Trail Ratings

[benski]

Absolutely agree. the problem is implementing a standardized system like this won't be possible. Maybe if a millionaire has a kid get into a terrible accident on a trail that was too hard for them

Or if there is a laws suit.


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[bdfreetuna]

Most trails you can tell how hard it's going to be based on looking down it. If not, live and learn.


Standardized system is impossible and would equate to a marketing disaster for everyone. Suddenly half the areas would seem like beginner-only mountains and the other half would seem frightening to beginners. Resorts would be constantly trying to manipulate the system in order to achieve some kind of trail rating balance relative to their own mountain (as they have now).

 

[Jully]

Most trails you can tell how hard it's going to be based on looking down it. If not, live and learn.


Standardized system is impossible and would equate to a marketing disaster for everyone. Suddenly half the areas would seem like beginner-only mountains and the other half would seem frightening to beginners. Resorts would be constantly trying to manipulate the system in order to achieve some kind of trail rating balance relative to their own mountain (as they have now).

Similar things could be said about the standardized systems for golf courses and others though. Even though trail ratings are more important for a ski resort than ratings are for a golf course, I don't think it would be a total disaster. Places that truly try to identify themselves as a family friendly resort would suddenly have real data to back up those claims with their trails. Places like Saddleback that market the Kennebago Steeps as a truly great expert pod would also be able to cite some official looking certification from inspectors.

It would also have the added benefit of taking fanboys of flatter mountains down a notch. Not to knock those places at all, they're great for what they are, but I get irked by someone toting Okemo as the steepest most difficult mountain in the east.

It will never happen though, so it is more or less a moot point.

 

[steamboat1]

It was either last year or the year before Killington changed the rating of upper Great Northern from green to blue. Great Northern was their signature green trail from the Peak. I think it was a good move.

 

[bdfreetuna]

^ They got complaints that the section where it crosses under the gondola was too tough from beginners heading up the gondi. It often gets skied off as well and can be an intimidating section if you suck at skiing.

 

[dlague]

Trail ratings are subjective. As mentioned earlier, no way to create a universal trail rating system with the exception of how it is done by ski areas own rating with in the framework that is already there. As a result, resorts have tails that are black rated trails and are easy to ski generally because they do get groomed out. Steepness is not generally the problem for most - double fall lines, bumps, ice and obstacles on steeper pitches are what pose problems and make trails more difficult and require more focus. The problem this poses, skiers will ski a black diamond at a feeder hill and think they can do the same at larger resorts. That drives me crazy! However, while some ski areas do not bother with double or triple black diamonds, I think some ski areas tend to use that to attract advanced or expert skiers. BTW Jay is another that only goes to a single diamond.

While I know there is MRG, Cannon and Jay that go to a single black diamond, are there others?

 

[deadheadskier]

Wildcat and I'm actually for offering a double diamond rating when appropriate. Al's, Hairball and Starr Line all have some serious obstacles and are in another level of difficulty from say Upper Wildcat.

 

[nhskier1969]

I think for them most part sugarbush gets it about right. The double blacks are pretty legit and some of the blues could pretty easily be blacks


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Unless you are talking about deathspout. That could be a black diamond, very least double blue

 

[KustyTheKlown]

The thing is, it really should be relevant. The rating system should not be unique to each area. It's a marketing ploy to have a black at a place like Blue Hills or Nashoba or Bradford or Powder Ridge. Or for Smuggs to have a triple black diamond. All it does it does is get people onto trails they shouldn't be on when they get to a place that ranks trails at an easier grade than they are accustomed to.

Do National Parks get their rock climbing routes or rapids classed willy-nilly? No. There are standards so the users understand what they are getting themselves into. Do golf courses come up with their own slopes and ratings? No, certified people come through and assign difficulty values to everything from the height of the rough to the bunkers and water and speeds of the greens.

There needs to be a standard cutoff. As much as the trail map may read "Ratings are unique to this area", no one bothers to read that. It puts stress on the Ski Patrol to rescue an injured person on a trail they shouldn't have been on in the first place. It clogs up trails as beginners snowplow all the way across the fall line on a trail too hard for them.

eh, black hole shouldnt even be on the map if they are not going to indicate that its a triple. it's basically as wide as your skis, super steep, mandatory drops, and trees on both sides and some in the middle of the chute. it's dangerous, and without scaring people away, people would get hurt.

