mikemaginn

This Week In SeniorsSkiing.com (Feb. 26)

/1 Comment/in /by

Cross Country Bubble, Skiing Styles History, Aspen Top-Bottom Run, Gelati Apres-Ski, Norway Skiing, Yellowstone Yurt Resort, Goggle Fog, Weather Ahead.

Dawn, Appleton Farms, Ipswich, MA. Credit: NSNA

Across the street in Appleton Farms, we notice many disparate groups of xc skiers, snowshoers, dog walkers, and hikers have been descending in growing numbers whenever there is a decent covering of snow, a frequent occurrence this February.  The stalwart North Shore Nordic Association, a non-profit group of volunteers, grooms miles of trails at night and reports snow conditions in their daily online update.  Cars overflow the parking lots provided by the Trustees of Reservations, spilling over to the tiny country roads around the farm. When the snow falls, snow lovers come out to the country.

The numbers are many, many more than we’ve ever seen at Appleton’s, a sprawling 900-acre tract of conservation land on Boston’s North Shore. The good news is that cross-country skiing and snowshoeing have arrived. You can tell from the technique of many of the skiers, the heavyweight parkas and snow pants, and the way they hold their poles that some of the many are truly neophytes. A good thing! New people into the sport!

It took a pandemic, months of being shut-in with limited activity, Alpine ski resort restrictions, and some decent snowfall all over the country to bring cross-country and snowshoeing into the spotlight.

According to the Cross Country Ski Areas Association, sales of cross country skis, boots, and bindings are up more than 30 percent compared to sales through mid-February last season. Snowshoe sales are also up 30 percent. Some retailers noted that sales have doubled or more. And some retailers are sold out and report they can’t get additional products from suppliers. Fat bikes didn’t see a jump in sales, though. That’s probably because of a lack of inventory after last summer’s biking boom.

We view this as a very positive development for winter sports. We know our readers want to get out in the snow, the cold is not an obstacle, and that the exercise and fresh air make all the difference after being cooped up and distanced.  If you have been reluctant to discover or re-discover these other snow sports, now’s a good time to give it a go. Take those old skinny skis down to the ski shop and have them checked out. Look at the articles in SeniorsSkiing.com’s Make More Tracks Resource Guide. Find a place near you. Golf course, cross country resort or ski area, (see XCSkiResorts.com), city park, baseball field. Take it slow and flat at first, bring your lunch in a backpack with a couple of cans of Heineken. Sit down in the sun and enjoy the feeling. Get some instruction. And tell your friends you’ve just had a terrific day outside on the snow.

________________________________________

Thank you to you, dear readers, for your amazing support during our February Fundraiser.  The response has been overwhelming, and we are sincerely touched.  The premiums and stickers will be going out by the end of March. If you want to make a donation, please click here.

________________________________________

This Week

Judy in powder on her new skis and outfit.

Correspondent Jan Brunvand continues the saga of his skiing life with a look back at his Fulbright year in Norway in the mid-50s.  Newly married, Jan and Judy seem to have immersed themselves in all kinds of Nordic adventures in and around the Oslo area. Click here for Part Three of his ongoing story.

Dining room and kitchen yurts glow at sunset.

When this virus finally clears out, you might be interested in a real outdoor adventure in a beautiful setting.  Correspondent Jonathan Wiesel describes his magical stay at Yellowstone Expeditions, a rustic, remote, yet comfortable camp-resort tucked away in the National Park. Sleep in a yurt, ski among the wild life, dine in a tent. Yellowstone Expeditions is definitely a Make More Tracks resort to check out.  Click here.

Our Question For You this week comes from a reader who believes that COVID has brought new problems to keeping goggles clear. Offer your advice and solutions to his question: “What do I do about face mask-induced foggy goggles?” Click here.

The Traveling Australian, Dave Chambers, reflects back on the tail end of a three-week ski trip to the French, Swiss, and Italian Alps.  His story isn’t so much about skiing, but rather the joy of decompressing in the beautiful city of Milano, and being obsessed by the abundance of Gelati, the elixir of the weary alpine skier. Catch the flavor here.

Gelati in the presence of Il Duomo di Milano. Perfect. Credit: Dave Chambers.

Ski coach and frequent contributor Bob Trueman explains the history of ski styles and the role international competition between France and Austria played in creating, and, in his opinion, branding defined ways of skiing and teaching skiing. Where did that counter-rotation idea come from? Those ankles welded together? The French turn? You’d be surprised how some mistaken observations and assumptions created a rigid orthodoxy around technique. Click here.

We found another “top-to-bottom” video taken by a skier, this time taking us from the tippy top of Aspen Mountain all way down to the Silver Queen gondola. Since you probably aren’t heading to Aspen this season, (if you are, lucky you), this will serve as a nano-vacation. Enjoy the non-stop run, and, since it’s vicarious, your quads will love you for it. Click here.

Finally, The Skiing Weatherman Herb Stevens pipes in with a view of next week’s weather. As you will see, like the stock market, conditions will be going up and down. Click here.

Thanks again for supporting SeniorsSkiing.com. Please tell your friends and remember, there are more of us every day, and we aren’t going away.

Groomed trails ready for the day. Appleton Farms, Ipswich, MA. Credit: NSNA

 

 

Herb Stevens

Skiing Weatherman: Transition Month Trials

/2 Comments/in /by

Late Season Powder. Rain And Snow.

Although astronomical spring begins with the vernal equinox later in March, “meteorological spring” begins on the first day of March.  That’s when the questions start to arise about how long the season is likely to extend.  Those questions are more common for resorts over the eastern half of the country, where injections of milder Pacific air have been present at times in the past week, and they will continue to come east at times during the first two weeks of the new month.  Surfaces have become more variable, especially on sunny days when trails with full exposure to the sun start to soften up and moisten by midday, thanks to the increasing seasonal output of Old Sol.

Transitional months are the most difficult for forecasters as the battle between warm and cold expands both in area and magnitude.  It is still mid-winter cold in Canada, but the South is steadily warming up in spite of what we witnessed in Texas a week or two ago.  The contrast in air masses can lead to some blockbuster late season snows but if the low center happens to cut up over the Great Lakes rather than run up the eastern seaboard, some of the early spring warmth from the South can rush northward and deal a nasty body shot to snow conditions.  However, back in 2014-2015, three Nor’easters came up the coast and the Northeast got three significant dumps of snow.  While it is great to see a late season parade of storms like that, more often than not, the air mass fight leads to more variety in terms of temps and precip types.  For the next couple of weeks, the pattern will be quite changeable over the eastern half of the country.  With colder air a little harder to find, elevation will play a big role in the snow vs. rain equation.

Overall, the pattern currently does not look like as productive in terms of significant storm threats as what unfolded during February.  The best shot at a meaningful snowfall would appear to be at the end of the first week of the new month.  Here is a surface map for Friday the 5th that shows a storm impacting the central and northern Appalachians.


The track is hugging the coast, which would allow enough mild air to spread into the mountains to start the precip as rain.  However, as the low tracks northeastward, the rain would change back to snow and a sizable “backside” accumulation could be in the cards, as suggested by this snowfall map for the 5th and 6th.


Longer term, I tend to think that the pattern will deliver enough cold air to keep the season going.  March in La Nina years tends to favor a continuation of winter across the North and for now I am going to lean on that analog.

In the West, weather worries are minimal, as transient upper level troughs will swing through the region at times and those systems will produce some late season powder days and sustain outstanding conditions.

REGIONAL HIGHLIGHTS:

Pac NW/B.C.:

The hits just keep on coming.  After very heavy snow to end the weak, weaker systems sustain the snowy pattern next week; quieter in OR.

Central and southern Sierra:

Windy weekend for Tahoe and SoCal resorts. Quiet week coming up, best shot at snow next weekend.

Rockies:

Light snow this weekend; ridging leads to quiet week thereafter.  Next shot at snow next weekend.

Midwest:

Seasonable weather overall for next week.  Passing weak systems produce light snow in northern Great Lakes.

Northeast:

Light mixed precip this weekend. Elevation matters!  Early week cold shot, then milder.  Potential for sizable late week storm.

Mid-Atlantic/Southeast:

Damp weekend; colder with high elevation snow Monday.  Snow potential mid to late week-north.  Challenging upcoming week of weather in southern Appalachians.

 

 

Jan Brunvand

Skiing In Norway: 1956-57

/9 Comments/in , /by

Jan and Judy Get New Ski Gear, New Snow Adventures In A Land That Loves Skiing.

After breaking her leg on our disastrous first ski date in Michigan, my wife Judy was still a bit stiff  in the left leg when we arrived in Norway in late June 1956 to begin my Fulbright-student year studying Norwegian folklore.  But we had all summer to get in shape—walking around Oslo, hiking in the forests and mountains, and taking some long bike trips.

In the fall, we bought ski gear: wooden skis, cable bindings, leather boots, and bamboo poles. State of the art stuff. I had my favorite ski clothes, including the Norwegian striped cardigan I had been using since 1953; Judy bought a spiffy new outfit (maroon ski pants and grey jacket) that she occasionally still uses.

Oslo was a great place to practice. The tram lines run right up to the edge of Nordmarka, the vast wooded park above the city, and there were ski racks integrated into the sides of the old wooden cars. (I assume they have metal tram cars by now.) This photo of Judy loading her skis was taken on a weekday; on weekends and holidays the whole side of the car would be covered with skis.

Judy racks skis and boards tram to suburbs of Oslo.

I believe the only ski lift we rode all year was a T-bar in Nordmarka; the rest was cross country. After touring up there we could glide right back down to the area where we lived via ski tracks maintained between houses and businesses.

Early in the winter we took a train to Lillehammer, stayed in the youth hostel, and skied both in town around the open-air folk museum and in the surrounding countryside.

Next we did a weeklong trip with some friends to Numedalen, staying in a rented cabin (hytte) above the treeline. The snow was great, and we got lots of practice and exercise climbing up hills and sliding down. Judy, only in her second season as a skier, got pretty good, despite having little coaching beyond “Follow me!” Here she is enjoying some powder.

Judy in powder on her new skis and outfit.

One day on that trip I skied down to a village to buy some food, expecting a long slog back up with a heavy rucksack. But just as I was starting up, a group of Norwegian army men came along in a tracked vehicle. They tossed me a rope and pulled me back to the level of our cabin. Sweet!

In March we attended the annual jumping meet at Holmenkollen with my uncle and his family. It was a foggy day, and the jumpers came sailing out of the murk, most of them sticking the landing as if it had been a clear day.

Easter was late in 1957  (April 21st) so when we made another mountain trip, this time to a cabin in Telemark, the weather was balmy and snow was thin except in the shadows. Here we are enjoying the traditional Norwegian Easter ski trip, me still in that favorite sweater.

Jan and Judy, Easter ’57.

In June when we returned to the States we had enjoyed a great year of study and skiing in my ancestral home, so to speak. I brought back an article that got published in the Journal of American Folklore, kicking off my academic career. And, of course, we kept our Norwegian ski gear.

But would there be much skiing in our immediate future? After all, we were headed to Bloomington for my graduate work at Indiana University. Not exactly in a major ski zone, but who knows?

To be continued . . .

 

 

Jonathan Wiesel

Make More Tracks: Yellowstone Expeditions

/0 Comments/in /by

A Rustic Retreat In Remoteness.

Yurts and heated tent cabins accommodations in remote corner of Yellowstone.

When skiers talk about great backcountry, they often cite the Tenth Mountain and Braun systems in Colorado; Sierra Club huts in California; Skoki Lodge, Assiniboine and Shadow Lake in the Canadian Rockies. I’d like to add a new destination, near Canyon in Yellowstone National Park. (Check an atlas, find Yellowstone in the northwest corner of Wyoming; Canyon is in the north central part of the Park.)

Actually, Yellowstone Expeditions is in its 38th season. And to be honest, they use yurts and tent cabins, not log huts or lodges. But “great” is perfectly appropriate, whether it’s skiing or snowshoeing, staff, dining, or the amazing landscape of the world’s first national park (1872).

Yellowstone isn’t exactly a winter secret, but skiers visit the Canyon area only when they’re passing by in enclosed heated snowcoaches or on snowmobiles, mainly because there’s no lodging within 35 miles except Yellowstone Expeditions.

The company was founded by Arden Bailey, who in summer works as a geologist who once specialized in radioactive waste disposal. (There’s a theory Arden is such a bright guy that no one in his vicinity needs a headlamp.)

The high point of my winter used to be running winter trips in the U.S. and Canadian Rockies, so it was a joyous thing to be a guidee around Canyon. Most of the time I skied with Erica Hutchings, a Renaissance woman who’s been office manager, snowcoach driver, PSIA-certified instructor, and super-guide. Come summer, she’s been a river ranger in Grand Teton National Park.

Who Are Those Guys?

Dining room and kitchen yurts glow at sunset.

All the guides are a hoot. They’re also naturalists, dishwashers, and talented cooks, working crazy hours with all kinds of clients, and carrying it off with humor and panache and quick wits. What a work ethic!

Arden’s talents include amazing stories and still more unbelievable jokes. This sense of humor seems to inspire guests, who tend to be crazy-diverse in their professions and interests anyway. Our group on one visit included a doctor from New Mexico, a writer from New York, and the owner of a trucking firm in Texas. I learned something about publishing fiction, summer weather around Houston, anatomy, movies, Superfund sites, national politics, and succession tree species after the Yellowstone fires of 1988.

A typical four-, five- or eight-day trip begins with a snow van ride from West Yellowstone to Canyon with skiing near the rim of the Yellowstone toward the end of the day. We enjoyed a novel experience along the Gibbon River—a herd of maybe 200 slow-moving bison. We couldn’t pass them for almost two hours. It was a photographer’s dream, including the chance to take pictures of fuming snowmobilers who revved engines but still didn’t intimidate the beasties.

And There’s Skiing

Here’s why people come to Yellowstone.

You can visit the park for its beauty, for wildlife, for geysers. I did it that time for long tours, powder, and downhills. It’d been a long time since I’d really skied hard in the backcountry. It’s easy to forget how few miles a small group can REALLY go in eight hours when you’re breaking trail through two feet of fresh snow.

The Yurt Camp is based at 8,000 feet, so it gets and holds 200-250 inches of snow, usually the light stuff Montanans call “cold smoke.” It’s in a spectacular area, minutes from the deep canyon of the Yellowstone. Terrain runs from long-open-steep to wooded-gentle.

I’ve always been a so-so unenthusiastic telemarker, never quite found that ideal combination of grace, strength, and technique. After that trip, I’m a certified Wannabe.

It stood to reason that 205 cm light touring gear would do the trick for touring, even for low-angle telemarking. This might have worked if the heels of my boots hadn’t kept jamming with snow. It’s demoralizing to start a turn, come round just far enough that skis are pointed down the fall line, and find the only part of the boot/binding system meeting its obligations is the toe.

Humility is a great teacher.

Yeah yeah, I know, “It’s the equipment.” But the next day I used mid-length general touring gear with a 3/4 metal edge with backcountry boots and bindings. Spectacular improvement! Even carrying a full pack, those skied floated and came around on request.

Actually, we could have skipped hills almost entirely. There’s a huge variety of trails—groomed, ski-set, or just marked—taking off right from camp, including gentle tours to places like Inspiration Point and Cascade Lake.

Wilderness luxury

Guests stay in warm, comfortable hut tents, a moments walk from the kitchen and new dining yurts. Here’s the thing you sweat for and dream of on skis or snowshoes: getting home at twilight and trying the new cedar sauna before dinner. Or better yet, a backwoods (indoor) shower—rapture!

