Rain on Friday......Grrrrrr

drjeff said:

I'm curious as to how many people bemoaning that it won't be great this weekend, and are choosing not to see what mother nature brings and not ski this weekend will be complaining come seasons end that they skied only X# of days as opposed to their desired preseason goal of Y# of days???

It's the East... Conditions often go from really good/great to not so great/ugly in the proverbial blink of an eye. In the end a "bad" day on the slopes is still better than NO day on the slopes in my book

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If you’re an absolute diehard with little else on the agenda, then I understand this, I guess (although I’m a diehard mountain biker and wouldn’t neessarily agree.....I stay away on crap days). But if not, then you are essentially forcing yourself to be miserable because the cash is already spent. You can cut your $$ losses and not throw your valuable time and even more $$ away by doing something far more enjoyable.


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Smellytele said:

Matters what the cost is for said bad day. If you have a season pass and a place to stay and eat then it doesn't matter. If you have to drive 5 hours pay to stay and eat. Then buy a $100 ticket then ski on ice or in the rain No day on the slope may be better.

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My point was that is someone is planning on say 25 days on the slopes this season, and before the season starts if they figure that it was going to coast them $X, and then at seasons end, they went less than they intended, is the cost really that much of an issue? Many people, because of the cold the last 2 weekends, didn't ski. Now we have this weekend where the temps will be seasonable for Sat - Mon, but the snow surface will be variable for sure. That can be a bunch of "planned" days, including 2 "holiday" weekends, that people aren't choosing to ski on, that come seasons end may have them below their desired number.

I can say from personal experiences many times over in that past, that there have been days that I went out, where I was thinking that I'd just take a few runs and be done, that I stayed out for a full day, because it actually ended up being much better out on the hill than I was thinking it would be. Sure there have been some days where it did't turn out like that as well, but those have been far less for me than the days that ended up being decent when I was thinking it would be crappy....

Gotta make the best of what mother nature gives you, especially if you're an East Coast skier!!!

180 said:

In the end a "bad" day on the slopes is still better than NO day on the slopes in my book

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This statement is just not true - at least in my book. I have lots of activities that I enjoy doing. There are plenty of things that I enjoy more than skiing in pouring rain or -20F, for example.

I think the season/conditions that transpire along with life’s higher priorities determine the days. I don’t get achieving a day # target when so many variables are completely out of your control.


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drjeff said:

My point was that is someone is planning on say 25 days on the slopes this season, and before the season starts if they figure that it was going to coast them $X, and then at seasons end, they went less than they intended, is the cost really that much of an issue? Many people, because of the cold the last 2 weekends, didn't ski. Now we have this weekend where the temps will be seasonable for Sat - Mon, but the snow surface will be variable for sure. That can be a bunch of "planned" days, including 2 "holiday" weekends, that people aren't choosing to ski on, that come seasons end may have them below their desired number.

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If anything, you are showing the absurdity of chasing a number. It's fine to want to ski as much as possible, but at the end of the day you should ski when it makes sense for you to ski, not because you are chasing a number. The experience itself ought to matter much more. I'd rather ski 1 mediocre day than 5 horrible days.

drjeff said:

I can say from personal experiences many times over in that past, that there have been days that I went out, where I was thinking that I'd just take a few runs and be done, that I stayed out for a full day, because it actually ended up being much better out on the hill than I was thinking it would be. Sure there have been some days where it did't turn out like that as well, but those have been far less for me than the days that ended up being decent when I was thinking it!!

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Agree if you live conveniently close and don’t throw a day away if your wrong


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Is it snowing yet???????

For whatever reason I am feeling good about heading up and seeing what happens. Sloppy bumps and groomers are both fun most of the time.

In any case, the whiskey (as well as the snowpack) will be wet, the hot tub will be warm, and the Pats will be on. Add in any sort of good runs and that's a good weekend.

drjeff said:

In the end a "bad" day on the slopes is still better than NO day on the slopes in my book

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Gotta disagree here.

Sure folks with passes and a place they own/rent for the season can go up and make the best of it. Sometimes those end up being great weekends with off hill activities that you wouldn't normally do. We would be going up and seeing what happens if kids didn't have a tournament.

Looking at it from the other side of the coin.

A weekend warrior that a few weeks ago convinced the wife to take a trip over MLK may be better off staying home.
If I was in that boat I wouldn't want to throw 2 kids in the car Friday night and drop "real $"*on lodging and tickets, eating out to maybe ski a few runs each day.

It is one thing if you are embedded in a town/area have other activities you can do, but it is s different story showing up to an unfamiliar place on a Friday night and having to scramble to find things to do off the mountain.

All that said missing these 3 days will not help me reach my goal for the season.

*real $ to me is money out of pocket. Not the season passes, rent/mortgage that is all planned out well in advance.

I'd have a hard time dropping $2k on a weekend and skiing a few runs.


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VTKilarney said:

If anything, you are showing the absurdity of chasing a number. It's fine to want to ski as much as possible, but at the end of the day you should ski when it makes sense for you to ski, not because you are chasing a number. The experience itself ought to matter much more. I'd rather ski 1 mediocre day than 5 horrible days.

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I think the annual AZ threads about "seasonal goals" in the Fall and then "how was your season" in the Spring, where number of days are mentioned by most posters, shows that on AZ, we certainly have a bunch of absurd people! Myself 110% included!! :lol:

Then again in my case, with the commitment to our kids that my wife and I have made so they can pursue their ski racing passion, we often end up spending a number of race days where we'll spend far more time standing around the start or finish area of a race course, watching and supporting our kids, instead of actually taking runs. So from that experience, getting a day, during the prime race season of basically Christmas through mid March, where I can actually ski, without any parental racing duty requirements is very appealing to me, often regardless of the weather and/or snow conditions. Yes, I do fully get that my situation isn't typical! So therefore I am a proud member of the AZ absurd club! :lol:

We own at SR and will be skipping this weekend. The trail end snow looks too minimal to do anything up there. Now, if we owned at Jay or up by Whiteface, I'd probably go as chances are good it might be pretty good on the backside. All of that assuming the winds don't kill it which I believe they might given the incoming temp swing.

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drjeff said:

My point was that is someone is planning on say 25 days on the slopes this season, and before the season starts if they figure that it was going to coast them $X, and then at seasons end, they went less than they intended, is the cost really that much of an issue?

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If you're buying tickets as needed, why spend the money now just to count it as a day? Save it for another day that maybe will have better conditions. If at the end of the season you didn't spend your entire skiing budget due to some days you decided to skip, that's money back in your pocket that you can use either for next season or maybe put towards some new ski gear or use for whatever else you want. Just because you budget a certain amount doesn't mean you HAVE to spend it. This isn't like a corporation where if you don't spend it all this year you may get a smaller budget next year.

Personally I have a day goal, but I don't budget how much it will cost to get me to that point. I plan for the big things (like the season pass cost). But I don't say "well I'll have to do x number of trips which will cost me $y in gas to reach that goal". If I save $100 by not skiing this weekend (that's probably about what gas, electricity, and propane would add up to for a weekend trip to my condo), so be it. Would the conditions this weekend be worth it for that amount of money? There's a chance it could be, but I'm inclined to say Saturday will not be worth it. And it is hard to justify 10 hours in a car and $100 to ski a bit Sunday morning.

If this was later in the season and I had missed a lot of days, then I'd be more willing to take a risk on going anyway. Early in the season I tend to have the mentality (right or wrong) that there's plenty of time left to ski this year. Plus personally I skied more days by Christmas this season than I ever did, so even missing last weekend and this weekend would put me even in terms of number of days with where I was last year at this point (and last year was my best season ever in terms of number of days).

How far away you live also makes a big difference in the should you or shouldnt you go skiing discussion. When you live within 2 or 3 hours of the hill it's not nearly as big a deal. When you live down here and it's a 10 to 14 hour drive roundtrip, you blow your entire weekend and spend 12 hours in a car for conditions that are miserable. That's a big difference than if you live in say.....central Massachusetts and it's 3 hours or less to Sugarbush or Stowe etc...

BenedictGomez said:

Where do you see that? That's bold at this point given all the variables. I guess they felt with not much more than 24 hours left, they needed to go out with something, but it's been pretty obvious most forecasters have been dragging their feet with going public on this one (cant blame them).

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from NWS
looks like they kept the 10" call.

BenedictGomez said:

How far away you live also makes a big difference in the should you or shouldnt you go skiing discussion. When you live within 2 or 3 hours of the hill it's not nearly as big a deal. When you live down here and it's a 10 to 14 hour drive roundtrip, you blow your entire weekend and spend 12 hours in a car for conditions that are miserable. That's a big difference than if you live in say.....central Massachusetts and it's 3 hours or less to Sugarbush or Stowe etc...

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Yes, if I could be at Sugarbush in 3 hours I'd be much more likely to take a chance.

cdskier said:

If at the end of the season you didn't spend your entire skiing budget due to some days you decided to skip, that's money back in your pocket that you can use either for next season or maybe put towards some new ski gear or use for whatever else you want. Just because you budget a certain amount doesn't mean you HAVE to spend it.

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Very well said. Thank you for inserting some sanity into this discussion.

gladerider said:

from NWS
looks like they kept the 10" call.

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I dont see it in that link. It says the 10" is for near the international border with Canada. Doesnt really matter though, 10" would certainly be possible if it all plays out well. So too would 3" on top of a hockey rink though.

BenedictGomez said:

I dont see it in that link. It says the 10" is for near the international border with Canada. Doesnt really matter though, 10" would certainly be possible if it all plays out well. So too would 3" on top of a hockey rink though.

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i take 'international border' as close enough for whiteface, proximity wise

shwilly said:

For whatever reason I am feeling good about heading up and seeing what happens. Sloppy bumps and groomers are both fun most of the time.

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Sloppy bumps and groomers are fine but most places it will be frozen bumps and ice. The temp is supposed to fall rather quickly on the back end

From the Eye on the Sky forecasters.