 

[dlague]

The thing is, it really should be relevant. The rating system should not be unique to each area. It's a marketing ploy to have a black at a place like Blue Hills or Nashoba or Bradford or Powder Ridge. Or for Smuggs to have a triple black diamond. All it does it does is get people onto trails they shouldn't be on when they get to a place that ranks trails at an easier grade than they are accustomed to.

Do National Parks get their rock climbing routes or rapids classed willy-nilly? No. There are standards so the users understand what they are getting themselves into. Do golf courses come up with their own slopes and ratings? No, certified people come through and assign difficulty values to everything from the height of the rough to the bunkers and water and speeds of the greens.

There needs to be a standard cutoff. As much as the trail map may read "Ratings are unique to this area", no one bothers to read that. It puts stress on the Ski Patrol to rescue an injured person on a trail they shouldn't have been on in the first place. It clogs up trails as beginners snowplow all the way across the fall line on a trail too hard for them.

I have to say I agree. That system is a little antiquated. The real problem is, those who ski often know that, those who do not more than likely do not. As a result kids that have been skiing feeder hills and do the blacks there are going to larger resorts and going to trails they are not ready for.

eh, black hole shouldnt even be on the map if they are not going to indicate that its a triple. it's basically as wide as your skis, super steep, mandatory drops, and trees on both sides and some in the middle of the chute. it's dangerous, and without scaring people away, people would get hurt.

While there are plenty who do not go on smugg's triple black because of the triple designation, however, it is taken as a challenge by some that should not be there.

Been on it once and hated the tightness of the trees at the top getting smacked in the face and tore my jacket. Finally got to the relative open space the narrow trail more or less and was happy to be there but that was not much fun either because it was scraped off from lots of people side slipping. I was an example of one who took it as a challenge and never went back. Did not see the fun in it.

 

[ScottySkis]

J


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[bigbog]

The uniqueness of different resorts' terrain and trails is what keeps in-resort skiing interesting, for me.

 

[Keelhauled]

The other factor in trail ratings and what I think makes it impossible to have a standardized system is that the weather can have such an effect on how a trail skis. One of my most vivid memories from when I was young and first learning how to ski was on Cloudspin at Ascutney, rated a green trail, but that particular day it was icy, slick, and overtrafficked. And yet it was rated the same as the lower mountain trails I had skied all morning, so my dad and I thought that it would be easy. It took me an hour to get down the trail. No way in hell was I qualified to be up there. You can't account for that kind of circumstance on a certificate, unless you make the qualification that at any point local conditions can change the trail's difficulty without warning, which makes the whole effort moot. And frankly I think the resorts would prefer to keep it as is, because the lack of standardization and the disclaimers make it easy for them to tell someone who gets in trouble to go pound sand if they try to complain or sue. If they have a "certified green" or whatever trail, they kind of lose a level of isolation from the complainant.

 

[EPB]

The other factor in trail ratings and what I think makes it impossible to have a standardized system is that the weather can have such an effect on how a trail skis. One of my most vivid memories from when I was young and first learning how to ski was on Cloudspin at Ascutney, rated a green trail, but that particular day it was icy, slick, and overtrafficked. And yet it was rated the same as the lower mountain trails I had skied all morning, so my dad and I thought that it would be easy. It took me an hour to get down the trail. No way in hell was I qualified to be up there. You can't account for that kind of circumstance on a certificate, unless you make the qualification that at any point local conditions can change the trail's difficulty without warning, which makes the whole effort moot. And frankly I think the resorts would prefer to keep it as is, because the lack of standardization and the disclaimers make it easy for them to tell someone who gets in trouble to go pound sand if they try to complain or sue. If they have a "certified green" or whatever trail, they kind of lose a level of isolation from the complainant.

I don't know if they still do this, but back in the 90s, I remember Attitash used to make good use of disclaimers.

They would have caution signs that we're all accustomed to seeing (the orange/black striped bamboo stick with an orange plastic circular marker on the top) that would read "caution" and have a single or double black diamond sign drawn on it. I remember them using these for blue square rated trails that had snow making "whale bumps" on them that had yet to be groomed out for the first time. They might have even roped most of the trail off and left a small opening to simulate the gate experience you might see out west.