Among my favorite moments were the intermittent thunder of the Yellowstone’s Lower Falls (much higher than Niagara); walking around Washburn Hot Springs (it’s a map-and-compass trip in); watching a park ranger skate at dusk beside the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, just after a grooming machine came through; learning the differences between fisher and coyote tracks; digging a snow pit for evaluating avalanche potential; and the pleasure of a heated outhouse.

Now, that’s livin’!

More Detail

Packages include delish meals, lodging, snowcoach, sleeping bags and sheets, and guiding. The season runs December 17-March 7th. Four-day/three night visits run $1,260 per person, double occupancy. The camp holds 10-12 guests. Check out the dynamite web site by clicking here or call 800-728-9333.

Late afternoon along the thermal waters of Alum Creek

 

foggy goggles
seniorsskiing

Question For You: Foggy Goggley?

/25 Comments/in /by

Here’s A Common, Perhaps COVID-Amplified Problem For Skiers.

A question from SeniorsSkiing.com reader Steve Rosen:

A new to me and persistent problem this season has been fogging of my goggles from the inside, particularly in the morning.  It seems to be caused by local requirements to wear masks while in the lift lines, on the lifts, and skiing, all of which are very good ideas.
Most skiers and boarders who I’ve asked about this have had similar problems this season.

Which is worst: Foggy goggles or flat light?

I’ve learned to put the goggles on my face as soon as the helmet goes on and to keep the goggles on, which seems to help, as does trying to create a seal between the bottom of the goggles and the top of the mask.  Are there other techniques that work or that are sure failures?  Or models of goggles that seem immune from fogging?

Question For You: How Do You Manage the Foggy Goggle syndrome? Is this a new problem? Do you have a person method to remain unfogged? What do you do when you get fogged up?

Please comment in Leave A Reply below.

 

Dave Chambers

Obsessing Over Gelati In Milano

/1 Comment/in /by

After Your Ski Trip, Do This, Especially When In Italy.

Duomo di Milano where we indulged in our initial Gelati. Credit: Medium.com

It is the 8th March 2013, the day is cool but sunny. It is still winter here in Milano, Italy. Food and Italians go together like toast and marmalade on Isle of Wight. The clever people that they are they gathered the recipe from Marco Polo and created ice cream. Gelati to the Italians, and not simply ice cream as we know it.

We have skied some legendary powder. Morzine, Avoriaz, Courmayeur, and the slopes of high Switzerland. Now all behind us. The mishap that was Marg’s on the slopes of Morzine Ski Resort where her hip parted company with her femur. It’s done and sorted. She by now languishing in a hospital back in Australia. Ahead of her months and months of exercises by physical therapists. Our remaining group of skiing tourists head to downtown Milano for some creature comforts and good European hot chocolate and to search for that legendary Gelati.

Forget your bucket list, it’s so yesterday; just visit Italy. Don’t dally, this place is cool. Built by people that know a thing or two about how to construct a medieval village. It has everything you never realized you needed. But now know where your life experiences can be fulfilled.

In Italy, they have Gelati; it’s everywhere. In Italy, it helps to be passionate and quite obsessive about food. You fit the culture better. The medieval diet is a thing. The food here makes your heart sing. I am a man of simple taste, I like a Lou Reed riff, Italian Gelati, fresh snow, Uva di Troia, blue sky, powder snow, porcini mushrooms, wasabi pear paste, Nutella Pizza, Italian hot chocolate, and cats. Italy has nine out of the above, that’s plenty to make a trip of a lifetime.

Tack it on to the end or start of your next skiing trip.

Anyhow, Gelati is our focus. We decided, as you do in Italy, to search for that Zen moment. Or nirvana when food passes your lips and mere seconds later you are taken to another place.

Gelati in the presence of Il Duomo di Milano. Perfect. Credit: Dave Chambers.

Day One Milano. We sit in the hugely dominating presence of the massive cathedral that almost blankets the whole square. The Duomo di Milano, 600 years and still standing, all 135 gargoyles of it. Seated at an open-air restaurant, we eat yet another excellent pasta. Porcini mushrooms grow wild in the forest here. Collected from the forest and scattered with a slip of black truffle across a fresh house made pasta. Simple yet sublime. Accompanied by a very good Montepulciano.

The conversation turns to Gelati, and, I kid you not, within twenty quick paces we find a purveyor of fine Gelati . We ordered enough scoops to satisfy a platoon.  All your typical flavors. Our excitement was rewarded with explosions of flavor.

Could it get better than this. We didn’t think so.

Day Two. Now down to just two of us, the other tourists having skipped and flown home. We are just getting a feel for Italian lifestyle. Our concentration heightened now we are tuned in to the local food scene. Feeling switched on. We trawl through the piazzas. We circle and wander the streets looking for shops that mysteriously stay hidden for almost two hours looking for snow wear retail stuff. My mate has a tired ski jacket in need of replacement. Suddenly we blunder upon the old bohemian quarter, exclusive and designer expensive. The luxury within these narrowed walkways is revealed. By chance or divine intervention, our next serve of designer Gelati is nigh. Imagine Mango, so smooth, the deepest orange in color and very glossy with smooth mouthfeel. This mango Gelati has the most intense sweet flavor and equal first place to yesterday’s I decide. Sacrilegious, I know, but folded within a wispy thin, crepe.

Simply the best: cioccolata italiana milano.

Last day. We lunch under the brooding gargoyles of the Duomo di Milano, now grey with mist and rain.  Within our shallow bowl, pasta. The waitress recommends a very fine local red wine. I ask her about Gelati. “Oh yes,” she says encouragingly, “You should visit Cioccolata Italiana,” further adding, “It is the best in Milano.” We are excited. I demand four flavors.  It’s a bucket but a small one. Of flavors chosen, I can’t remember because my tastebuds had hard wired to my brain. Endorphins now in overdrive. The Cioccolata Italiana Chocolate conjured angels. Those angels started dancing on my tongue, the intensity of chocolate, the smoothness as it melted around your taste buds, all balanced with a not too sweet finish, a deep dark chocolate that lingered long after the first taste. The heavens had opened just then for a tiny glimpse of ice cream nirvana. This is not just any Gelati, this is alchemy for the tastebuds and simple the best Gelati I have ever experienced. The ancient Romans may have brought you the amphitheatre, sewers, and concrete, but I am thanking them for their wonderful Gelati and the Medicis for Marco Polo.

Chocolate, please. Credit: Dave Chambers

 

Bob Trueman

A Brief History Of Skiing “Style”

/11 Comments/in /by

Author’s Note : I owe much of the following to a close personal friend. This is wholly my interpretation of his observations, it does not necessarily reflect or deny his views.

In France

In the 1940s/50s France and Austria began competing for increasing skiing tourism. The rivalry was both commercial and political. Each wanted a national “product,” supposedly better than their competitor, that they could differentiate and sell.

At that time, the French believed they had the answer to the question, “What to teach?” They needed a product that trainee ski instructors could be trained to deliver in ski schools.

JCK embodies the French style in 70s Head ad.

Remember that the instructor training systems were nationalized. The Ecole de Ski Francais was a government monopoly. Its name is frequently mistranslated into English, as the “French Ski School” but that is not what it means: it means the School of French Skiing. A product.

They offered the “Rotational Method” which they claimed exemplified the physics involved. What you were to do was to slightly crouch as the “turn” approached, then extend the legs rapidly to unweight the skis, and at the same time rotate your torso in the direction you wanted your skis to go.

This transferred the angular momentum (the twist if you like) of your “upper body” toward the impending new direction, down to the legs and skis. From a physics viewpoint that was “Transference of momentum from part to whole” , your body can only twist so far before it imparts that twist to your legs via your pelvis.

Some of SeniorsSkiing’s respondents to my earlier contributions insisted on this being “the way to ski” and were critical of my introduction of the concept of “arcs” instead of “turns”. Which does not reflect badly on them, but it does illustrate the power of inertia and how susceptible we are to Confirmation Bias.

In Austria

At the time, a leading figure in the Austrian National Ski Instruction System was Prof. Stefan Kruchenhauser. He had been studying, photographing, and filming Austrian racers as they went through the racing gates.

