to vertical of lifts is western mainstream), then acreage is useful as an apples-to-apples comparison. I think acreage is measured consistently in Colorado, so for ski variety you just bump up the steeper places like A-Basin or Crested Butte, and maybe knock down a flatter than average place like Keystone. But in general I think acreage is an accurate tool comparing area size within Colorado.

At Altabird the length to vertical ratio on average is more like 3 to 1 than 4 to 1. So I would take acreage and multiply it by 4/3 to compare to an average pitched area. Put Alta and Snowbird together and you get a bigger number than Vail by that method. It may not be more acreage, but I would argue that it is more ski variety.

Average steepness is less in the East than West. Stowe is on average like that 4-1 western mainstream (Forerunner is steeper but gondola and Spruce are flatter). The vast majority of Killington acreage is Keystone pitch. Only the stuff around Killington peak and Outer Limits are steeper. Geoff tells us that most of Killington's trees are skiable, but I suspect that's really true mainly in the Killington peak area because elsewhere it's too flat or lower down with infrequent natural cover.

Whiteface is an interesting case because the lifts are 3-1 so its acreage should be bumped up. But there is very little off-trail skiing compared to the Northern Vermont group.

Since rfarren skied Little Chute last year (a claim I can't yet make after 20+ Utah trips) I assume I'll get no argument about steeps. If that's what you want, there's not a lot of it in Colorado, and what there is (the still-not-open North Face of Crested Butte being Exhibit A) tends to be much sketchier and less reliable due to the lower continental snowpack. If you want to branch out from Utah, you may find Jackson, Squaw or Whistler more to your liking.

 

[EMSC]

12/30: slowing down.

A bit of the wooden legs syndrome as it was the 4th day in a row on snow. For some reason day 4 can be bad for tired legs, and then after that I just get stronger.

Mostly did some lazy skiing with my brother and cousin's fiance before hooking back up with some of the cousins and their kids. It was so warm on Monday that the snowpack had settled a LOT from my previous 2 days on the mtn. A lot more weeds and rocks showing, much firmer on many of the runs. Some of the south facing had melted slightly and iced back up. A good day to fart around and take it easy compared to the previous 3. Don't get me wrong, most of the skiing was fine by the tourists standards and it was a sunny day, but...

And wow the crowds were rather big actually. Hate to burst the bubble, but the mtn was quite crowded in areas. Specifically anywhere with lots of groomer runs. Lift lines were prob a good 10 minutes+ on almost all the major lifts. Not front rangers, tourists from all over.

 

[EMSC]

For Rfarren, Tony is pretty much correct in his discussion. Steamboat has very extensive single diamond pitch tree skiing and is a very broad mtn up high. Especially compared to Whiteface which has vert but is very narrow(which might be finally getting broader with the new lift). And the upper mtn skiing is generally 2K plus vert over the broad flanks of the mtn as well. The Achilles heel for the 'Boat is almost no true steeps - just one small section to the upper left. My understanding is that there is plenty of steeps just OB where the locals will position cars in Fish Creek Canyon area to get back to town.

 

[EMSC]

12/31:

Very similar day to the 30th. Sunny, well compacted snow in a lot of areas. Most of the groomer runs of any pitch are now a mix of scrapey and fluff due to the cold nights and grooming. Though the Sunshine Express has mostly been an exception to that rule. This is the longest stretch of no snow in Dec for the 'Boat.

Spent the entire day with my parents and wife with a few others meeting up and leaving. Even got the parents to go down a groomed 'blue-black'. Mostly very crowded again on the groomers and at the lunch places. Steamboat has much less indoor space on the mountain than other resorts in Colo IMHO. Especially given the layout where the majority of folks go up and stay on the upper mtn. Have met people from a lot of different states and no one from the front range, so it seems to be all week long destination folks. The overcast/snow must have scared them off last Sat/Sun?

Sunshine Express broke down for almost 30minutes in the afternoon - we were about half way up it. Thank goodness it was a sunny day. Supposed to snow on Thurs. If just overcast, I may not ski. If actually snowy, I hope for a powder day (with a late start, I have a pass so not a big deal).

The big topic this week being the level of money grubbing/'bleep' you attitude by the resort on pricing and attempted charging for stuff. $91/day tickets - no breaks for anyone until you hit their 5 day ticket. Then kids ski free. Still no breaks for adults until you get to their 6 day ticket where you get a whopping $3/day off the price. Then there are the 4 or 5 magic carpets in the base area. But not usable by anyone who is not signed up for overpriced ski school lessons/programs. So my brother didn't even have the option of anything other than pushing his 2 1/2 yr old up and down the base area, etc... I know for sure that the 'Boat during the holiday period will never be under consideration again for this reason.

 

[icelanticskier]

wow! 91 bucks huh? are there packages that bring that down with lodging/flights? pay to play? i'll say. looks pretty and white everywhere.
rog

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Hasn't Steamboat always been a bit of a ripoff pricewise? Champagne Powder® =;

Back during my tour of duty in CO, I remember that they didn't give many price breaks either, but $91 and no magic carpet for the kids? So you're basically forced to buy "lessons" for really small children or there's no uphill transport? Heh, the balls on these people.

I've seen pix on TGR of Maggots using sleds near Buffalo Pass... that looks like the ticket.

 

[Harvey]

forced to buy "lessons" for really small children or there's no uphill transport

I learned today same is true for Gore. There's only one carpet here, but come on.

 

[Patrick]

forced to buy "lessons" for really small children or there's no uphill transport

I learned today same is true for Gore. There's only one carpet here, but come on.

Forced to buy "lessons" to use the magic carpet???

What a ripe off. :shock: :shock: :shock: