Dearest Mt. Operators......please don't groom 'Double Diamonds' ever

[Cannonball]

I thought they used to leave half of it to bump up....

They still. I just meant that some part of it is always groomed To me the rating is meant to define what you are getting yourself into. So even if it's 'only' half groomed, it still provides an out that's not worthy of <> <>.

Guess I'm all for grooming out a double black if the natural progression is getting so nasty that no one goes down it, the trail can be groomed, and the trail needs a "reset". Doing it on a regular basis does kind of "dumb down" the trail.

That's really well put. There was recently a thread about grooming some of Cannon's harder, all natural trails. I believe that the conditions really warranted it and it was a good call. True Grit is the "dumbing down" example.

 

[Puck it]

Zoomer liftline with the snow whales is a good example when this warranted.

 

[goldsbar]

It seems like a losing battle sometimes. I've had people on this forum - the supposed hardcore - tell me how Clair's at Hunter just has to be groomed when there's another trail for the same lift that's always groomed. It's a horrible groomer BTW. DD should be DD. At times that might mean ice bumps. Oh well. I've almost never had a bad run down Castlerock peak at Sugarbush. If it's ice bumps, I'll deal with them and probably still like it.

 

[TropicTundR]

Don't want to distract from thread, but I think it's the large increase in snowboarders that plow and shave the mountain, that results in more resort required re-grooming.

 

[witch hobble]

Growing up I always thought a double diamond was a glade. These days there are easing into glade skiing glades and groomed double black diamonds. Times change.

Things with industrial snowmaking and steep pitches will probably always need an occaisional groom, regardless of their rating. Otherwise they would remain closed often not recovering from freeze/thaw/refreeze cycles and over-use.

 

[witch hobble]

Don't want to distract from thread, but it's the large increase in snowboarders that really plow and shave the mountain.

Somebody get this guy the hot tub time machine!

 

[MadPadraic]

'Double Diamonds' in theory are supposed to be for the 'Expert Skiers and Riders'.

Outside of freeze/thaw events, I can't understand why they are ever groomed or even half groomed for that matter.

There are very few Eastern Trails that I feel are still barely 'Double Diamond' worthy when they are groomed. Gondi Line and White Nitro and Sugarloaf come to mind.

Does Outer Limits at Killington still have that *WARNING* sign at the top? Why is it there when the trail is almost always partially 'dumbed down' for the Joey's to ski. Sunday River has a number of culprits....Vortex, White Heat, Top Gun. Stowe does it with Liftline and National.

I've just never understood why resorts feel they need to coddle the egos of non-expert skiers and dumb down their double diamond trails such that advanced intermediate skiers can buy a Pin for their baseball caps.

FIS Downhill Course trails aside, this appears to be purely an Eastern skiing phenomenon. It's not like Jackson Hole would ever put an escalotor down Corbett's

Meh, I find groomed steep trails much more challenging than ones with bumps. But i'm not that good.

 

[MadPadraic]

Somebody get this guy the hot tub time machine!

No it's not. When a snowboarder is in a falling leaf scrape, the trail is usually already scraped off. The heel edge tends to have a slight positive impact on the surface. It is all the skiers with their longer heal turns that scrape it off. I've studied this closely.

 

[Abubob]

one thing I really like but don't see enough of is the 1/2 groom, 1/2 bump run.

There are some that need grooming, some that should never be touched, and some that can be 50/50.

Ragged does this quite a lot. Showboat being the prime example. But the way they made snow on half and groomed this year actually made 1/3 of the ungroomed area unskiable from debris from bulldozing huge chunks of the manmade into what usually has the best lines.

 

[Cannonball]

Don't want to distract from thread, but I think it's the large increase in snowboarders that plow and shave the mountain, that results in more resort required re-grooming.

Totally!! I remember back in the day. Before the 1980's every run was waist deep powder and topless Lange girls every day. The Burton family was actually an early investor in the Piston Bully. When stocks prices were dropping for Kassbohrer, Burton began working on ways to increase the demand for grooming. In fact the prototype of the Burton Air was initially called the "plow and shave".

 

[ALLSKIING]

I know we'll never see a groomer on Rumble...took this pic while hiking down today

Did not look at the date....I was like WTF??

 

[St. Bear]

It seems like a losing battle sometimes. I've had people on this forum - the supposed hardcore - tell me how Clair's at Hunter just has to be groomed when there's another trail for the same lift that's always groomed. It's a horrible groomer BTW. DD should be DD. At times that might mean ice bumps. Oh well. I've almost never had a bad run down Castlerock peak at Sugarbush. If it's ice bumps, I'll deal with them and probably still like it.

