Why Does Berkshire East Use False Elevation Stats?

[Harvey]

I agree Wildcat is awesome.

My own personal dream ski area has a detachable quad from the base to summit, and Hall doubles serving individual pods.

 

[hrstrat57]

so...

Wachusett is bigger!

 

[Zand]

According to Liftblog, Cannon Tram is 2021

Cannon Mountain, NH

Click on a lift’s name for pictures. View in fullscreen↗

liftblog.com

Is that wrong?

I get like 1990 on a topo map but that can be tough to get dead on. But bottom station is on the high side of the 2000' line and the top station sits just below 4000'. But LiftBlog is generally accurate so close enough to 2000' vert either way.

 

[Zand]

so...

Wachusett is bigger!

Now if we could only get Wachusett to have some of Berkshire East's terrain

 

[djd66]

For me, "meaningful" vertical is what I find relevant to compare (can't think of a better way to word that). To put it another way, what vertical is the average person at a resort likely to regularly ski on any given day? At K, what percent of people ski from the peak down to Rt 4? Sure people that park at Skyeship likely are doing that. But otherwise do that many people even ski just the full Skyeship vert that often? Yes it can be lapped, but I never really viewed that as a thing a lot of people did at K. Maybe I'm wrong. Doing it once in a while as a novelty to say you skied all the way to the base I can see. But to me I don't care about that. Meanwhile at Whiteface or Mt Ellen (to use the examples previously mentioned), the only way to avoid skiing the full vertical is to not go to the summit at all. If you make it to the summit, you're skiing essentially the full vertical.

I would hardly call the vertical from the base of NRE to the bottom of Ellen meaningful.

I really don't understand what the big deal is with Killington. Any mountain I ski, I look at vertical from the lowest lift to the highest lift. Whistler in Canada is over 5,000 feet. Snowmass CO is over 4,000 feet. Do you ski all the way to the bottom every run? No,... but that is what the vertical is.

 

[xlr8r]

I also don't get why people always hate on Killington's vert. Many people especially families love to ski peak to creek, anyone who has been to Killington a bunch of times has done it. Is it mostly a green, yes, but you can continuously ski it without any poling or skating to get down. Also there are many routes to get from the peak to Skyeship base, its not a single route option like at Sunday river from Jordan to Whitecap. Also even if you ignore Skyeship, only counting Killington's vert as the vert of K1 is total BS. The vert from the peak to the base of Bear has a vert of over 2000ft.

There are some mountains though where the total vert is different than the continuous vert. For example Loon's total vert is from the top of North Peak to the base of Timber Town. But that cannot be skied as one run, Similarly at Stowe you cannot ski continuously from the top of the Gondola to the base of Toll House, or at Cannon ski from the top of Cannonball to the base of Mittersill.

 

[oldfartrider]

The most continuous vert I’ve ever done is from the top of Les Arcs (Alguille Rouge) to the base of the Villager chair. About 6500 ft. Vert. The slope is decently steep to almost the last 400ft of vert. It takes 5 lifts to get back to the top tho.

 

[Newpylong]

Les Deux Alpes is insane, it's like 7500 vert from the very top of Dome de la Lauze to below the villlage. I've only been there in summer though.

 

[2Planker]

Chamonix's Aguille de Midi, Valle Blanche is 8,850' vertical descent

 

[oldfartrider]

I’ve been up the Aguille du Midi but only in the summer.

 

[drjeff]

This will definitely draw some eye rolls and ire from some for sure, but I will say that for generally high speed groomer cruisers where you can rack up some vertical pretty easily, with close to 10 different options in the pod, the trails off of Okemo's Sunburst 6, give you around 1700 verts, with not much at all flat areas along the way on most of those 10 options, and some fun twists, turns, double fall lines, and generally dependable snow conditions.

Heck, I racked up 45k vertical feet off of that lift (plus the initial ride on one of the base area quads) mid week in early April, and I started about 20 minutes after 1st chair, took 1 roughly 20 minute lunch/restroom break at the summit, and quit about 30 minutes before last chair due to tired legs and increasing levels of drizzle. 45k in roughly 6hrs of hill time, isn't easily attainable at too many Eastern ski areas...

 

[djd66]

Chamonix's Aguille de Midi, Valle Blanche is 8,850' vertical descent

I was just watching videos of this run,… freaking amazing. I will have to check that out some day!

