2014-15 Season Recap Thread

Done for the season. Quick recap

36 Days (Most since 09-10)
20 Days NH, 12 VT, 3 ME, 1 Canada
"Home" Mtns this season: Cannon 5x, Pats Peak 4x
Cost/visit: $19.77/day (just ski ticket cost---I don't dare calculate gas/beer/food/lodging into the equation!)
Days by Month: 3 November, 7 December, 7 January, 8 February, 8 March, 3 April (pretty even split bookended by the shoulder months)

Got my son on skis at 21 mos....we had a fun season together getting him used to being on snow and getting geared up! Next season we will take even bigger strides!

Longest lift served season ever for me (started a week earlier and ended a week later than I normally do)
Started 11/15, Ended 4/20
Went at least once every wknd since the season began....a couple times I had to really push to make the drive somewhere to keep the streak going!

20 unique mtns which I think is also a record for me
2 new to me mtns (Owls Head, Middlebury) Hit both under less than ideal conditions/available terrain but saw enough to want to go back someday.

Re-discovered mtns after a long hiatus (Bretton Woods: Had been 20 yrs since I was last there. Didn't have much open but I can see the appeal as a nice family spot/intermediate heaven. Will be back early season next yr.
Cranmore: There on their $9 founders day special....nearly the entire mtn was open and we had a good time. Had been about 10 yrs since I was there.
Wouldn't ski the mtn regularly but on a cheap day we had a good time.

Memorable Days:
11/23 Okemo: Amazing spring day in November with Catsup948. Okemo had a ton of terrain open for that time of yr and we had a blast. Tom's Loft post ski was a treat too!

1/27 Pats Peak: SaveMeASammy and I ripped up Pats on a great powder day where we had the mtn to ourselves. Mass Driving Ban thank you! Super Secret Off Map glades at Pats?! Oh yes!

1/28 Ragged: Ravine on the day after a powder day...100% open...lots of fun!

2/6 Black Mtn of ME: Catsup948 and I went back to Black on a mini powder day and again sampled the tremendous glades they have up there and great community vibe and $15 tickets. Great start to the AZ Summit.

2/7-8 Sugarloaf AZ Summit: Always a great time...skiing was hardpack all wknd but we had fun in Brackett and of course the Widowmaker!

2/15 Crotched: DHS and SaveMeASammy and I had what I would call my best day of the season...and top 5 in the last 5 yrs or so. Very deep on trail and even deeper in the woods all untracked. DHS gave us the grand tour. West Ledges, T Bar Line, etc. Crotched packed a tremendous punch that day and gave me a real appreciation of what is possible there on a great snow day. A day I will think about all summer for sure!

3/7 Cannon: Awesome day with DHS. My 1st time to Mittersill/off map woods. We hit Tramline in great conditions.

3/15 Bolton Valley: Catsup948, MadMadWorld, and I skied BV on a sneaky 6" powder day. Great trees on and off map.
Other than the run out BV can deliver some really fun lines and is well worth a visit.

3/16 MRG: Catsup948, SaveMeASammy, Tin and crew hit up MRG on a very special day. Hardpack on trails but glorious in the trees. 1st run down Paradise in my life and the reputation is well deserved.
Trees skiers left of Paradise no joke and humbling as I'm on my ass in certain sections just hoping I don't seriously injure myself.
As Catsup948 put it, "MRG on a good day is like a drug and I'm a junkie...I just need more and more"
Awesome to ski the place with a great group of guys and tremendous skiers. Saw so much more than I had seen in my previous visits.

4/12 Cannon: Great AZ crew (DHS, PuckIt, Cannonball, JDMRoma, dlague, fcksummer) for my final Cannon day. Warming into the 50's, bluebird, soft bumps, zoomer bar...just tremendous.

Season Long Memories: Meeting/getting to know better the many great AZ'ers on the forum. Makes skiing in groups much more fun when we push each other and we learn about new areas on the mtn we may not venture in solo.
I love the passion everyone has for their "home mtn" and the local knowledge that is so key.

xwhaler said:

Cannon: Great AZ crew .