Unlike the French, he observed that as they approached the gate po they turned their shoulders away from the intended “turn” and had their back toward it as the direction change occurred.

Kruckenhauser was a ski photographer as well as a pioneer of the Austrian technique. This photo is by him.

Other writers picked up on this supposedly “New Austrian Technique”, explaining it via Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion (every action has an equal and opposite reaction). It became known as the Counter Rotational Method, conveniently providing a different “product” to that of the French, and endless column inches to the magazine writers.

Because both were governmental, political projects, they each quickly developed their own followers in the ski schools, and woe betide anyone who thought any different. Austrian instructors, attempting to find analogies to help their pupils, began teaching “point your skis across the mountain, and your chest down to the valley.”

In fact, the Austrian racers were not employing Newton’s 3rd Law, they were simply trying to avoid whacking their shoulders into the slalom poles which back then were tree branches cut off the pine trees and bedded very firmly in the snow. Had the good professor filmed his skiers changing direction when not racing round sticks in the ground he would have found they did not “counter rotate”. Be careful what you think you see!

The Austrian concept was exported comprehensively to the USA because Austria provided back then a great many instructors to the newly expanding American ski school industry. The system satisfied ordinary recreational skiers, if it’s making money why change it?

Prof. Georges Joubert.

In late 1960’s early 70’s, Prof Joubert of Grenoble University stood both the French and Austrian instructing methods on their heads. Note that it is academics who are making the discoveries not the ski schools, which simply followed the “official line”, and pretty much did so until their monopolies were broken. Monopolies are not innovators and not good learners.

Still sought after book by French team coach Georges Joubert

What Joubert proved was that racers ski with Independent Leg Action. Racers never skied with their legs together. The legs do NOT act as a single unit. Each rotates independently in its hip socket unless the feet and legs are jammed together, which inhibits such free movement and necessitates throwing your torso about one way or the other.

What this means, and it is very significant indeed, is that the “upper” body is not defined at the waist; it is defined in the pelvis. The leg rotation can be either active or passive, but it happens in the hip socket. There is therefore no need for either the Rotational nor the Counter-Rotational concepts which were not based in physics after all.

To his credit, Prof. Kruchenhauser was one of the first to recognize and adopt this new realization that all that is required is effective balancing (not “balance” which is different and static), accompanied by independent leg rotation with accompanying leg flexion and extension. He called it “Beinspiel” or “leg play”.

Those earlier concepts still facilitate getting folk down skiing pistes, but not in a way that can can now be classified as skillfully. It either matters to you, or it doesn’t. Shakespeare observed “nothing matters, but thinking makes it so”.

It is regrettable that even after 50 years much of the ski school industry has not recognized either the change, or its significance. Though of course, a few have.

[For more thoughts and videos on ski technique, as well as links to Bob’s books, visit https://www.bobski.com/]

All the way down
seniorsskiing

Aspen Top To Bottom

/6 Comments/in /by

Take A Virtual Vacation And A Long Run On Us.

All the way down. Thanks James Beatty.

Ok, so no Aspen for you this year.  But here’s a video of a run from the top of Aspen Mountain all the way to the bottom.  Sounds like scratchy snow, and, come to think of it, where is everyone?

Last season, SkiCo topped 1.5 million visits to Aspen Mountain and Aspen Highlights.  This year, visitors are going to need a negative COVID test within 72 hours of arriving or quarantine for 10 days. Not surprisingly, arrivals at the tiny Aspen airport are down 50 percent, and occupancy data from the Aspen Chamber Resort Association reflects the drop in visitors. In December, occupancy rates at lodges were down 34 percent from the year prior in Aspen, and 16 percent in Snowmass.

Result: You can enjoy a vicarious run without much people-traffic. And your quads don’t have to suffer!

Thanks to Jack Beatty for posting his Feb. 5, 2021 run for all on Youtube.

 

mikemaginn

This Week In SeniorsSkiing.com (Feb.19)

/4 Comments/in /by

Why Support SeniorsSkiing.com, Ski Test Process, Flat Light Nemesis, Women Behind Pico, Sustainable XC Resorts, Snow In Literature, Skiing Weatherman.

Fresh snow. Credit: AA Maginn

If you are of a certain age, you’ve probably figured out by now that people in business, sports, and marketing, who design, sell and market products and services, who have hiring responsibilities, and, generally, who are under 40, view aging as a liability. You get that attitude from ads which extol youth, age-ism in the workplace, and people who view us a draw on the economy.

And yet, the AARP says Americans 50 and older represent 35 percent of the population but control 83 percent of all household wealth (2018). And we are responsible for 56 cents for every dollar of consumer spending. So, we’re not nothing.

We get it. The old view of aging is that people get old, look like dried apples, consume medical care, juggle doctor appointments, and go away to rocking chairs on porches watching birds at the bird feeder and occasionally babysit.  That’s the old view, and, unfortunately, the view that many, many un-old people have of aging.

Of course, we know that’s totally misguided. Readers of SeniorsSkiing are those who recognize what’s possible later in life. We are out there, actively living, doing what’s meaningful, and chasing goals and dreams. That’s the view we have; the demographics below our senior level haven’t figured that out yet.  But they will when they mature.

Our surveys have shown that even though our reader’s average age is about 69 years old, our self-image age is in the 40s. That’s the point. We don’t feel or act old. No stereotyping here. We just keep going.

That is what makes SeniorsSkiing unique. We are the only publication we know of that focuses on seniors who love the winter outdoors and all the sports and activities that includes.

And, we’ve found a wonderful audience that resonates with the idea of being active, engaged, and connected.

Consider supporting SeniorsSkiing. We are on your side. Click here.

[Editor Note: Co-Publisher Jon Weisberg is facing a medical challenge this week. You can wish him well by taking a run for him. Short Swings will be on hiatus for a while.]

________________________________

This Week

Nipika is totally off the grid.

Correspondent Marc Liebman recalls how he and John Perryman created a more objective set of procedures for ski testing back in the 70s. Controlling ski tester bias is the big variable. Click here.

Co-Publisher Jon Weisberg found an unusual accessory for the original Model T Ford. Various parts could turn the car into a snow mobile. It was marketed as a way to save money on horses. Click here.

Our Question For You this week shifts to a practical question: How do you manage flat light? It’s been our personal nemesis when we encounter it. We’ve had several articles about flat light, but this time, we want to hear what you do. Do you goggle up with special lenses? Do you head for the lodge? Is it a big deal for you, as it is for us, or is it just one of those things? Click here.

Karl and June Acker took over from Janet and continued to expand the Pico resort.

Correspondent Karen Lorentz sends a report on the women who shaped the history of Pico Mountain Resort, VT. Several determined women owners actually led the development of the resort—one of America’s oldest—with their partners. An impressive story about impressive people. Click here.

XCSkiResorts.com publisher Roger Lohr has an interesting Make More Tracks story about how xc ski resorts are saving money and protecting the environment by adopting a variety of clean-energy sources. Click here.

The Skiing Weatherman brings us a view of the next week in Snow Land. What’s ahead? Click here.

And here’s the next in our next Snow In Literature series, Robert Frost’s On A Tree Fallen Across The Road. There’s a message here about how to deal with obstacles. “Seize the earth by the pole” is a start. Click here.

Thanks for reading SeniorsSkiing.com. Tell your friends, and remember there are more of us every day, and we aren’t going away.

 

 

 

Herb Stevens

Skiing Weatherman: Pattern Quiets Down a Bit

/2 Comments/in /by

Warmer end to February. March Snow Looks Good.

This has been an absolutely wild weather week across the country, with more heavy snow in the West, the worst run of cold and snow in the southern Plains since 1899, and two significant storms in the East, although the first one generated a fair amount of sleet earlier this week.

