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Your 2011 / 2012 Ski Season Recap

Bostonian

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While this year was not the epic year I had last, it was still fun none the less. With many changes that took place, I am happy to have gotten out as much as I did. Wachusett served as a good home hill for me, seeing it is only 30 minutes away. Some memorable days were the trip up to Cannon on a blue bird day with a masonic brother of mine, a great last minute trip to K-Mart, and numerous trips to Wachusett. Next year, with my gunstock pass, I am sure I will be spending plenty of time up there...

Cannot wait for next year already!
 

Skimaine

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I would have to say that this was a somewhat below average year. The lack of snow contributed, but primarily because I broke my wrist in March and that cut short some prime skiing including a week of skiing around New England.
 

snowmonster

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With summer travel plans and other personal commitments coming up, it looks like the inevitable is upon me. I tried my best to keep the season going but I think it's time. Despite the interesting weather, this season was very good to me.

Highlights:

- 33 days on snow (Oct. 30-May 21) with the most number of powder days I've ever had in a season
- Finally made it to UT and skied the legends: Bird, Alta and DV (3.5 powder days)
- Returned to Whistler (3 powder days)
- Powder day (and free ticket) at Stowe
- Returned to Mad River Glen twice for free courtesy of Alpinezone (thanks, Nick!), one of which was a powder day
- Skied and surfed on the same day at Jay Peak
- Hit Sunday River on opening weekend and closing day (with naked free-skiers)
- Finally hit the the Bruce Trail at Stowe, 20th Hole at MRG and Left Gully at Tux.
- Introduced a good friend to the snowfields of Mt. Washington

Lowlights:

- Not enough days at the River and the Loaf
- No backcountry tours
- Missed the AZ Summit

There's still some snow in Tux but I think I'll let my brother-in-arms, madpatski, have the honors of making June turns.

Rip it up, Pat! As you say there up north: "To you from failing hands, we throw the torch. Be yours to hold it high."
 

MadPatSki

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Highlights:There's still some snow in Tux but I think I'll let my brother-in-arms, madpatski, have the honors of making June turns.

Rip it up, Pat! As you say there up north: "To you from failing hands, we throw the torch. Be yours to hold it high."

Thanks for the honour snowmonster. :razz: Hoping others are encouraged by your determination.

Looking at the calendar...JUne is tomorrow.

Looking at the forecast...

Looks like some June turns are going to be pathetic like the season (personal and season)

Tomorrow might be too soon for me (the only clear forecast day). Saturday seems like a washout...Sunday, less so, but one advantage - won't need the sunscreen.

My season:

With 31 days so far : Worst season in ski days so far since 2000-01 (I've been getting over 50 days since 2004-2005). Health issues that started in January. Daughter's broke her leg in mid-February. Plus a bunch of other stuff.

Positives:
An interesting note (not that I tried): skied on the first and the last liftserved days in the East: Sunday River on October 29 and MSS on May 6. Don't think that many that can say that this season.

Got some good work on the Ski Mad World blog - reposting some old TRs and stuff posted on various ski forums over the years. Good to visit some old TRs when this season sucked for me.
 
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lmgrnjeep

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well the season wasnt a total bust. I got about 53 days in and probably 50 of them at the loaf. not many powder days but... here are my highlights.

-Was there for opening day at Sunday River.
-Skied opening day at the loaf
-skied the second day at the loaf when they had 6 inches of powder :)
-one of the first tracks in at brackett basin during the end of Feb/beginning of March snowstorm. It is so big in there.
-Was the last person into brackett on March 8th.
- Skied in 75 degree weather twice the week of March 18th
- skied last day April 16th Got first chair and was 3 to last chair.

Cons-

- Broke my Solomon xwing 8 on March 19th when it was about 80 on the hill. Tried to ski the bumps on bubblecuffer, ski hit a soft patch sank in 2 feet and i went head over heals, snapped my ski right in half. Ended up clicking in and skiing on my tails the whole way down... had a few beers in me :)

-obv not enough snow

- Backside never opened... really dissappointing.


So not a bad year but way to many groomers.
 

Paul_M

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Feb 23, 2012
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Westchester, NY
Made the move back to skiing after a 5 year lay off. It was big fun as always. Committed to Jay Peak next season, got new boots, new skis, and a determination to have the most fun possible while still taking care of business. I'm sure it will be an adventure.

Thanks for the inspiration.
 

ERJ-145CA

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I got 34 days which is about average for me though mostly in marginal conditions. The best skiing was early March at Bromley. It snowed a foot or so a couple days before I got there and was the first time Bromley was 100% open all season. Temps were in the mid twenties to low thirties the four days I was there, it was really the only mid-winter conditions for me all season.

