Pandemic good or bad for the quality & quantity of your skiing/riding?

[dblskifanatic]

The pandemic really is not what impacted our ski season. Moving during the start of the ski season to a place that is not close enough to significant skiing and the rule around the pandemic did not help. So rather than skiing about 50 days we will ski at best 10 - tough year for me.

 

[Killingtime]

22 days at almost all new places for me, Whiteface, West, Elk, Blue, Plattekill, Greek, Jiminy. Only five days on Indy Pass which kind of sucked. Missed Bolton and Magic. Just packed away my gear until next season.

 

[Tonyr]

22 days at almost all new places for me, Whiteface, West, Elk, Blue, Plattekill, Greek, Jiminy. Only five days on Indy Pass which kind of sucked. Missed Bolton and Magic. Just packed away my gear until next season.

Yea I only got 3 days on my spring Indy Pass but at $50 per day I guess it was still worth it.

 

[parahelia]

In terms of quantity, this ski season was pretty similar to previous seasons - I'm at 38 days now, probably get another 5-7 before the end of season. Almost all skiing was at Sunday River, though we did get to Sugarloaf and Saddleback for day trips (might get a few more, too).

But that's the only thing similar to previous seasons. Usually we are weekend warriors, driving up to Maine Friday night, back Sunday night. Long trips are normally limited by the non-overlap between vacations (kids in k12, I'm in higher ed). This year we had multiple trips of 10+ day length - the testing requirements in ME and MA made shorter trips impractical for us. But hybrid & remote teaching made it possible to still get in a ton of days while following the COVID rules.

It has been fantastic spending long periods of time at the mountain - instead of one relaxing Saturday evening at the mountain each week, we got a week+ of relaxing evenings each trip. The days on average might be slightly shorter (more weekdays balanced with work), but not having to spend ~3 hrs in the car each Friday and Sunday is huge.

Had just been hoping for a better March-April, snow-wise...

 

[Zand]

Quality and quantity both down for me.

Worked was crazier than normal for me in the past year. Made it tough for me to get away for multi-day trips very often and I felt too worn out to get up at 5am for day trips most of the winter.

Quality was also down mainly because I wasn't able to get to Vermont which is where usually about 70% of my days are. Having to depend on NH to get good really sucked, especially when VT was having a fairly normal year snow wise and NH was scraping its way to barely getting natural terrain open the first week of Feb.

Nearly 50% of my days this year will end up being out west. Had great conditions in Jackson but those lines were an absolute killer. Utah next week should hopefully be way more laid back.

Hoping to see way more of I-91 next year.

 

[jimk]

Quality and quantity both down for me.

Worked was crazier than normal for me in the past year. Made it tough for me to get away for multi-day trips very often and I felt too worn out to get up at 5am for day trips most of the winter.

Quality was also down mainly because I wasn't able to get to Vermont which is where usually about 70% of my days are. Having to depend on NH to get good really sucked, especially when VT was having a fairly normal year snow wise and NH was scraping its way to barely getting natural terrain open the first week of Feb.

Nearly 50% of my days this year will end up being out west. Had great conditions in Jackson but those lines were an absolute killer. Utah next week should hopefully be way more laid back.

Hoping to see way more of I-91 next year.

Let me know/send PM if you want to make a few laps with an old guy one day at Snowbird. I'm at Snowbird at least a couple hours most weekdays this April.
A bunch of my geezer ski buddies that have been vaxed like me are starting to line up Apr visits to UT.

PS: No more parking reservations required at Snowbird for any day remainder of season! A mtn host told me the other day that Snowbird plans to operate 7 days per week until at least Mother's Day, May 9. Likely only weekends starting then or a bit later.

 

[Scruffy]

I'm happy for those that had a full season, way to get after it. For me, however, that was not the case. I had the worst ski season ever. I did not travel to ski this season at all. Skied only locally and hated the covid crowds I encountered early in the season, though they mitigated some as the 2nd half of the season. I also was busy putting an addition on my house, and dealing with a painful muscle tear, so those events kept my ski day numbers lower too. I only got 12 days compared to my 70+ days. Oh well, looking forward to next season and making up for this dismal one. Snow was good Jan/Feb. Got some more XC days in this year.
I had a couple of really good spring bump days in, so that helps quell the loss.

 

[jimk]

Just as I suspected, the inputs to this thread have been interesting and all over the map. Given the recent lockdown initiated at Whistler, it was probably a good thing the border was closed this winter because a lot of Americans would have been in the mix up there.

 

[kendo]

Great skiing last week at Stowe opened (and closed) a cv shortened micro-season for me. Lots of vert skied over 5 days with January conditions on Thurs & Friday!
No complaints, stayed healthy and look forward to getting back to 40+ days in 21/22.