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I think the Cannon AZ crew is a great group and I hope to meet more - looking forward to more turns and beers!

xwhaler said:

Cost/visit: $19.77/day (just ski ticket cost

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That's awesome. You might have beaten me this year. I haven't figured it out yet, but I'm probably around that as well, somewhere in the $18 - $22 range. The ~$50 at Stowe hurt my average!

Great recap Chris. It was a blast skiing with you a few days this year. I notice that closed Notch day and the wet snow/rain day didn't make your "memorable list"! :razz: Glad you finally caught a sunny Cannon day last week.

Excellent idea for a thread, I'll have to pull some notes together for a recap of my own.

Actually the closed notch day should have been memorable but for the wrong reasons....3 hrs to do a normal 90 minute ride with a cranky 2 yr old and annoyed wife in car.

The week after that at Cannon when I had my first taste of powder on the yr was much better and probably should have made my list. That was a sleeper of a day with no fanfare but notch effect delivered and PuckIts disregard for ropes made things interesting!

BenedictGomez said:

That's awesome. You might have beaten me this year. I haven't figured it out yet, but I'm probably around that as well, somewhere in the $18 - $22 range. The ~$50 at Stowe hurt my average!

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My costs ranged from a couple free vouchers to a high of $52 for Pico. I have my ticket strategy pretty well dialed in which allows me to plan early and use nearly all of them without being left with a bunch at the end.
I give myself a bunch of flexibility for random midweek days to chase storms as well.

My cost per day was blown out by some bad decisions and some bad circumstances. I should have been at ~$12/day. But instead it was ~$22/day. Mostly because I ....
- Upgraded my Cannon pass to White Mountain Superpass which seemed like a good idea. But I ended up with only 4 days at BW for the extra $400. Yes, those were $100 days at Bretton Woods (ugh). Fortunately 2 of them were powder days.
- Had to hit Loon on one full-priced day because weather made it impossible to drive anywhere else. $89 day, but actually well worth it.

Cannonball said:

- Had to hit Loon on one full-priced day because weather made it impossible to drive anywhere else. $89 day, but actually well worth it.

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"Go back to Loon!"


Nice riding with you xwhaler. look forward to catching up with you next winter

It's always a pleasure skiing with you Chris. I look forward many more adventures next season!

xwhaler said:

PuckIts disregard for ropes made things interesting!

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Was that the day we poached lower hard?

This was 4/12. The skiing was excellent too. Puckit's truck....

Puck it said:

Was that the day we poached lower hard?

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Yes. Some awesome turns in there

Puck it said:

Was that the day we poached lower hard?

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You seem to have a reputation! First time skiing with you was one of those days! In fact it was with Cannonball. So Cannonball we did make some turns early in the season.

Ticket cost for the season 13 bucks a pop including several extended trips to larger venues ..... Yeah one benefit of being an ole fart !!

Gas and lodging and food same as YOURS. .. Even ole farts got to party

Great thread, thanks for the read!

Approximately 30 days for me, which is good but not quite as much as last year when I skied 2-3 nights a week at Wachusett on top of 25 days at various other places.

New places for me this year were Shawnee Peak, Blandford, Otis Ridge and Mt. Snow (Founder's Day). Most fun day was probably at Catamount. There's just something about that mountain that "fits" me to a tee; skied 9:00-3:45 without so much as a bathroom break and loved every minute of it.

Season ended on a low note when I fell and probably concussed myself at Black Mountain (NH) on one of their final days of the season. Screw it, it was still fun!

wrapped up my season today @ Okemo.

a great snow season that i didn't make the most of. didn't visit any new mountains, didn't get as many days as i'd have liked and didn't get further north than Okemo

had a lot of fun tho


2014/15
MT Snow - 12/28, 12/29, 12/31 1/27 2/28 3/1 3/28 3/29 4/12 4/19
Ski Sundown - 1/10 1/24 2/3 3/8 4/2
Mohawk - 1/16 1/23 1/30 2/6
Berkshire East - 2/8 2/22
Okemo - 3/22 4/26

My season may not be done but that is up in the air right now.

63 days, 5 skinning, 43 Berkshire East, and 15 other mountain days.

Season started 11/23 and likely end 4/24

Skied three new mountains. Burke, Middlebury and Mad River Glen.

I have now skied every major ski area in Vermont.

Good season overall. I need to skin more next season, get up north more, night ski more and get 75 days.