It started about 3 weeks later and ended about 3 weeks earlier than most seasons for me. I still got out there and had fun but am definitely hoping next season is a lot better.
 

thetrailboss

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OK, I can say that this season is over and offer this recap:

The season started on November 20, 2011 at Snowbird and ended on June 2, 2012 at Alta. I skied 35 days--33 lift served, 2 "earned turns" days. 30 days were at Snowbird, 4 at Alta, and 1 at Deer Valley, which was the only new ski area for me this season. There was only 383 inches of snow this season at Snowbird.

I will have to look, but there were at least 8 powder days, which is decent. April was the biggest surprise with three weekend days that had surprise powder.

This will be the first season for me that I did not ski in Vermont.

Favorite areas to ski at Snowbird were Little Cloud and Mineral Basin. New area that was a favorite was the Bookends. I did not manage to ski much in the Cirque or off of Baldy because of the low snow.

Deer Valley was a pleasant surprise and a lot of fun.

And I lost my skis once in Alta's deep powder...but finally found them! :lol:
 

J.Spin

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I hadn’t noticed this 2011-2012 ski season recap thread until now, but since I just finished mine up a couple of weeks ago, I figured I’d pass it along. It’s focused on Northern Vermont, with sections on snowfall, tree skiing, snow quality, powder, and then a summary for each month from October through May. I think one of the more surprising aspects of the winter was that despite the low snowfall, the availability of powder seemed pretty typical. With roughly half the usual amount of snowfall at Bolton, and only marginally better numbers at Stowe, we can’t have had as many of those big, deep days as usual, but the powder was still there. When I worked my way through my trip reports from the season, I only found two outings in the entire stretch from October until the big warm-up in mid March where we didn’t have powder, so I’d say Mother Nature was able to do a lot with the temperatures and moisture that she was given. Based on my 2011-2012 winter weather data, we actually had a fairly typical number of snowstorms reaching down to the mountain valleys (45 at our location), so the storms were there, but the amount of snowfall per storm was down significantly.

The full ski season recap is quite long, so I’m just going to paste in the introduction here and then provide a link to the rest for those that are interested. I did select a photo from each month of the season for my recap, and I’ve added those below the intro for some visuals:

With everyone having their own unique perspective on skiing, combined with the multitude of weather-related factors involved in winter recreation in general, there’s usually ample room for debate about where a ski season sits relative to average. However, when it comes to the 2011-2012 ski season in Northern Vermont (and perhaps to an even greater extent in other parts of the Northeastern U.S.) most any metric would set it firmly in the lower half of seasons. Some key contributing factors to the outcome of the season were temperatures, which were above average for every month from October through May (specific monthly temperature departures are available in the monthly detail section), overall precipitation, which was well below average during that period, and as expected with that combination, snowfall that was well below average. However, the numbers don’t always tell the whole story, and indeed that was the case in Northern Vermont this past season. If numbers aren’t everything, perhaps timing is everything, and the snow machine of the Northern Greens exhibited some impeccable timing for some of the busiest ski periods when it came down to it. There was also a consistency and intensity in backside snows that seemed to heal just about every mixed precipitation event. So while I don’t think that the winter of 2011-2012 can be considered anything but below average around here, the bigger story might just be how “surprisingly good” it was. That story unfolds at the link below:

2011-2012 Northern Vermont Ski Season Summary

October:

30OCT11C.jpg



November:

23NOV11G.jpg



December:

29DEC11E.jpg



January:

29JAN12B.jpg



February:

25FEB12B.jpg



March:

10MAR12A.jpg



April:

10APR12C.jpg



May:

27MAY12C.jpg
 

J.Spin

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J spin, great pics.... what are you shooting with?
Glad you liked the photos Nick; most of our shooting is done with a Canon EOS 30D, typically with a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens, but we also use other lenses on occasion such as the Canon EF-S 10-22 mm f/3.5-4.5 USM. Since the 30D is a digital SLR, it provides very good performance in terms of light sensitivity and speed, so we try to use it most of the time for skiing (especially when it comes to action shots). But, SLR cameras are big, so sometimes I use our Canon PowerShot ELPH 510 HS if that’s all I’ve got on me. It’s about the size of a deck of cards, so it fits in any pocket, and that’s useful on days when we’re coaching groups of kids in our school program at Stowe and not focusing on photography. Actually, shot #4 above (January) was taken with the ELPH, with all the others coming from the 30D.

