Colorado Snow Complaining

[mikestaple]

Just back from Steamboat and the locals crying about "only" having a 6 foot base was ridiculous. They somehow managed to man up and "deal" with the horrible 2 to 5 inches of powder each day. In addition, the complaints about scratchiness and ice left we East Coast skiers scratching our heads. (Not to mention that it was school vacation week and all the kids with their NH and VT ski resort stickers on their helmets bombing down the hills was rather amusing.)

Seriously - does the "ice coast" weather make us hardier, but more foolish folk? Occasionally we would run into scratched off trails (most popular trails after noon) and yell out "sounds like Attitash at noon" and keep going. But to read various blogs and ski magazines bemoan the Colorado winter this year is silly.

Has anyone else run into this in their travels out west?

 

[faceplant]

they do enjoy there sissy snow out there

 

[gmcunni]

was in CO a couple weeks ago (keystone area). i was chatting with the guy at the store while getting a pin, he told me that they had "just" hit 30 inch base that day (2/14) but typically had that by Thanksgiving. he didn't seem bitter or angry about it, just happy to be getting the snow. better late then never was his attitude.

later that night during a ride to dinner the driver mentioned that looking out to our left or right there would typically be 3 to 4 feet of snow rather than the 1 foot that was there.

lack of snow was definitely a topic of conversation out there.

 

[snoseek]

November/December/January is why we're complaining. The skiing is o.k. now, Steamboat is def not in the track this year. South has been epic.

Yeah I spoiled now, I'm personally o.k. with it. I still get after it every chance, no matter what the conditions. I'm glad to not be native in that aspect.

 

[denvervega]

We were in Steamboat the same week and heard the same stories along w/ "you should have been here 2 yrs. ago. The mountain does ski much differently w/ more, but we really enjoyed what we had. The crowds during Pres. week left a little to be desired. Not the size, but the some people in the crowds. Oh well.

 

[highpeaksdrifter]

Just back from Steamboat and the locals crying about "only" having a 6 foot base was ridiculous. They somehow managed to man up and "deal" with the horrible 2 to 5 inches of powder each day. In addition, the complaints about scratchiness and ice left we East Coast skiers scratching our heads. (Not to mention that it was school vacation week and all the kids with their NH and VT ski resort stickers on their helmets bombing down the hills was rather amusing.)

Seriously - does the "ice coast" weather make us hardier, but more foolish folk? Occasionally we would run into scratched off trails (most popular trails after noon) and yell out "sounds like Attitash at noon" and keep going. But to read various blogs and ski magazines bemoan the Colorado winter this year is silly.

Has anyone else run into this in their travels out west?

Yeah, they do complain about what we would be happy with, but they're us to good conditions.

 

[Angus]

we skied two weeks ago in Utah, locals were complaining about the bad snow year - depths were 60 -90 inches depending upon where we were skiing. it snowed 5 of 7 days. riding the lifts at Alta there was more than one conversation with a CO skier talking about the horrendous snow season in summit county but that does - as previously noted - seem to be turning around. my son and I were skiing a chute off the supreme lift at Alta and a guy below us started screaming to avoid the area due to rocks, we skied around and my son turned around looked back up to see what the guys had been talking about - he described the rocks protruding to be like Star Line at Wildcat mid-winter in a really good snow year!

 

[jrmagic]

It does seem silly to us ECers to hear complaints like that but its all what you're used to. I had a business assocaite from out west come ski at Magic last year and he was moaning at some of the runs I took him down that I considered to be in reasonable shape.

 

[wa-loaf]

I didn't really hear any complaining in Utah. But my buddy who lives there didn't want to go to Powder Mtn because they only had a 60 inch base.

 

[rocojerry]

The giant gash on my board from Feb 14th is my only complaint....
on the east coast, that rock would have been covered in base material and PTEX already......

 

[marcski]

They're just used to a lot more snow than we get and ....NO Rain during the season. It is below average for them out there. But, hey, it's all relative....after skiing MRG today and Magic yesterday, if the east coast would get consistent snow like we have now..(you know a couple of feet a week) and didn't rain in season, there would be no need to go out west.

 

[dmc]

There's like only 6 real locals in Steamboat... the rest are from the northeast...

 

[snoseek]

That little suprise 16 inch last night at Winterpark skied well. I have not complained in almost a month.

It's a god given right to complain if you live in the east. The simple fact is most skiers out here are in fact from the east (a lot for sure). We move here for to get away from all that, when you ski hard pack for a month mid winter you really can't help but to get antsy.

 

[Bostonian]

That little suprise 16 inch last night at Winterpark skied well. I have not complained in almost a month.

It's a god given right to complain if you live in the east. The simple fact is most skiers out here are in fact from the east (a lot for sure). We move here for to get away from all that, when you ski hard pack for a month mid winter you really can't help but to get antsy.

I am killing myself for going home Sunday night/Monday morning. It was snowing like crazy from the Vail pass all the way down to Georgetown. I am surprised they didn't shut down 70 for a period of time, since there were spinouts and powder galore! Damn work getting in the way of skiing! Well if I am lucky, I will get to Sunapee this weekend... It's no Vail, but it will do

 

[Method9455]

Just back from Steamboat and the locals crying about "only" having a 6 foot base was ridiculous. They somehow managed to man up and "deal" with the horrible 2 to 5 inches of powder each day. In addition, the complaints about scratchiness and ice left we East Coast skiers scratching our heads. (Not to mention that it was school vacation week and all the kids with their NH and VT ski resort stickers on their helmets bombing down the hills was rather amusing.)

Seriously - does the "ice coast" weather make us hardier, but more foolish folk? Occasionally we would run into scratched off trails (most popular trails after noon) and yell out "sounds like Attitash at noon" and keep going. But to read various blogs and ski magazines bemoan the Colorado winter this year is silly.

Has anyone else run into this in their travels out west?

Went out to Colorado for 30 days this year. It was my first trip out west. We did almost all of our time at Winter Park but did a little at Steamboat and a little at the Summit Co resorts. It has been a bad year for Colorado snow-wise, even though it is a little better now.

First off, your comments about the base depth are completely off the mark, and how they are "spoiled" just shows you don't know jack about what they are saying. 30" of snow is not skiable at most mountains out west. It works on the east coast because we mainly have grass under our trails. Equivalent trails out there are fine with that much snow. But what happens when you get in the trees? What happens when you get on the rocky stuff? What happens to the windblown areas? It just doesn't work.

When we left there was 54" of base at WP and we were still hitting stuff all the time. I put core shots in both of my snowboards and refused to take my skis into the trees. The guy I was riding with got it worse, cracked the sidewall on a board in two different spots. The rocks sneak up on you, worse are the tree stumps and logs that can break legs.

Also Steamboat is in better shape than most places in Colorado. They are farther from Denver so the crowds are lower, and the geology is a bit different than the southern resorts. We found even in early January that Steamboat had a lot less stuff poking through than others even with a smaller base, now that WP has been hammered with snow and Steamboat hasn't it might be equal but at the time it was a stark difference.

I looked at the 20 year average and when we left winter park they were 5' behind normal.

Now there were still plenty of powder days, but it is not unreasonable to complain. When you only groom 15% of the trails and the rest is all natural if you don't have some snow it goes to shit in about 4-5 days, especially if you start getting temperatures above freezing. Not to mention there is a whole other thing going on with the snow in regards to avalanche stability, when we were there it was sugar right down to the bottom which is not normal, although I think by now that is not the case.