Umm...they occasionally groom Castlerock for the exact reasons we've stated (unmanageable)

 

[rocojerry]

Totally!! I remember back in the day. Before the 1980's every run was waist deep powder and topless Lange girls every day. The Burton family was actually an early investor in the Piston Bully. When stocks prices were dropping for Kassbohrer, Burton began working on ways to increase the demand for grooming. In fact the prototype of the Burton Air was initially called the "plow and shave".

hahaha, almost as funny as the guy that threw his ski's off the mtn!

 

[TropicTundR]

Totally!! I remember back in the day. Before the 1980's every run was waist deep powder and topless Lange girls every day. The Burton family was actually an early investor in the Piston Bully. When stocks prices were dropping for Kassbohrer, Burton began working on ways to increase the demand for grooming. In fact the prototype of the Burton Air was initially called the "plow and shave".

Oohh, This is the guy that started the trend of sitting on the trails and looking cool right before plowing and shaving

More Coolness = More Groomiess

Just have fun and be safe:beer:

 

[kingslug]

Well at Hunter I can see the logic now that they installed the quad..if very few use it because of icy bumps then it was not money well spent...They rarely groomed anything back there and it was pretty desolate back there.

 

[JimG.]

Well at Hunter I can see the logic now that they installed the quad..if very few use it because of icy bumps then it was not money well spent...They rarely groomed anything back there and it was pretty desolate back there.

They overgroomed Clairs when Z lift was the ticket up...alot of skiers use Colonel's Alternate to get to Belt or Wayout. Even with a big sign at the bottom of Colonel's, alot of folks who don't want to ski Clairs miss the sign and wind up on it.

And I think that potential liability is the reason they groom Clairs so much. Running counter to that notion is the fact that they groom the hell out of Annapurna which is a true sin against expert skiing. Makes no sense to me and the steep narrow headwall on top is another slide for life zone.

 

[BenedictGomez]

The biggest offender I'm familiar with is True Grit at Waterville. It's pitch qualifies as black diamond for sure. But cripes, the thing is a half-mile wide and always groomed. I took my 10 year old nephews down it the other day.

The biggest offenders I know of are in the Poconos. Camelback and Blue Mountain have "double black diamonds" on their map, and they're ridiculous.

Meh, I find groomed steep trails much more challenging than ones with bumps. But i'm not that good.

That's because you're not really skiing the ones with bumps, you're using them like horses used the bumps people created on old steep roads.

When a snowboarder is in a falling leaf scrape, the trail is usually already scraped off. The heel edge tends to have a slight positive impact on the surface. It is all the skiers with their longer heal turns that scrape it off. I've studied this closely.

Probably not close enough, if you've never seen a young or beginner snowboarder with a 5 inch pile of snow bulldozing along the entire length of his/her board while side-scraping down an entire trail (that he/she isnt skilled enough to be on).

There's no doubt snowboarding can have a detrimental effect on certain steep trails (or portions of trails), but it's the crappy or novice snowboarders that are guilty of this.

 

[JimG.]

There's no doubt snowboarding can have a detrimental effect on certain steep trails (or portions of trails), but it's the crappy or novice snowboarders that are guilty of this.

Newsflash...crappy or novice skiers do the same thing.

So let's show a little more love for our snowboarding bretheren.

 

[BenedictGomez]

Newsflash...crappy or novice skiers do the same thing.

So let's show a little more love for our snowboarding bretheren.

It's not as easy/comfortable for a beginning skier over their head to sideslip in one perfect unilateral direction for miles upon end (the true "scrape off" movement), as it is for a beginning snowboarder. Nor is it quite as natural of a "survival mechanism" on skis.

The crappy beginner skier is far more likely to at least move out of the initial track or at least change edge a few times while scrapping. So, while yes, they both "do the same thing", it's simply not realistic to say it occurs to the same snow effect or in the exact same proportion.

Also, it has nothing to do with showing "love" to someone on or off a snowboard, and everything to do with properly addressing reality and physics. I couldn't care less if there were more or less snowboarders on a given mountain and have nothing against snowboarding.

 

[JimG.]

I couldn't care less if there were more or less snowboarders on a given mountain and have nothing against snowboarding.

Point taken...just wanted to make sure this wasn't snowboard hate.