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Relative difficulty of ski areas?

kingslug

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One thing you will notice for sure is the difference in the degree of toughness from western to eastern trails. Not to say that eastern trails aren't tough. Some places like MRG have some of the hardest nastiest trails there are. Out west a green can be difficult for a beginner due to the length of it. Take Big Emma at Snowbird. It's a beginner killer, very long and steeper than they expect. I find that when conditions are icy, a double balck eastern run is a lot harder than some of the doubles out west. I have less fear on a 40 degree slope with good coverage/powder, than an ice sheet less steep. Throw in tight trees and it can be killer. Jackson Hole has double blue runs that are as steep as some double black eastern runs. It pays to know where you're at.
 

shwilly

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kingslug said:
One thing you will notice for sure is the difference in the degree of toughness from western to eastern trails...

That's true, but it goes both ways.

I find that when conditions are icy, a double balck eastern run is a lot harder than some of the doubles out west.

Exactly.

There are easier double blacks out west, as well. The center of Jersey Cream Bowl on Blackcomb is "double black," but on a powder day, bombing down a steep headwall just isn't that difficult. (If you can turn at all, that is. My wife couldn't make a single turn on her Crossmaxes in 18" of pow. I learned to lean back and float on my board while she went down and rented fatter skis.) That's an extreme example, but both coasts have their questionable double blacks.

If you're comfortable doing northern New England double blacks on hardpack, boilerplate, dust-on-crust, and patches of blue ice, with the occasional rock peeking through, you'll be ready for almost anything in the West.

Side note: if you're used to the East, you can laugh at Western skiers' reaction to the few spots that get skied off during the course of the day: pure survival mode, adults regressing to their first lesson snowplow-tuck at the first sight of a scraped-off spot.
 

kingslug

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At Beaver Creek at the top of the Mens downhill I came upon a group of people just staring, or gaping as we like to say. It was solid ice. A few brave ones jumped in only to slide into the mogul field, on their backsides, a ways down. I laughed, said hell It's just NY powder and slid across and jumped into the mogul field. I should have taken a picture.
But then at Vail I gaped at one of the longest and hairiest mogul fields I ever saw. Just depends on where you are and what going on at the time.
 
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