As I discussed last week, in the wake of this week’s arctic plunge, the pattern is changing to one with more Pacific air involved, so we are headed toward an end to February that won’t be as cold as much of the month has been.  In terms of the jet stream flow, we will continue to see troughs track across the country and those systems will present us with our shots at fresh snow.  The troughs won’t have quite as much cold air to work with, though, so snow levels could become a minor issue and rain/snow lines will work into the equation with storms in the Midwest and East in the next couple of weeks.  The historic push of arctic air actually drained a good percentage of the available cold air out of Canada.  Yes, it is still plenty cold to the north, but it will take a couple of weeks to build the deep cold that can help sustain the season with a southward push during the month of March.  Here’s a map that I haven’t shown before.  It is a forecast of the standard deviations of temperatures for the next ten days over Canada.


Notice that the values, whether positive or negative, are overwhelmingly close to neutral.  Ten days ago, most of the southern third of Canada, centered over Manitoba and Saskatchewan, had negative values of 5 and 6 standard deviations, consistent with an air mass that was 30+ degrees below normal. That is the air mass that plowed all the way down to south Texas in the past week.  Those values will be dropping in the near term, as it is still the heart of winter to the north.  The question then becomes whether that air will get involved in the pattern over the U.S. in March, when higher sun angles, rising normal temps, and longer days can start to take their toll on surface conditions and base depths.  Right now the prospect for a turn to colder weather looks promising for early March.  Not harsh cold, but a little below normal.  Again, the final week of this month will be milder over the East, while cold persists in the West, but this map of 5,000 foot temperature anomalies for March 5th shows cold air over the East and an ample supply sitting over Canada for reinforcements.  The five thousand foot level is a proxy for surface temps.

 

So, although the pattern will moderate for the East in the short term, it won’t last long and the prospects for March look good at this point, although a typical La Nina upper ridge could bring the southeastern season to a premature end.  

REGIONAL HIGHLIGHTS:

Pac NW/B.C.:

Snowy pattern carries on. Snow levels rise a bit early next week before settling back down.

Central and southern Sierra:

Light weekend snow, milder during the week of the 22nd.  Pattern cools down and snow opportunities return next weekend.

 Rockies:

Pacific flow brings light to moderate snow every day or two Wasatch and Tetons northward.   Northwest trajectory brings occasional light snow events central and snow is more scarce until late next week farther south.

Midwest:

A little milder than normal and with a few light snow events in the next week in MN, WI, and northern MI.  A great time to hit the slopes, very comfortable.

Northeast:

Not as cold as past few weeks. Weaker Clipper systems bring light mountain snow every few days.  Lower elevation resorts see light mixed precip with surfaces softening/moistening somewhat.

Mid-Atlantic/Southeast:

Light mountain snow 22nd, then milder.  Spring surface develops in all but the highest resorts next week.

 

FreeSkier
Marc Liebman

Why I Don’t Read Ski Test Reports

/12 Comments/in /by

[Please consider supporting SeniorsSkiing.com with a donation. We appreciate your help. Click here.]

Unlike this ski test, the author masks the ski’s identity. Credit: FreeSkier

Seven Ways To Make Ski Tests More Objective.

Way back in the late 20th Century, while running the SKIpp Testing program for SKI Magazine, John Perryman and I learned the most difficult problem to solve and the biggest variable was the ski tester. In conversations with almost every manufacturer, they said the same thing. So the goal of SKIpp (way back in the 1970s before engineering modeling software was available), was objectivity and processes that minimized tester bias. John created a bench test and then tested the ski on the snow so we could compare the results.

Amazingly, we were successful. We were invited as “consultants” by several manufacturers, to compare SKIpp’s results with theirs. Again, SKIpp was very accurate, more so than some manufacturers would admit.

Most ski testers are really good skiers and as such, they unconsciously adapt their technique to the ski, terrain and conditions and the brand’s design philosophy. This makes objective comparisons very difficult. In the SKipp program on-snow methodology, seven steps were incorporated to reduce the human variable.

One, we did blind testing. The tops and tip logos of each ski were covered with shelf paper before numbering each pair. The tester was not allowed to pick up the ski until he/she “tested” the ski to minimize identification.

Two, we skied the same trail every day that gave us about 1,000 feet of vertical and a chair lift that made yo-yoing possible. The ski area spread fertilizer on a long marked off segment to simulate frozen granular and give us a consistent snow surface to reduce the “snow condition variable.”

Three, each skier filled out a test card which graded a list of mandatory maneuvers/turns. At the beginning of the year’s session, we conducted a clinic on the required maneuvers and how the ski should react.

Four, each tester was allowed only two runs on the ski before grading. We wanted first impressions and found that after two runs, most testers adapted to the ski’s idiosyncrasies.

Ski tester range from racers to intermediates. Controlling tester bias is key.

Five, the testers’ skills ranged from certified ski instructors who either had been racers or coaches to intermediate skiers. Our youngest testers were in their mid-20s (we did have a few teenagers one year) to older skiers in their 50s.

Six, the “racing” models were skied down a 20 gate GS course that had been “fertilized” so the surface was rock hard.

Seven, only 10 skis were tested each day. After 10, the testers had a hard time determining the differences.

We let the testers pick which skis they wanted to ski in the afternoon. Again, the choice and why was recorded. Only then did we allow the ski to be identified. Results were tabulated each evening by hand because Excel, laptops, etc. didn’t exist in the 1970s.

Even with all these precautions, most of us could, after a few weeks of on the snow testing, tell one brand from another. To this day, I can tell a Rossignol from a Dynastar from an Atomic from a Head or K2.

So, when I read the current ski reports filled with jargon such as “edge gripping power” or “discover the amazing effect of (name of manufacturer) new Energy Management Circuit,” my reaction is %$^@*&, and I stop reading. Whatever credibility just evaporated. I’ve been there and writing facts about the ski’s performance instead of hype is, well, boring. But, experience tells me that the reports are more believable. So now you know why I don’t read ski test reports and prefer to “on snow test” them myself.

 

mikemaginn

Question For You: Flat Light Tactics

/37 Comments/in /by

[Please consider supporting SeniorsSkiing.com with a donation. We appreciate your help. Click here.]

Is Flat Light The Bane Of Your Skiing Experience? Or Just One Of Those Things?

Head for the lodge after this one? Think so. Credit: Jan Brunvand

No contrast, lack of depth perception, no tell-tale marks on the snow, flat light adds another dimension to deal with. Not welcome to many. Tolerable to some.

We’ve had a couple of our more spectacular falls in flat light conditions. Too fast, unexpected terrain. And boom. The lasting result is that whenever we see that gray-white shroud, we tighten up, and more likely than not, head for the bottom and home.

There’s an excellent article by correspondent Marc Liebman on Coping With Flat light in our archives. Check it out here.  But what is your way of approaching flat light conditions? Do you have a specific brand of goggles you swear by? What about technique? Changes in how you approach the trail? Let us know.  Perhaps you can help up break through our reluctance to head out on flat light.

Question For You: How Do You Manage Flat Light? Tell us how you do it. Or if you just avoid it.

Write a comment in Leave A Reply below.

Karen Lorentz

Women Played Integral Role at One of Nation’s Oldest Ski Areas

/12 Comments/in , , /by

[Please consider supporting SeniorsSkiing.com with a donation. We appreciate your help. Click here.]

Janet Davis Mead, June Aker, Verlene Belden All Kept Pico Going And Growing, Despite Obstacles and Challenges.

Janet and Brad Mead started Pico in 1937.

Vermont’s Pico Mountain survived a war, two owners’ deaths, and a neighbor called Killington to become one of the 30 oldest continually operating ski areas in the country.

It’s a feat that was largely driven by women in its first 30 years, a time when the ski industry was known to be “a man’s world.”

Women also played major roles in Pico operations since that time, continuing the strong family influence that began with co-founder Janet Davis Mead.

A feisty woman given to exaggeration, Janet Davis told Brad Mead she had skied at the Lake Placid Club, so he invited her to go skiing.

“I had to follow him down what looked to me then like Mount Everest. I made it, but without poles,” she would write years later, explaining she had thrown them in the bushes, not knowing what they were for.