The ELPH can produce some very nice shots, but it still pales in comparison to the SLR and we really noticed it this summer when we had to rely on the little camera because the 30D was being serviced. Our 30D is almost 6 years old now, and although I’m not one for getting another piece of equipment when the current one is working fine, being without it for a couple of weeks definitely brought to light the potential need for a second SLR body. Fortunately we didn’t have any work that required the camera during that period, but it showed us that a non-SLR wasn’t going to cut it in various situations. With the way technology progresses nowadays, our 30D is actually about 3 to 4 generations old in the Canon lineup, and numerous aspects of the cameras have been inproved. If I had to buy a camera for our needs right now, I’d go with the Canon 7D, which is their APS-C camera optimized for sports shooters – short of spending $7,000 on one of Canon’s flagship 1-series models like the 1D-X, the 7D is one of the best around, and it’s an excellent fit for ski photography (8 fps, very fast focus, weather-sealed body, etc.). I had a chance to use the 7D last January when a friend of mine was visiting, and it’s definitely a fast camera. The 7D has been out for three years now, so while it’s still a top camera for sports, it’s already three-year old technology, so I’m waiting a bit to see what follows it up.

On a final note, if you ever see an image that you like on the web, and want to know what camera was used to take the photo, you may be able to find out very quickly without even having to contact the photographer. All you have to do is download an Exif viewer. I downloaded and installed the free program called IExif, and now whenever I right click on an image on the web, one of the options available in the list is “View Exif/GPS/IPTC with IExif”. Sometimes the Exif information is stripped out (either intentionally or unintentionally) but oftentimes it’s there, and it contains the model of camera that was used, what settings (aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focal length, etc.) were used, sometimes what lens was used, and a whole lot more. If a camera has a GPS unit in it, that information may even be in there. I’ve added an example of Exif information below – first I’ve got a shot that my friend took on January 17[SUP]th[/SUP] last year at Bolton using his 7D, and then below that I’ve got the information window that pops up from IExif:

17JAN11D.jpg


31AUG12A.jpg
 
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Nick

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I'm a big photog ..... well hobbyist ... I have a T2i and a couple lenses... 50mm 1.4 , sigma 30mm 1.4 (great for the crop lens) ... and a 15-85mm 3.5 - 5.6. Mostly the fast lenses are on for my baby photos and videos; the zoom lens comes out during daylight outdoors. Unless I need something fast, then I go back to the primes maybe with ND filters for the higher apertures.

I've never had the balls to take my DSLR skiing though. I normally carry my smaller S95 for skiing. But the pics pale compared to the DSLR

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
 

J.Spin

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I'm a big photog ..... well hobbyist ... I have a T2i and a couple lenses... 50mm 1.4 , sigma 30mm 1.4 (great for the crop lens) ... and a 15-85mm 3.5 - 5.6. Mostly the fast lenses are on for my baby photos and videos; the zoom lens comes out during daylight outdoors. Unless I need something fast, then I go back to the primes maybe with ND filters for the higher apertures.

I've never had the balls to take my DSLR skiing though. I normally carry my smaller S95 for skiing. But the pics pale compared to the DSLR.

Your Rebel T2i would certainly take some great ski photos; Powderfreak uses a Rebel XS for his work at Stowe – I’m not sure what lens he uses (perhaps the 18-55 lens often found in the kit), but he’s always putting out great shots. Carrying around a DSLR all day on the slopes isn’t for everyone though; you’ve got the bulk of the camera body and one or more lenses, and then there’s the fact that you may be carrying around thousands of dollars of equipment at potentially high speeds. On lift-served days I carry my 30D in one of those Mountainsmith “Day” lumbar packs, with a Lowepro camera bag inside. Between photo and video, I’ve been using that combination for 10-15 years on the slopes with good results. It provides a reasonable degree of protection for the camera since the camera bag is padded, and the lumbar pack isn’t nearly as bulky as a backpack. I stick to just one lens, generally the 24-105, and that keeps things as compact as possible on those days. For backcountry/sidecountry, I use a Dakine Sequence pack – it’s basically got all the great features of one of Dakine’s ski packs combined with a camera pack (they don't show it in the video, but it also does diagonal ski carry, etc.):



There’s always going to be some concern about carrying an expensive camera while skiing, but the great thing is that the Canon DSLRs are built to really take a lot of abuse – as one moves upward in the EOS lineup, the cameras get more expensive, but they are also built like tanks with the magnesium alloy bodies etc. I saw a great video this summer in which DigitalRev tested the durability of a 7D. They really sent it through the gauntlet - knocking it over with a truck, sending it down flights of cement stairs, freezing it in a block of ice, shooting it with an air gun, lighting it on fire, etc., just the usual sort of stuff that one encounters on the slopes (perhaps the frozen part):

 
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