End of paper trail maps?

[jimk]

I recently stumbled onto the 3D ski area maps on the IKON pass website. They are kind of fun to fool around with (at home), especially to navigate around a big resort. Here's a link to the one for Killington: https://www.ikonpass.com/en/destinations?map=Killington

I too loved trail maps as a youngster. My older brothers plastered a wall in our house with trail maps they'd collected from around the USA. As a teen I used to stare at those and fantasize. Geography was my major in college. Now I've been to about 100 ski areas. I'll still grab a map whenever I ski a place I haven't been to in a while.

 

[tnt1234]

My seven year old tonight. He rearranged his ski map bulletin board to make room for the Loon trail map he will pickup on Friday. We are starting our season there.

Vail back to offering print maps again?

I really hope so. Collecting trail maps is such a thrill for children

awesome!

Children? I love collecting train maps and I'm 54!

 

[deadheadskier]

This was a mistake. Finally feel comfortable sharing my James Neuhues book with my son without him trashing the book.

Mind = Blown!

I think I just watched my retirement age advance about a decade. "Daddy when are we going here? What about this big, big, one! I really want to go. What are we doing next weekend?" (in reference to Whistler).

 

[eatskisleep]

Did Vail bring back paper trail maps yet?

 

[urungus]

Did Vail bring back paper trail maps yet?

For Stowe, yes. But I believe not for any of their other eastern resorts.

 

[chuckstah]

I found new maps at Crotched today

 

[Ski2LiveLive2Ski]

I often print my own and highlight the open trails. Often worth doing to decide where to go as trail names that separately title every 50 yds of trail make it difficult to visualize what is open based on trail count or even lists of what is open.

 

[urungus]

“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated” … So far this season I have only failed to get a trail map at Mt Snow

 

[Smellytele]

Got an actual paper one. Talking hot off the printer from black of Maine.

 

[urungus]

Got an actual paper one. Talking hot off the printer from black of Maine.

Same thing for the Montage map in my photo above. Only other place I’ve encountered that is the Middlebury Snow Bowl

 

[soposkier]

This was a mistake. Finally feel comfortable sharing my James Neuhues book with my son without him trashing the book.

Mind = Blown!

I think I just watched my retirement age advance about a decade. "Daddy when are we going here? What about this big, big, one! I really want to go. What are we doing next weekend?" (in reference to Whistler).

View attachment 55200

I have been grabbing trail maps while I can. My 5 year old loves looking at them. Used to love going to the ASC resorts in the late 90s/early 2000s and grabbing all the maps that they seemed to have in the lodge.

 

[MidnightJester]

The hand painted trail maps will live on : ) James Niehues passes brush to a new artist.

WATCH: James Niehues Passes The Trail Map Brush To Rad Smith

Next season, Keystone Resort will open up the Bergman Bowl to lift-serviced skiing. After some roadblocks, the newly lift-serviced terrain pod is set to

unofficialnetworks.com

 

[urungus]

Near the start of this season, I was told at Mt Snow that they don’t print paper maps anymore. But when I went this week sure enough they had a 2022-2023 printed map available. So I am now at 100% availabilty of paper maps this season.

Weak effort by Bousquet, though:
* washed out inkjet printing on 8.5x11 copy paper
* doesn’t say Bousquet anywhere
* leftmost portion of trail map is cropped out
* printed in portrait mode instead of landscape, so there are large white bars on top and bottom

 

[doublediamond]

Every place I’ve been to has plenty of maps around other than Vail properties which removed maps with COVID to save a buck. More example of the McDonalds skiing at Vail.

 

[urungus]

Finally found a place without any paper trail maps, LOL (yes I asked)

 

[BodeMiller1]

It's so much easier using a physical map than pulling out a cell phone and looking at the little screen, dealing with the touch sensitivity with gloves, and all that.

A paper trail map and a compass is the way to go. It helps if you can use the compass to orient the map to the mountain. This is a good skill and can get you out of trouble when lost wether in a car or in a boat, on a hill on in a moat.

Dead reckoning navigation.

 

[ceo]

A paper trail map and a compass is the way to go. It helps if you can use the compass to orient the map to the mountain. This is a good skill and can get you out of trouble when lost wether in a car or in a boat, on a hill on in a moat.

I would never reply on a ski area trail map for navigation when lost in the woods. Most of them, particularly for larger resorts, are wildly distorted so as to fit all of the trails onto one map.

 

[thetrailboss]

I would never reply on a ski area trail map for navigation when lost in the woods. Most of them, particularly for larger resorts, are wildly distorted so as to fit all of the trails onto one map.

Yeah, the poster is blurring the lines between two different types of map. A topographic map (now rarely used by ski resorts for public reference) and a reference map, such as a graphical representation of the ski area (what IS used). Almost all of this thread is talking about reference maps. Back in the day many areas (Killington being the most obvious) would print topographical maps, but people nowadays do not understand how to read them as easily.

Killington Map, 1982 (hybrid of topographical WITH a small reference map):

Killington 2022 Map (reference map only)

SOURCE: skimap.org

 

[BodeMiller1]

I would never reply on a ski area trail map for navigation when lost in the woods. Most of them, particularly for larger resorts, are wildly distorted so as to fit all of the trails onto one map.

I would never carry a cell. They're too heavy and bulky. I only carry a paper trail map when at a place I'm not familiar with. The paper maps always tell you where the bars are. This can be vital.

 

[2Planker]

I would never carry a cell. They're too heavy and bulky. I only carry a paper trail map when at a place I'm not familiar with. The paper maps always tell you where the bars are. This can be vital.

Jeez. We couldn’t find a map at Stowe, SB or Jay in March last year. Most places only print so many, and when they’re gone, they are gone