Most deceptive snow reports

[skiberg]

I have to put Cannon at top of the list. If I hear them describe conditions as epic or legendary again I’m going to loose it. Every time they get 4” of snow they report like it’s a legit powder day. They remind me of Killington in the 90’s. I actually think reports have gotten a lot better and more accurate across the industry perhaps because of social media and people making their own instant reports. Cannon seems like an outlier.


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[BenedictGomez]

Camelback

 

[bdfreetuna]

haha man, I said this a couple weeks ago after my trip to Cannon

"Powder/Packed Powder" "amazing conditions"

It was the iciest day of skiing I've done this season with windblown drifts and screwy moguls at best. Woods were fine. They were full of it and I don't trust their snow reports any more.

Yes I agree almost everywhere else I ski has a different definition of "packed powder" than Cannon does. Pico and Killington also like to call hard pack "packed powder".

I ought to invent a snow density meter to be adopted as the industry standard to determine how "packed" the "powder" really is. My meter will be set to use cocaine terms like "fish scale, re-rock, raw" to further differentiate grades of hard pack through boilerplate.


Only super legit ski areas like Magic and Mad River Glen, Jay Peak included in this case, will warn you if conditions are bullshit you might want to stay home, or go into more detail about the variable conditions.

Stowe is vague AF, places like that you basically have to know the weather yourself. At least most mountains I can tell when you start using superlative terminology that the skiing might actually be really good.


What Berkshire East calls "machine groomed / granular" conditions for 90% of their season is better than the "packed powder" at a lot of these bigger places.

 

[kingslug]

Well, I guess if you pack Powder enough..it turns to ice. Its just an over used term that we all know what it really means. I get asked all the times how conditions are..whats the weather..as if cell phones and the internet do not exist. I guess some people can't figure out that if it rained the night before and went down to 10 degrees what the result will be...

 

[bdfreetuna]

Well, I guess if you pack Powder enough..it turns to ice.

There's names you can use to describe those conditions, including "hard pack", "variable" "frozen granular" and you can even get more creative to describe even worse conditions.

Continuing to call hard pack (or worse) "packed powder" is plain deception. Nobody should be more aware of a ski areas's snow conditions than whoever writes the conditions report. I do my due diligence, but why do they even have a job?

Packed powder by definition means it hasn't been through a melt/freeze cycle. It can be groomed and still called PP as long as it remains in it's original (packed) condition.

"Powder" is not an interchangeable term for any form of frozen precipitation.

totally understandable why they do this... nobody is getting their ass out of the door at 5:00am to ski "boilerplate ice, death cookies, and crust in the woods"

 

[jimmywilson69]

Right I getup at 6:30 for 7:30 First tracks to ski that kind of shit in PA all winter! :lol:

 

[Harvey]

"...nobody is getting their ass out of the door at 5:00am to ski "boilerplate ice, death cookies, and crust in the woods"

:-D

 

[abc]

Deceptive snow report? At least they can claim subjective condition, or even vagueness of the language. How about lift status? A lift is either running or not. Black and white. How can you fudge lift status? When the web site claims n-1/n lifts are running, why am I seeing TWO lifts NOT running???

Vail is most blatant when it comes to that "lift counting" game. I was at Whistler for nearly 2 weeks. There's not a single day that all lifts were open. Far from it. Many days only 1/2 or 2/3 of the lifts were running. But you wouldn't know that looking at their web sites. Almost all of the days I was there, ice and wind and all that, all but 1 or 2 of the lifts were "running"!

Fast forward to Sunapee, another Vail mountain. All lifts running? But why do I see TWO of the lifts not running? OK, it's a Monday, the lifts were really not needed. Fine by me. But don't say it's running then!

 

[bdfreetuna]

Whatever, these game players are going to lose customers when people ski other places and enjoy it more.

 

[BenedictGomez]

"Packed powder" is the "pre-owned car" of the ski industry.

 

[thetrailboss]

I have to put Cannon at top of the list. If I hear them describe conditions as epic or legendary again I’m going to loose it. Every time they get 4” of snow they report like it’s a legit powder day. They remind me of Killington in the 90’s. I actually think reports have gotten a lot better and more accurate across the industry perhaps because of social media and people making their own instant reports. Cannon seems like an outlier.


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If I had a $1.00 for every complaint I've heard about snow reports I'd be able to retire.

 

[abc]

If I had a $1.00 for every complaint I've heard about snow reports I'd be able to retire.

But if you had offered a more accurate snow report for every inaccurate ones, and charged a penny from every skier, you would have retired rich!

 

[kingslug]

Just think of all the terms used to describe everything that is for sale in this world. This is no different.

 

[bizarrefaith]

I definitely chuckled that OP was about Cannon -- their mountain reports are definitely bad. 4" overnight and it'll say "STRAP ON THE FAT BOARDS"

 

[kingslug]

Fat Boards are ...fun ...on ice...

 

[bizarrefaith]

I don't think I've seen the word "ice" appear in the mountain report once this year.

 

[kingslug]

Frozen granular

 

[Smellytele]

Here is a good one from cannon. Guess they want people to show up at 10...
Also a reminder, it’s Daylight Savings Time tonight so don’t forget to set your clocks back by one hour before you go to bed!


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[ScottySkis]

Hunter in 1990s when I was a kid report would be pretty dis honest
I guess then it was all ski areas where terrible liers together..
Although there ski phone number was awesome 1800-for-snow

 

[sledride]

Plattekill reporting “awesome conditions” again today. I guess it must get pretty bad because yesterday was awful by my standards. Maybe this is awesome for them but not me.