Her bravado paid off; they married and researched building a ski area.

Envisioning a year-round resort with mountainside homes, aerial tram, swimming pools, ice rinks, and tennis courts, the Meads leased Pico Mountain and opened Thanksgiving Day 1937 on Little Pico with a 1,200-foot rope tow and a rough-cut, 2.5-mile Sunset Schuss skiers could ‘skin up’ to the summit.

The Meads hired Swiss racer Karl Acker to run the ski school, added two tows, widened Sunset Schuss — renowned for downhill racing and the Pico Derby — and installed the first U.S. Constam T-Bar to the top of Little Pico.

After Brad died in a boating accident in 1942, Janet carried on with support from skiers, the Otter Ski Club, and Otter Patrol. When workers including Acker left for World War II, she kept Pico open despite hardships of rationing and shortages that caused many areas to close. Using her marketing skills, charisma, and tenacity, she gave special rates to schoolchildren and servicemen who visited on furlough weekends.

Karl and June Acker took over from Janet and continued to expand the resort.

Having survived wartime, Janet bought the mountain (1947) as Acker returned to teach and help operate Pico. (He coached daughter Andrea Mead, first American to win two Golds in the 1952 Olympics, bringing acclaim to Pico’s strong racing tradition.) As the first woman to own and run a U.S. ski area still operating, Janet survived four lean snow years, weak finances, and growing competition by lowering ticket rates and offering summer rides on chairs hung on the T- Bar (1950). With the ski boom on and her children not interested in running Pico, she sold to Karl and June Acker in 1954.

Karl added trails, a T-Bar, and a J-Bar. “The lack of access to funding caused him to do too much of the work himself; the long hours and the stress of the new J-Bar which he couldn’t get to work quite right contributed to his fatal heart attack” in May 1958, June told me in 2007.

“The three banks that had lent us money to purchase Pico had insisted on a life insurance policy on Karl. Because I was a woman they needed to know I could repay the loan if he died,” June said of becoming Pico’s owner at age 30.

She added trails, replaced a lift, and obtained financing for Pico’s first chairlift, a Stadeli double that went halfway to the top ($110,000 in 1962).

“Pico needed lift service to the summit to compete and survive.  Being a woman contributed to the banks’ reluctance to provide more loans,” June said, of her decision to sell to Bruce and Verlene Belden (1964) in hopes they would carry on a family-oriented mountain.

Bruce had helped build Mount Snow (1955-1964), while Verlene ran their 30-guest ski lodge and raised four children. With former guests investing, they became majority owners with Verlene as office manager. Her business acumen coupled with their strong family orientation and expansion of the mountain enabled Pico to survive the trying 1970s when all but five major Vermont ski areas changed owners, and most surface lift areas closed. Vermont had 81 areas in 1966 but just 39 by 1988.

When they retired in 1987, Pico had a reputation as the “friendly mountain” with strong racing and instruction programs and new base village engendering a loyal following.

Women played significant roles in achieving that reputation. “They taught youngsters to ski and race and were instrumental in the Pico Ski Club. They also ran various departments from ski shop to ski school, tickets to childcare. They contributed to the skier loyalty that saw kids who grew up at Pico return as instructors or coaches and bring their own families to the mountain,” noted former GM Frank Heald.

Current Pico Director of Operations Rich McCoy added, “Pico staff make people feel at home and welcome. That’s a legacy that women through their leadership roles have contributed to throughout Pico’s long history and still do today.”

Sunset Schuss: Had to skin up in the old days.

Jon Weisberg

Model T Snowmobile

/1 Comment/in /by

[Please consider supporting SeniorsSkiing.com with a donation. We appreciate your help. Click here.]

In 1922, a New Hampshire Ford dealer and inventor offered a kit to convert Model Ts to “Snowmobiles.” The kit sold for $400 at a time when the Model T sold for $300. The conversion included skis in the front and a second set of wheels in back attached to heavy caterpillar tracks. Inventor, Virgil White, also offered a complete, already converted Model T Snowmobile for $750.

Who purchased the rig? People who had to get through bad conditions no matter what: farmers, country doctors, milkmen, grocers, rural mail carriers, fire departments, etc. White claimed the Model T Snowmobile could travel through 18” of snow at 18 miles per hour. The one pictured is completely restored and being offered by Legendary Motorcar Company, Ontario, Canada, for $59,900 A more extensive description is available in this posting from Hagerty, the terrific publication for old vehicle buffs. Even more info is available from the Model T Ford Snowmobile Club.

Roger Lohr

Make More Tracks: Sustainable XC Ski Resorts

/0 Comments/in /by

[Please consider supporting SeniorsSkiing.com with a donation. We appreciate your help. Click here.]

[Editor Note: This article first appeared in XCSkiResorts.com.]

Craftsbury has a solar array, one element in a system that provides heat.

Many cross country (XC) ski areas operate in an environmentally-friendly manner, and some of these operators, who are exemplars using the most sustainable practices, are models of sustainability in the effort to combat climate change. The operators at these resorts practice what they preach such as: using renewable energy, protecting scenic values and wildlife habitats, practicing water/energy conservation, reducing waste and reusing products, designing and building facilities in an environmentally-sensitive manner, managing forest and vegetation properly, handling potentially hazardous waste properly, and educating clientele and staff about environmental awareness.

These sustainable practices are not typically million dollar investments, but they are meaningful accomplishments, and the information about many of their practices can be shared with hundreds of other XC ski areas across the US and Canada.

Devil’s Thumb has geo-thermal heating.

At Devil’s Thumb Ranch Resort & Spa in Tabernash, Colorado, a geothermal heating system is used throughout the resort. The system consists of glycol-filled pipes that have been installed in the Ranch’s on-site lake. Heat is transferred to the glycol from the water, and then heated to 105 degrees by compressors in each building. The resort has also installed EPA-approved specially designed chimneys that minimize emissions from wood burning fireplaces and used recycled asphalt for paving. “We continue to make a concerted effort to work with local suppliers and businesses and reduce our carbon footprint at every level,” said General Manager Sean Damery.

The White Grass Ski Touring Center in Canaan, WV has been awarded the WV Environmental Council’s Green Entrepreneurs Award. The facility is heated with wood and uses about $6.66 worth of electricity a day. Environmental education is a key element at White Grass as there are regular outings in the WV Highlands Conservancy and the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge, which they helped to establish.

In the northeast US, the Great Glen Trails Outdoor Center in Gorham, NH upgraded an old micro-hydro 10 kw system, which now supplies 80 percent of electric needs. They’ve also got a wood pellet heating system in the lodge and have converted more vans that tour up to the top of Mt. Washington to propane gas and installed an electric vehicle charging station, too. The new Glen House Hotel has a geothermal closed loop system and high insulation for high building efficiency. The LED lighting is throughout the hotel indoors and the outside lighting is “Dark Sky Compliant” at night. One of the coolest things at the Glen House is the regenerative elevator system that feeds energy back to the building’s electric grid.

Craftsbury Outdoor Center in VT has incorporated sustainability in its mission statement to be carbon neutral. At Craftsbury Outdoor Center everything is net metered with 32kW on the solar trackers and 3,000 square feet of panels on the roof, supplying the Activity Center with close to 70kW. Between the two, that provides 63 percent of operation’s electricity and there is also solar thermal to provide  summertime domestic hot water, which is supplemented with heat pumps.

Craftsbury has incorporated massive amounts of insulation into all of the new buildings, and locally sourced many of the wood products used in the building construction. The roof of the Activity Center is at R72 and the walls are R46. It also has composting toilets, a heat pump, and locally-sourced wood for paneling and recycled steel beams for support were incorporated in the construction. High efficiency wood gasifying boilers provides all of the heating and domestic hot water demands during the cooler months. They’re tied into the 10 million BTUs of thermal storage in the form of 20,000 gallons of water. This storage system allows them to cogenerate with the snowmaking generator, providing electricity for the pumps and guns, and catching waste heat off the engine.

