"Classic New England Trail"

[deadheadskier]

Why do you suppose there are not more of these out west? Most western areas have three to five times the acreage of the larger New England resorts. Outside of the above tree line terrain, why do you suppose they often don't cut narrow trails?

Many members here tend to express a distaste for wide open boulevard skiing, yet the average cruising run at say Okemo seems downright narrow in comparison to many trails out west.

I know we don't have a lot of western representation on AZ, but you rarely hear complaints about the wide trails out west.

 

[drjeff]

Why do you suppose there are not more of these out west? Most western areas have three to five times the acreage of the larger New England resorts. Outside of the above tree line terrain, why do you suppose they often don't cut narrow trails?

Many members here tend to express a distaste for wide open boulevard skiing, yet the average cruising run at say Okemo seems downright narrow in comparison to many trails out west.

I know we don't have a lot of western representation on AZ, but you rarely hear complaints about the wide trails out west.

I think that much of the design differences between the general narrowness of the East vs. the general width of the West has to do with average snowfall, elevation, and sheer size of the mountains.

#1 With the general larger snowfalls without as many thaws/freeze ups as we usually get in the East, a wider trail is much easier to consistantly maintain out West.

#2 Elevation - lets face it, alot of the Western openess can be tied to treeline levels, and very few places back East even flirt with that elevation

#3 Sheer size. lets face it, Most of the mountains out West are BIGGER than in the East, not just interms of verts, but also in acreage, so where as back East a 10 acre trail may be needed to allow for more 10 acre trails on the same mountain, out West a 10 acre trail may much more proprtional to a 2 acre trail back East

 

[Puck it]

Age of the trails make a difference. The really classic trails were cut in the 30's here. You look at all of the the newer trails here and they are wide and straight.

 

[tarponhead]

Age of the trails make a difference. The really classic trails were cut in the 30's here. You look at all of the the newer trails here and they are wide and straight.

Some of those old trails are growing wider. I doubt Nosedive was as big is it is today when they first cut it and were racing on it.

All this snowgun and snowgun spec talk got me thinking; overall energy expenditure to cover a sq ft of snow; east vs west. Maybe something to do with it???

or not

 

[deadheadskier]

Nosedive was clear cut many years ago, along with Liftline, National and several other of Stowes trails. i wish I had the opportunity to ski them in their original format.

 

[ta&idaho]

In my experience, Western skiing (at least for more advanced skiers) places less of an emphasis on "trails" (we always called them runs), and more emphasis on areas of the mountain. Except for the very beginning of the ski year, most mountains are skiable everywhere, and the trees/off-trail areas are much less densely packed with trees, so most skier I know ski on/through/between/next to any number of trails on a particular run down the mountain. In the East, there is more of a distinction between on-trail and off-trail, even for advanced skiers. In the West, narrow passages are much more likely to be caused by natural terrain features -- chutes, gullies, etc. -- than they are by human-created trails. Most expert terrain in the west, to the extent that it is formally named at all, is defined just by an area or particular access point, rather than a trail delineated by tightly packed trees on both sides. The trees also tend to be more spaced out, with less underbrush, so you can easily ski through treed areas without needing to cut a narrow swath of a trail out of the way. Anyway, that's my take...

 

[frankm938]

wind

 

[AdironRider]

Lots of wide western runs are there for numerous reasons, but I highly doubt most of them involved the sheer extent of cutting necessary for any NE trail. Vegetation is not as varied or thick as compared to the east. Just lots of spruce or pine, if your not above treeline already. Combine that with increased snow totals, higher elevation, and different soil compositions, and colder temps in the summer (we drop down below freezing at 10000 at least once every few weeks, even in the dead of summer) and you arent getting the thick vegetation that you see back east.

 

[witch hobble]

humidity, elevation, regeneration.