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Mountain Vertical updates - all New England ski areas

MV Frank

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Hey guys,
I've said in the past that I'd post on AlpineZone when there any major updates on Mountain Vertical. Well...big update here. This has been a long work in progress but we finally finished reporting REAL stats for NEW ENGLAND ski mountains.

Check it out --
mountainvertical.com/biggest-skiing-in-new-england.html

Within this set, some ski areas are actually pretty honest (for example, I'll give cred to Stowe for only reporting fall-line vert on their site, when they could easily exaggerate)...but the vast majority inflate their mountain stats in some way. For example, tons of ski areas measure to the base of their lowest parking lot. Some even measure to the base of the lowest parking lot AND THEN round up to the next hundred (come on...). So this is about reporting what's real, from an independent source.

In this update, we used USGS and other sources to check up on 61 ski areas.
Below, I'll call out a few notables from this big New England update:

Sugarloaf -they claim 2820 ft of vertical...MV reports 2410 ft (snubber inflates their stat by ~400 ft...the rest is very legit fall line vertical)
-with expansion into brackett basin, they now legitimately have bragging rights as biggest terrain in the East (in the 800-900 acre range). I was there recently and the new terrain is awesome...

Cannon -they claim 2180 ft (that's the summit to base of mittersill)...MV reports 2089 -- that's fall line to the tram base, whether you take kinsman, tramline, or regular trails all the way down

Smuggs -they play up their numbers and claim 2610 ft...MV reports 2088 ft -- that excludes the connector to morse mtn

Jay Peak -they claim 2153 ft...MV reports 1936 ft -- Huge discrepancy...

Stratton -they claim 2003 ft (when you measure to base of parking lot...), MV reports 1891 ft

Attitash -they claim 1750 ft...MV reports 1662 ft -- conspicuous way of rounding up...

Mt Snow -they claim 1700 ft...MV reports 1589 of actual fall line vertical

Saddleback -they claim 2000 ft...MV reports 1542 ft of actual fall line vertical... (rounded up to the next 1000?)

Magic Mtn -they claim 1700 ft...MV reports 1468 ft -- pretty big discrepancy here

Bretton Woods -they claim 1500 ft...MV reports 1394 ft

Gunstock -they claim 1400 ft...MV reports 1291 ft

Ragged -they claim 1250 ft...MV reports 1105 ft

Wachusett -they claim 1000 ft...MV reports 945 ft

Berkshire East -they claim 1180 ft...MV reports 923 ft -- big discrepancy

oh, and check out our article in the boston globe!

Thanks AZ
 
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bobbutts

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Cool findings.
How does USGS accuracy compare to Google Earth?
Or a personal visit with your GPS device?
 

deadheadskier

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There are several Killington skiers who report skiing from the top of the K1 down to the Skyeship Base on a regular basis. Just because you don't ski the mountain that way, doesn't mean others don't.....

While I agree that many mountains inflate various stats, there's a lot of 'opinion' to your website.
 

JonD

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Great site. Another feature I would be interested in is "True" trail counts. This would take much more work, and would be subject to much more debate. But, it would be very interesting to see how many true trails there are, excluding upper/lower, connectors, split left/right, etc.
 

FridayHiker

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I'm sorry, but I think a lot of the numbers being reported as "True-up" are subjective at best.

Agreed. Someone needs to show MV how to ski Cannon. You can definitely ski from the Tram to the base of Mittersill, so why the arbitrary decision to exclude that route?

MV just lost its credibility in my book.
 

The Sneak

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Hmm. The smartphone vertical app measured BEast as ~1140 vertical.

The wachusett findings by MV make sense since I've been told that the vert of the summit chair is 965.
 

MV Frank

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Agreed. Someone needs to show MV how to ski Cannon. You can definitely ski from the Tram to the base of Mittersill, so why the arbitrary decision to exclude that route?.

Quick jump in to respond. Tram to Mittersill is objectively not fall line. Summit to the tram base is fall line drop. I think that is pretty clear.
 

tipsdown

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I do like this...It definitely gives you a better measurement of a mountain's true vertical....Having said that, I don't understand Saddleback...That doesn't appear accurate. You can certainly ski all 2k vertical from top-bottom. There's some runout out but it's fall line vertical.
 

deadheadskier

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Quick jump in to respond. Tram to Mittersill is objectively not fall line. Summit to the tram base is fall line drop. I think that is pretty clear.

define Fall Line

defend why you have Killington in the 1700 range when indeed 3000 vert is skied often by some people
 

threecy

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Hmm. The smartphone vertical app measured BEast as ~1140 vertical.
The wachusett findings by MV make sense since I've been told that the vert of the summit chair is 965.

Interesting that the measurements are apparently down to the foot, despite USGS maps not being the same.

"A rigorous process to make sure our numbers are accurate...We're able to do this by using external mountain data to perform our own independent topographic analysis of what the numbers should be, and draw our own conclusions. We can understand everything there is to know about a ski resort’s mountain topography, and report it accurately on this site."

Hopefully the rigorous process isn't placing a pointer on a location on Google Earth.



Also interesting that only Killington's K1 gondola counts, yet the vertical below Jiminy Peak's summit lifts counts (ie the Partek triple and Grand Slam double). Surely that terrain, in conjunction with the main mountain, isn't "commonly skied, lift-served, continuous fall-line runs."
 

Black Phantom

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define Fall Line

defend why you have Killington in the 1700 range when indeed 3000 vert is skied often by some people

I usually ski from the Peak to Route 4 once per weekend. Usually it is for the sake of a long run, hitting the bathroom, and grabbing a cup of coffee. Breaks up a day.

Take a look at the smiles on Great Eastern along the way.:snow:
 

ceo

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Tram to base of Mittersill can't be done without some climbing (Fleitman Trail through Tuckerbrook is partly uphill), so I'd say it's fair to not count it.
 

ctenidae

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Does this all count the chairlift offramp? Cause that's at least 10-20 feet at a lot of places.

I think it'd be better to just be even more subjective and rate how big a mountain skis. "I know it's only 750 feet, but it skis like the Matterhorn"
 

trackbiker

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Interesting that the measurements are apparently down to the foot, despite USGS maps not being the same.

"A rigorous process to make sure our numbers are accurate...We're able to do this by using external mountain data to perform our own independent topographic analysis of what the numbers should be, and draw our own conclusions. We can understand everything there is to know about a ski resort’s mountain topography, and report it accurately on this site."

Hopefully the rigorous process isn't placing a pointer on a location on Google Earth.

Also interesting that only Killington's K1 gondola counts, yet the vertical below Jiminy Peak's summit lifts counts (ie the Partek triple and Grand Slam double). Surely that terrain, in conjunction with the main mountain, isn't "commonly skied, lift-served, continuous fall-line runs."

Good points threecy. There's no consistency to how MV subjectively calculates their vertical.
At least with the mountains self reports we know they're all consistently inflated. MV's are all over the place without any objectivity or standards.
 
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