Sleepy Hollow owners Dan and Sandy pose in front of one of 10 solar arrays at the resort.

Sleepy Hollow Inn Ski & Bike Center in Huntington, VT added 10 kwH of solar this summer and now has 50 kwH of solar net metering from its solar panel arrays to provide for electric needs that include power for a snowmaking system used to guarantee snow early in the season. A solar hot water system heats 50 percent of the hot water use at the inn, and the lights on the ski trail have been converted to LED lights. Sleepy Hollow Proprietor Eli Enman commented, “By April, we’re expecting to see that close to 100 percent of our total electricity would’ve been powered by solar energy and that includes our all-electric snowmaking system water and air pumps.”

 

 

Nipika is totally off the grid.

A sustainable Canadian resort that practices what it preaches is Nipika Mountain Resort in BC, which is off the public power grid. It uses solar panels to supply energy needs. The resort’s furniture was built on site with wood from trees that were killed by the Mountain Pine Beetle.

Boundary Country Trekking on the Gunflint Trail in MN offsets the carbon produced on the Banadad Trail (such as snowmobile grooming) by investing in reforestation in the area. This is a planting estimated at 75,000 trees. Boundary Country Trekking is one of the few XC ski operations that have a sustainability statement and a comprehensive implementation plan. Another Minnesota XC ski area, Maplelag Resort in Callaway, is an active tree farm where it has planted thousands of trees and has created more than 20 ponds to benefit wildlife there.

For people who seek beautiful destinations to cross country ski and want to patronize businesses that fight climate change, the resorts in this select group are the places to visit.

seniorsskiing

Snow In Literature: On A Tree Fallen Across The Road

/1 Comment/in /by

[Please consider supporting SeniorsSkiing.com with a donation. We appreciate your help. Click here.]

(To hear us talk)

By Robert Frost

The tree the tempest with a crash of wood
Throws down in front of us is not bar
Our passage to our journey’s end for good,
But just to ask us who we think we are

Insisting always on our own way so.
She likes to halt us in our runner tracks,
And make us get down in a foot of snow
Debating what to do without an ax.

And yet she knows obstruction is in vain:
We will not be put off the final goal
We have it hidden in us to attain,
Not though we have to seize earth by the pole

And, tired of aimless circling in one place,
Steer straight off after something into space.

 

mikemaginn

This Week In SeniorsSkiing.com (Feb.12)

/1 Comment/in /by

Valentine To Our Readers, Loon Visit, Resort Liability-Less, Vicarious Swiss Ski Run, Marg’s Moment, Personal Ski, XC Ski Injuries, Skiing In College In The 50s, Take A Lesson, Herb’s Weather For The Week.

[Please consider supporting SeniorsSkiing.com with a donation. We appreciate your help. Click here.]

Here in SeniorsSkiing.com’s New England headquarters, we are feeling very gratified. We’ve been receiving donations from both online donors and through the mail. The notes on little pieces of paper mailed in with checks have been supportive and encouraging. “We love reading your e-magazine,” says one. “Keep it up,” says another.

Thank you very much. Here’s a Valentine picture for you taken on a beautiful blue bird day at Appleton Farms just after Sunday’s snow fall.

If you haven’t made a donation yet, please consider it. All donations go to help defray expenses which are growing as we grow. Click here.

__________________________________

This Week

Correspondent Tamsin Venn visits Loon Mountain and reports on her ski experience in times of COVID.  It’s like a throw-back to the old days, simple, economical, and ski-focused. Click here.

We found an interesting video on YouTube where someone took a run at Nax resort, a small-ish area in the Swiss Alps. It’s an eight and a half minutes from the top of the lift to the bottom.  You judge if you would have been comfortable doing what the videographer did. Or whether you think it’s safe. Click here.

The traveling Australian Dave Chambers recounts a 30-day ski journey in France.  On day one, a member of his safari has a bad accident. His tale of Marg’s foreshortened vacation and the wonder of travel insurance are a lesson in being prepared for evacuation far from home. Click here.

Correspondent Marc Liebman has done some research on the potential of a “personal ski”, that is, one made just for you.  Hey, if Dell can customize computers to your specs, why not a ski? Click here.

XCSkiResorts.com publisher Roger Lohr describes the typical injuries you can get in XC and how to avoid them. Click here.

Jan Brunvand, a frequent contributor from Utah, sent us a reminiscence about skiing in college in the 50s and how his first date with his current wife worked out. Click here.

Ski instructor John Gelb advises readers to take a lesson and reports on the three common flaws he sees in seniors that can be improved with instruction. Click here.

Finally, the Skiing Weatherman Herb Stevens brings us next week’s weather prediction. Coming up to four weeks to spring. Click here.

Thanks for reading SeniorsSkiing.com. Please tell your friends and remember, there are more of us every day and we aren’t going away.

 

 

Jon Weisberg

Short Swings!

/7 Comments/in , /by

Last week was the single deadliest avalanche week in the US since 1910. Avalanches claimed 15 lives: five in Utah, four in Colorado, three in Alaska, and one each in California, Montana and New Hampshire. To date, this season, 21 people perished.  According to avalanche.org, all but five of the fatalities were skiers or boarders. 

Experts attribute the dangerous conditions to the thin early-season snowpack which weakened under the snow from  recent storms. That, of course, has been exacerbated by the increase in backcountry skiing, some of which is the result of Covid restrictions at the resorts. An increase in any activity means many novices who are not adequately educated about what they’re getting into. 

And, as we all know, there’s the element of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bad luck.

I have several friends whose passion is backcountry skiing. They have the proper gear and know how to use it. They’ve learned how to scope out terrain and how to study snow. They know what they’re doing. That said, one of them was caught in a terrible slide with life-altering consequences. 

Whether or not you’ll ever leave the resort, this first-rate 15-minute orientation film from avalanche.org is worth watching.

Sun Valley Expansion

Sun Valley has added 380 acres of expert terrain.  Called Sunrise, it’s served by  the new Broadway detachable quad. It replaces the Cold Springs chair, until recently the resort’s oldest. Click on the image to learn more.

Lower Covid Risk on Ventilated Gondolas

Swiss researcher measures gondola’s air volume.

Risk of Covid during a 12-minute gondola ride is 1000 times less risky than a dinner in a closed room with eight people. That, according to scientists at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology. Personally, I prefer gondola rides to good terrain far more than restaurants with good terrine. 

History of the Chairlift

Early Sun Valley chair

James Curran, who never skied a day in life, invented the chairlift at the request of Averell Harriman who was developing Sun Valley. This article in the current issue of Smithsonian Magazine tells the story of the chair and other lifts. It’s good reading.

Generous Discount for Readers

I’ve reported on a few of the Biofit 360 CBD products. The company’s Deep Sleep CBD drops is the first product — Rx or OTC — to give my wife a full, uninterrupted night of sleep without side effects. It is exceptional. I’ve used its Relief CBD Cream as an alternative to OTC pills, and it really does the job. Now, Biofit is offering SeniorsSkiing.com readers a 20% discount. To enjoy this benefit, click on the Biofit 360 ad on the right of the screen, shop, and enter SKIING in the discount code field when checking out, 

90,000+ Vertical in One Day

Jonathan Boblitt

Jonathan Boblitt skied 90,073 vertical feet at Beaver Creek (CO) on January 26. According to Vail News, he was inspired by his late grandfather who told him a good day of skiing is when he could get it down to 10 cents a run. Boblitt did 39 laps on the Birds of Prey lift. Those and the runs he took to reach Birds of Prey helped him get to 90,000 vert. Congratulations, Jonathan!

Kai Jones Skis Targhee

This two-minute video of 13-year old Kai Jones at Grand Targhee brought a big smile. Targhee is a powder magnet and a joy to ski. Watching this kid make his way down slopes, over cliff bands and through the park is a lot of fun.