 

[mikec142]

Quantity was up slightly. Quality was fantastic. Most of my skiing was done during the glorious period in N. VT. Tacked on a couple of days out West, which was wonderful. Not sure about other places, but I found that lift lines were way, way shorter at Sugarbush than previous years. I'll take that all day long.

Wish it was a longer season both at the beginning and the end. Other than that...very few complaints.

Side note...booting up at the car was nothing new for me. I've always done that. Grabbing lunch outside or at the car was fine. Not ideal, but not really problematic. I did miss grabbing dinner at Pro Pig and places in Burlington. But takeout at the hotel was acceptable.

 

[Zand]

Let me know/send PM if you want to make a few laps with an old guy one day at Snowbird. I'm at Snowbird at least a couple hours most weekdays this April.
A bunch of my geezer ski buddies that have been vaxed like me are starting to line up Apr visits to UT.

PS: No more parking reservations required at Snowbird for any day remainder of season! A mtn host told me the other day that Snowbird plans to operate 7 days per week until at least Mother's Day, May 9. Likely only weekends starting then or a bit later.

Actually it wouldn't hurt to have someone show me some of the better lines off the cirque. Everytime I've skied off it I've had a bad run and usually somehow find bad snow.

If the conditions are good I plan on this trip being heavy on Snowbird. I've been twice and both times were in funky conditions. First time I lapped the same two lines over and over (one in Mineral, one off Road to Provo) and the 2nd time I only found good ungroomed snow at Gad 2. Looks like they're in a classic corn cycle going into next week so hoping for more widespread good conditions so I can truly start learning the place.

 

[jimk]

Snowbird predicted 3" today, but got about 9-12". Nice refresh! One of those sneaky powder days with no crowds! Spring skiing returns in a few days. It's that time of year with roller coaster weather, but it's all kinda good

 

[kingslug]

And thats why I go to Utah.

 

[Bumpsis]

COVID situation made the season worse for me. Quality of what we had was good, for what we did have. Quantity sucked. Just 7 sessions on IKON Base passes and additional couple of days at Cannon and Sunapee.

In "regular" winter we usually manage about 15 days, usually with one week long trip and then a few shorter overnighters. This year we had only one week long trip (Sugarloaf). Travel restrictions really did make a difference. No western trip this season. Our only IKON day tripping option is Loon and for the most part, it's my least favorite place to ski.

For NE based overnights we usually hit Sugarbush or Sunday River but due to travel restrictions just couldn't make it happen. Too much of a hassle. Between securing the COVID tests and all that BS with having to boot up at the car, ski with backpacks, iffy ski conditions, I just wasn't all that excited about skiing this year. I just felt too fatigued to jump through all the hoops just to ski on icy crap.

 

[ERJ-145CA]

It was pretty much the same for me except that the lift line at Mountain Creek on weekdays was a 10 to 15 minute wait for the gondola. Which is the main lift on weekdays mornings. Because of covid you were supposed to ride with only the people you came with, which for me on weekdays and many others was solo, so a lot of gondolas went up with only 1 person instead of up to 8. I always tried to invite a person or 2 with me, worked about half the time.

 

[da-bum]

I was planning on doing a bit more this year because my partner became a person of leisure and we don't have to plan on when we are both free of important meetings or deadlines on which upcoming days, but then my boss gave me grief about the one day notice I usually give him on when I plan to take off, especially on multiple days, which is what I frequently do given the wild fluctuation in weather.

So the quantity of days increased somewhat, but the vert feet per day dropped a bit (I think I averaged 43k vs this season's 38k), mainly due to the extra wait on the lines. Even though we usually head straight to the North mountain in Hunter as soon as the lines gets unbearable long. A bearable 10 min wait is still longer than the 1 minute wait that we usually have to do on weekdays. And with only 2 trails of interest in the North, sooner or later, it gets monotonous (some days, it was even 1). Even on the North side, there were times where the lift wait was over 5min long vs what use to be ski right onto the chair. I am happy on the fact that the trails were mostly empty. I guess if they are not on the lines, they would be on the trails.

On the time saving side, we park right in a lot that is literally a fence across where there is skiable snow, so instead of lugging our gear to the lodge to gear up, we boot up on the car, go over an obstacle and we are on our skis after a minute or two walk on the snow. Lunch is quicker too because its right in the car, with nothing else to do after eating. Bathroom break is real quick (for me), right on the side of the trail.

 

[RustyGroomer]

Made me ski more in the yard on tiny skis... Nothing like skiing on 145cm tele to humble.
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