I found it to be pretty effective, but granted, I was young at the time and generally knew what I was getting into as a season pass-holder... As long as areas would be encouraged to enact these practices, or even have the license to bump a trail up one notch if a decision is made to change a groomer to a bump run, this really shouldn't be an impediment.

 

[dlague]

They still do that. I have see signs like - Icy conditions, this cover, etc. However, the trail map show the rating of the trail and some ignore the warning because it is a green or blue trail and think they can handle it.

 

[skiNEwhere]

Breckenridge is weird in how skewed the trail ratings are. Centennial (right under the chairlift on peak 10) is a black. Sundance, at A-Basin, is just about the same pitch and is a green. Yes the ratings aren't relative to other mountains, but with such an easy trail being rated a black you'd think the double blacks wouldn't be much harder. Wrong.

For some reason CO has the "extreme terrain" designator for double blacks. Most ski areas in the state don't have just an ordinary double black. The rating jumps from single black diamond to double black "extreme."

At Breckenridge, there are double black extreme runs that are rated as such because they have an optional cliff somewhere within the run. You could go on some of these runs with pretty basic skills and be fine. But if you were to go onto "wacky's chute" which is a legitimate 50+ degrees at the very top, and fell or lost a ski due to pre-release, you WILL slide all the way to the bottom (I've tested this theory)

 

[EPB]

They still do that. I have see signs like - Icy conditions, this cover, etc. However, the trail map show the rating of the trail and some ignore the warning because it is a green or blue trail and think they can handle it.

That's not quite as strong a warning as I remember from many years ago. I think they did away with the handwritten double diamond signs 10+ ago. They're not perfect, but probably more effective than they "hey, there's ice here" signs that aren't particularly specific. I made it there last year around Xmas, and they had an ice sign on Illusion. I didn't think much of it until I got to the bottom of the first pitch and encountered ice so bad that there was actually NO WAY to get an edge on it. I use the Mount Washington Valley ski team kids (high school age kids, many of which have a future racing in college) who were unable to cut into this stuff on their race training skis and were relegated to sliding down the whole ~80+ foot, full-trail-wide ice swath. There should have been a disclaimer at the bottom of the lift saying that only experts are suited for it because Illusion was the only trail open.

Attitash has overhauled its ski patrol for the worst IMO, when they decided to stop paying their life-long crew and opted for a cheaper, less experienced team. But, I digress. It wasn't my intent to go down that path, but I think it was relevant.

 

[dlague]

Well I think their snowmaking has a lot to do with that. Avenger gets really scraped off down to ice by 10 am Illusion is the same way. Too many New England Ski areas blow wet snow - Cannon is another example. Shit freezes and any snow of the good variety scrapes off easy. I watched videos of the snow making at Loveland and they could not make a snowball out of it because it was so dry. Then again the base building approach may be different back east. In any case, any trail that might be easier to ski the first few runs can easily be come more difficult by mid morning and last season was a perfect example. Lots of very hard pack.

 

[EPB]

Well I think their snowmaking has a lot to do with that. Avenger gets really scraped off down to ice by 10 am Illusion is the same way. Too many New England Ski areas blow wet snow - Cannon is another example. Shit freezes and any snow of the good variety scrapes off easy. I watched videos of the snow making at Loveland and they could not make a snowball out of it because it was so dry. Then again the base building approach may be different back east. In any case, any trail that might be easier to ski the first few runs can easily be come more difficult by mid morning and last season was a perfect example. Lots of very hard pack.

I was living in the Midwest, so I missed most of the season last year (I suppose I got lucky). I can assure you though, this was an aberration due to bad snow-making conditions and an earnest effort to just get open by 12/26, when I was there. It was not something getting scraped down by 10 and wasn't even characteristic of early season conditions, of which I am familiar at Attitash.

It was basically water that came out of the snow guns and never froze into snow before hitting the ground. It laid down an ice slick. If you were there that day, you'd know what I'm talking about. If not, frankly, it's difficult to describe/imagine. I'll just say until 2014, Attitash had been my home mountain for my whole life and I'd never seen anything like it before. I hadn't seen anything like it on a groomed run at any other resort either. The closest thing I can think of is the very bottom part of the old Ryan Bas at Tremblant that has had a fickle history with being included on the trail map. I suspect MadPatSki knows exactly where I'm talking about.

Again, kindof off topic, but it is what it is.

 

[Harvey]

The thing is, it really should be relevant.

So how does it help of you go to a small area and all trails are rated green?