Old man winter just won’t give up.

Recently we here at Campman went down to Chile for some hard core gear testing (pics and reviews to come). While we were gone we missed perhaps the best storm session of the year. Snowbird reported 12ft of snow in 12 days and we missed it all. Thus making or trip a little bittersweet. Regardless, the snow is still falling and we are taking advantage of the latest storm. Two feet overnight and almost a foot the next day has made for some great conditions. While its not uncommon for this to happen, it’s still a nice surprise every spring.

The resorts are starting to close however there is still almost 150 inch bases at some of the resorts. So get out and get some great spring skiing in. Soon enough it’ll all be gone which will make you’ll be happy for awhile and then the longing for next year will set in.

Written by admin on April 16th, 2009 with no comments.
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Do you ski a lot?

It’s not really an important question when things like the war and the campaign trail for the president are going on but an interesting one none the less. How would you judge if you do or not? The amount of outings that you have a year. The amount of vertical feet you ski a year. I’m not totally sure. I was watching a Warren Miller film the other day and they were in Wiegle World in British Columbia. It said that one of the guides skis one million vertical feet a year. So I was thinking that it sounds like a pretty big number. I got out the Suunto X6 HRM that sits on my nightstand because I can’t figure out all the functions and decided to see what I could do.

I usually get a season pass to Snowbird since I get the student rate. I’m on the lift in about 30 minutes after I lock the front door. I like to think that I ski a lot since I have minimal travel time to get some turns in. However I have turned into a full on snow snob and only ski powder days. Which there are a lot of here. I digress. The experiment is to see how likely it is that I can fit 1,000,000 vertical feet skiing into one season. Initially I wanted to see how many vert on an average day I get in.

So I’ve been up about six times this year so far. Most of the time its a 9am to 12 pm window. (after that most of the powder is tracked out) In three hours I have come to the conclusion that I get in about 13,000 to 20,000 vertical feet. Mostly in the range of about 16k-17k. With one exception where I was there till 3 pm because the snow was so epic and got in 27,000 vert. If I average 16.5k a day it would take me 60 days to reach one million. Definitely doable but that would be more than I usually get out.

So in conclusion if you are part of the 1,000,000 vert club you ski a lot! I still think I ski a lot but I don’t think I’m getting into that club soon. As always I pray for snow. All I need is 54 more powder days and I’ll have it.

Written by admin on January 17th, 2008 with no comments.
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Powder Corp. Shame on You

I found a posting on Wicked Outdoorsy about what Park City’s Powder Corp. is doing to the lifetime pass holders at Killington. The ski resort they just bought last week. Here is the story. Rutland Hearld Story They basically said they are not going to honor the lifetime passes that people have had since 1960-1. So much for trying to maintain goodwill with the locals. Its all about the dollar for those guys.

They have agreed to give those pass holders another two years before they expire. Apparently Powder Corp did there homework and did not buy the existing company and just the land and facilities. Therefore they claim that they are not required to honor the previous companies liabilities. We’ll see if this holds up in court or not.

I don’t know if honoring the lifetime passes is really a financial drain on the company. They could be fully transferable and handed down to relatives. However I would think that it wouldn’t be that big of deal since it really doesn’t increase any variable costs they would incur. Its just a shame that a Powder Corp would immediately announce right after they bought the resort the expiration of lifetime passes. Not the best PR approach I’ve seen but maybe the negative publicity is good publicity.

Written by admin on May 18th, 2007 with no comments.
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