 

[Smellytele]

I was just watching videos of this run,… freaking amazing. I will have to check that out some day!

We hired a guide to do it back in '98. Lots of crevasses to avoid. Helicopters were flying in all day rescuing people but the scariest part was the exit out of the tram building along the cliff. Boot pack trail about 2 feet wide and 400 feet long with the only thing to stop you from dropping a thousand feet was a rope around knee level.

 

[2Planker]

The Cat used to do a 100K Challenge - 50 laps off the Quad

 

[NYDB]

This will definitely draw some eye rolls and ire from some for sure, but I will say that for generally high speed groomer cruisers where you can rack up some vertical pretty easily, with close to 10 different options in the pod, the trails off of Okemo's Sunburst 6, give you around 1700 verts, with not much at all flat areas along the way on most of those 10 options, and some fun twists, turns, double fall lines, and generally dependable snow conditions.

Heck, I racked up 45k vertical feet off of that lift (plus the initial ride on one of the base area quads) mid week in early April, and I started about 20 minutes after 1st chair, took 1 roughly 20 minute lunch/restroom break at the summit, and quit about 30 minutes before last chair due to tired legs and increasing levels of drizzle. 45k in roughly 6hrs of hill time, isn't easily attainable at too many Eastern ski areas...

9 runs every 2 hours off that lift ain’t crazy. I think you could accomplish 45k vert in 6 hours at all of the so Vt groomah snowmaking mountains pretty easily, with similar enjoyment levels.

personally, I’d check out after 4 hours of okemo/stratton/mt snow groomers. Especially at O since theyll pull your pass for getting air off of the transitions/rollers. Even pre Vail.

Seeking quality over quantity at this stage of my life

 

[2Planker]

We hired a guide to do it back in '98. Lots of crevasses to avoid. Helicopters were flying in all day rescuing people but the scariest part was the exit out of the tram building along the cliff. Boot pack trail about 2 feet wide and 400 feet long with the only thing to stop you from dropping a thousand feet was a rope around knee level.

I’ll second that

 

[deadheadskier]

This will definitely draw some eye rolls and ire from some for sure, but I will say that for generally high speed groomer cruisers where you can rack up some vertical pretty easily, with close to 10 different options in the pod, the trails off of Okemo's Sunburst 6, give you around 1700 verts, with not much at all flat areas along the way on most of those 10 options, and some fun twists, turns, double fall lines, and generally dependable snow conditions.

Heck, I racked up 45k vertical feet off of that lift (plus the initial ride on one of the base area quads) mid week in early April, and I started about 20 minutes after 1st chair, took 1 roughly 20 minute lunch/restroom break at the summit, and quit about 30 minutes before last chair due to tired legs and increasing levels of drizzle. 45k in roughly 6hrs of hill time, isn't easily attainable at too many Eastern ski areas...

While I have only skied Okemo twice in the past twenty years, I did grow up there as my home mountain and probably skied there 700+ times between 87-2002.

I would agree that for high speed carving over decent vertical with minimal run out, that chair and terrain is probably top ten for me in the East for that kind of skiing.

 

[Newpylong]

No matter how hard I try to get into Okemo I just can't. I have an 11 and 8 year old and certainly am about the groomers now. But the mountain looks and skis like someone took a cookie cutter and ran it across the place left to right. Nearly every single trail rides the same.

 

[deadheadskier]

No matter how hard I try to get into Okemo I just can't. I have an 11 and 8 year old and certainly am about the groomers now. But the mountain looks and skis like someone took a cookie cutter and ran it across the place left to right. Nearly every single trail rides the same.

I don't disagree with that, hence only having been back there twice since my parents left town to retire to FL in 2002. Off that lift, Upper World Cup and Upper Wardance are fairly decent character trails. The rest are pretty wide and straight.

But when I'm just out on a hard pack day working on carving, character is less of a concern. Let's face it, the cruising terrain at all of the major NE ski areas is all pretty wide and straight these days. There's not a lot of Lynx, Ravine, Jester type trails out there.

 

[Smellytele]

But when I'm just out on a hard pack day working on carving, character is less of a concern. Let's face it, the cruising terrain at all of the major NE ski areas is all pretty wide and straight these days. There's not a lot of Lynx, Ravine, Jester type trails out there.

Add upper cannon to that list