Who is right?

Mount Snow 11/20/19: "With 12 trails open and 109 acres across three mountain faces, we’re continuing with the most open acreage in the East!"

Killington 11/20/19: "20 open trails, which total more than 13 miles. The Beast still leads the East in open terrain this week."

Could it really be that one is using miles, and the other acres?

yes

Personally I'd rather more miles than acres of trails so I'd use that metric for "most terrain". Interesting that Mt Snow doesn't give mileage numbers on their Snow Report. K has both acres and miles listed.

bdfreetuna said:

yes

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Perfect Answer!

Acres this time of year can be deceiving because usually to inflate the number mountains count open trails as edge to edge, which often times they arent

bdfreetuna said:

yes

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Exactly

slatham said:

Mount Snow 11/20/19: "With 12 trails open and 109 acres across three mountain faces, we’re continuing with the most open acreage in the East!"

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Sleazy?

Or Vail sleazy?

How does one measure "acreage"? Multiply the length of the trail with its width?

Until the glades open, it's just trails. Length is more appropriate.

bdfreetuna said:

yes

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mbedle said:

Perfect Answer!

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crazy said:

Exactly

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All write.

Sure...

cdskier said:

Personally I'd rather more miles than acres of trails so I'd use that metric for "most terrain". Interesting that Mt Snow doesn't give mileage numbers on their Snow Report. K has both acres and miles listed.

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Generally I'd agree, but not if there's a lot of mileage on uninteresting run out terrain.......

An acre is an acre (roughly the size of a football field) - You can have 1 trail that's really wide, is a mile long and covers say 15 acres or you can 1 trail that's narrow, is a mile long and covers say 5 acres. Or in the case of many a ski area early season report, you can have 1 continuous trail that covers say 10 acres, and then divide it up into upper, middle and lower sections and then report it as 3 trails, but the acreage amount stays the same. As we all know, snow reporting has plenty of variables, that may very well be true in one sense, but not true in another. Heck, anyone remember the days when Sunday River used to advertise Whiteheat as the "longest steepest widest" (without the use of commas) in the East? It was neither the longest, the steepest, or the widest in the East (when comma's were used) but fit the description when no comma's were used )

As for Mount Snow, they've done acres as their primary measure for a while, and in the case of early season, especially with wide trails where there isn't full width coverage, they have in the past adjusted down the total acreage in the daily report to reflect what is actually ski/rideable. My hunch is if they get Snowdance open in the next few days, the acreage open won't jump by the I believe 20 acres that trail covers, but more like 10 to reflect where the fan guns can reach and the groomers push.

Most snow reports are more trustworthy than say 3 day old sushi from a 7-11, but not that much more trustworthy ;-)

Everyone wins!

Next up: "Packed powder"

mister moose said:

Next up: "Packed powder"

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Eastern Packed Powder

metovtskier said:

View attachment 25654

eastern packed powder

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lol

Frozen granular!

I find it hard to believe that Mount Snow does not have more miles as their open trails are longer in most cases. But Killington has a higher trail count!

spiderpig said:

I find it hard to believe that Mount Snow does not have more miles as their open trails are longer in most cases. But Killington has a higher trail count!

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North Ridge and Upper Snowden have several trails side-by-side which gives them the edge. Mount Snow does have better options at the moment IMO. Killington's early season game is too predictable and basically any other resort that goes top to bottom on 2 or more runs beats them this time of year.

Stratton and Okemo could have been players this year if they wanted to. Looks like Bromley got the edge in the 2nd tier running. 3rd tier players Berkshire East, Wachusett and Jiminy Peak showed themselves to be true 2nd tier players instead.

My home mt Cannon pisses me off with their "we have the most trails in NH" crap.They divided their trails up into so many pieces,no shit.Miles and/or acres is where its at for me.

Friday Sugarbush is opening and will have the most green bud per acre than any other resort in new England.

Now that's a stat worth skiing for. ;-) LOL