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The Sugarloaf Backside Snowfields vs. The Slides at Whiteface

tjf67

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Never been on Big Jay. Ive skied jay a dozen times and never felt the need to do any extra work. Lots of stuff in bounds. Seeing as how jay is 2k vert for the whole hill and the slides are 1800 by themselves I am guessing the slides are on a whole a lot steeper.
 

trycash2

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I've done Big Jay a handful of times including this past weekend and it's easily some of the steepest stuff I've ever found in the east.... I'm not very good at judging pitch but Goodman claims it's 50 degrees... either way I think it's the best terrain in the east and the snow always seems to be deeper and lighter back there...
 

C2H5OH

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this is Whiteface Slide #1. By looking at the trees, the pitch is about 40..45 degrees - for almost all of 1800' vertical:

Slides4.jpg


Hard to imaging anything lift servised in the East can compare to Slides...
 

awf170

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THe slides are off the summit of Whiteface. Grant you the face is 4500 feet up and Mt Washington is 5000+ but it is the exact same skiing with out the hike. Knarly bush wacking steep sustained drops and lots of powder, well in theory.


No, the stuff on Mt. Washington has good coverage for 4 months of the year. The whiteface slides have good coverage once every 4 years.
 

tjf67

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No, the stuff on Mt. Washington has good coverage for 4 months of the year. The whiteface slides have good coverage once every 4 years.

For the most part you are correct. I guess my point was its the same type of terrain and you dont have to climb.
PS. I have been skiing wf since 99-00 and the slides have opened every year. Just saying
 

riverc0il

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I've done Big Jay a handful of times including this past weekend and it's easily some of the steepest stuff I've ever found in the east.... I'm not very good at judging pitch but Goodman claims it's 50 degrees... either way I think it's the best terrain in the east and the snow always seems to be deeper and lighter back there...
Where does Goodman claim 50 degrees? Certainly not in Backcountry Skiing Adventures which I just double checked to make sure. While Big Jay is certainly continuously steep, it is definitely not in the range of any of the gullies in the Tuckerman Ravine area. The steepest part of the Face Chutes is also steeper than most pitches on Big Jay which felt comfortably steep but perhaps the powder was deceiving. A consistent pitch of 30 degrees with some sections in the 35 degree area sounds about right to me.
 

AdironRider

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This debate I think can never truely be answered, but you guys really need to ride up the summit chair at the face and bask in the glory that is The Slides. The area is huge and consistently steep. 30-40 degrees for what amounts to the vertical of almost every other major hill in the east.
 

kingdom-tele

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never skied the slides, but have skied both big jay and the backside snow fields at sugarloaf, big jay is a whole different world, while steep in spots it definitely isn't the fields, skied them in 2001, the pitch and exposure is fantastic, big jay is classic too but in more of the choose your own adventure kind of way, as long as you don't cliff yourself it is simply the steepest deepest tree line in N VT, apples and oranges IMO

should they even be compared to tucks and other mountaineering decents?
 

K2Trav

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I have been to the loaf twice and both times the snow fields were open. I skied them. As soon as you are in them you have to start heading skiers left to get out of them. Went down through he woods and ended up at the bottom of Nitro?

You went the wrong way, if you went the right way you would have come out just above Ripsaw.



White Nitro is the only trail up there with snowmaking
 

tjf67

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You went the wrong way, if you went the right way you would have come out just above Ripsaw.



White Nitro is the only trail up there with snowmaking



When you look up the mountain. The trail furthest to the left. That is the trail I was comming out on
 
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