We Appreciate Your Support

This is a brief thank you to readers who, over the past week, donated to SeniorsSkiing.com. You will be receiving a mailing with stickers. And, if you contributed $50. or more, you will receive the terrific BBQ apron specially imprinted with the vintage skier woodcut (see below). We’re encouraging readers to make a minimum gift of $10 to help defray the cost of publishing SeniorsSkiing.com. To participate, please click here. The fund-raiser will last through February.

Please, Take A Run For Me

I’ll be in the hospital and out of commission for a while. The coming months will require effort, grit and good luck. For the majority of SeniorsSkiing.com readers blessed with good health or who have gotten through rough periods, I hope you remain well. For those facing health issues, I hope you get better soon.

Because of this situation, it will be some time before I get back to writing Short Swings!

For each of you fortunate enough to be on the slopes this weird (now, snowy)  season, I ask this favor: Next time you’re on the hill, please, take a run for me.

Herb Stevens

Skiing Weatherman: The Hits Just Keep On Coming

/1 Comment/in /by

Busy Storms. Slopes in Good Shape.

As I write this piece at the start of President’s Day weekend, the slopes from coast to coast are in fine to extraordinarily good shape, thanks to a very busy coast to coast pattern of storms that has played out in recent weeks.  A push of arctic air delivered by the stratwarm episode that was discussed in last week’s column is providing cold air over the eastern two-thirds of the country.  At the same time, upper level energy that supports the stormy pattern continues to be ejected from an upper level trough over the Aleutians.  After the holiday weekend those disturbances will continue to favor resorts north of I-70 and I-80 in the West, but as the energy tracks eastward and interacts with the cold air flowing into the center of the country from Canada, storms will bring fresh snow to the Midwest and the East.  Here is a jet stream for Friday the 19th that illustrates the snowy “handoff” pattern that is in place now and should stay in place for the next couple of weeks.

With one trough over the Gulf of Alaska and another over the eastern half of the country, combined with a blocking ridge still hanging around Greenland, storm after storm will cross the country, some small, some more significant.  Initially, the snow will fall in British Columbia and the resorts of the Pac NW and northern Rockies.  The northern Great Lakes will pick up a round of powder as the disturbance heads toward the high amplitude trough that stretches from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.  As the disturbance in the northern branch of the jet stream interacts with the larger system, the result could be a storm that could run up the length of the Appalachians late in the week and into next weekend.  As I suggested earlier, there will be ample cold air around, as shown by this map of 5,000 foot temperatures for next Friday.

The green and gray colors show where temps will be below 32 degrees aloft, a proxy for snow vs. rain at the surface.  You can see that a long-track snow event up the eastern seaboard could indeed be in the cards.  Now if you look at the jet stream map above, you will see an extended trough reaching from the waters west of Washington northward to the Arctic region.  The counter clockwise flow around that feature suggests that after 10-12 days of domination by arctic air, Pacific air masses will get involved, leading to somewhat milder weather (less cold) by the end of the month or so.  In the meantime, enjoy the frequency of flakes and preponderance of powder!

REGIONAL HIGHLIGHTS:

Pac NW/B.C.:

Big storm late this week followed by more storms from the Gulf of Alaska rolling into the mountains of B.C., Washington, and Oregon.

Central and southern Sierra:

One storm this weekend and another early next week.  Glancing blows from storms to the north bring light snow later next week.  Heavy snow next weekend.

Rockies:

Weekend snow followed by a moderate to heavy accumulation a couple of days later central and south.  Potential for another round next weekend.  Moderate amounts of snow next week in northern resorts

Midwest:

Arctic air dominates.  Light snow from Clipper systems and some lake effect snow in northern Lakes.

Northeast:

Parade of storms continues to add snow every couple of days.  Shot at significant snow middle of next week and again late in the week.

Mid-Atlantic/Southeast:

Two shots at moderate to heavy snow in next week…first one around Tuesday and again a couple of days later.

 

 

mikemaginn

Vicarious Ski Run In The Swiss Alps: Fun Or Foolish?

/27 Comments/in /by

Here’s A Top-To-Bottom Video Of A Run At Nax.

[Please consider supporting SeniorsSkiing.com with a donation. We appreciate your help. Click here.]

This is a Go-Pro video we found on YouTube.  It’s shot at Nax ski resort in Switzerland, a charming ski village in Valais, overlooking Val de Herens. It’s an intermediate-type area with moderate runs, one of the many small-ish areas found throughout Europe.

The video is eight and a half minutes long. From the top of the lift to the bottom.

What do you think? Is the skier making any turns here? Does this look like a safe run? What do you think of the terrain? The snow conditions?  Do you come away from this video with a good feeling?

Please leave comments below in Leave A Reply.

mikemaginn

Question For You: Liability-Less

/13 Comments/in /by

A Recent Court Decision Changes The Legal Landscape For Skiers In Colorado.

[Please consider supporting SeniorsSkiing.com with a donation. We appreciate your help. Click here.]

Watch this video news story from Channel 7 News in Denver, CO. Basically, a recent December 2020 Appeals Court ruling has decided that skiers cannot bring action against ski resorts, expanding protection for resorts, releasing resorts from any and all liability from injuries, including chairlifts and gondolas.

Question For You: What’s your reaction? Is this any different from what we’ve always read on the backs of lift tickets? Or is this decision more ominous?

Please note your comments in Leave A Reply below.

 

Tamsin Venn

Loon Mountain Resort Update

/1 Comment/in /by

Lodges Closed. Back To Basics.

[Please consider supporting SeniorsSkiing.com with a donation. We appreciate your help. Click here.]

Sunny day at Tote Road Quad.

Kudos to Loon Mountain Resort, N.H., for managing COVID restrictions so well.

Our family bubble all agreed the best thing Loon had done was shut down all the lodges to indoor food service. That simplified one’s strategizing. Grab ‘n Go food windows and indoor order options provided al fresco sustenance with outdoor seating. Canvas tents were pop-up dining halls. Quick stop locations on the mountain provided places to duck in with little ones to get out of the wind. Space heaters are placed in certain areas when weather permits. Rest rooms were available at all lodges even if closed (outdoor access) and one fancy trailer near the gondola.

We parked our rolling base lodge in the Main Lot with an easy-ish schlep to either the Gondola or Kancamagus Express Quad, booted and masked up. Lunch break was pleasant with hot soup, the heater run sparingly, and radio dial set to NH public radio. Loon does not allow open-fire grills in the parking lot.

Contactless pickup boxes, PUBs, are where you can pick up a RFID card bought online or scan a QR code to reload. Ikon pass holders need to reserve, but because of popularity can cancel, even day of (blizzard anyone?).

Ghost lines leave plenty of room. Credit: Tamsin Venn

Loon set up intervening ghost lift lines for social distancing (a few jerks zoomed down these). One employee did mask patrol. A lift attendant kept necessary order. Social distancing worked less well in the gondola line without the natural six-foot ski separation. Plexiglass barriers inside the gondola building separated the snaking queue. Some in our pod refused to ride the gondola. Nowhere was there pushback on riding a lift alone.

 

 

PUBs replace ticket windows.

Masks are required in the parking lot, lift lines, when loading and unloading. This routine broke down in the parking lots.

Nearby Plymouth State College is on a hybrid schedule so you get many college skiers all the time, not just January break, which lends a convivial air. Everyone seemed grateful to be outside skiing and letting off steam.

We deferred our Ikon passes because of New England travel restrictions. Loon is the only New Hampshire Ikon resort. Massachusetts residents, as are we, are allowed into New Hampshire but have to ten-day quarantine or produce a negative COVID test on return.

 

Snowy day in the Lincoln Woods. Credit: Tamsin Venn

Loon’s senior 65-79 pass averages $65 midweek, non-holiday through mid-March, free passes for those ages 80 and up and as a courtesy you don’t need to reserve. (Bretton Woods senior midweek pass is $39, FYI).

On the last day, we went XC skiing in the popular Lincoln Woods owned by the U.S. Forest Service The snow had newly fallen, the woods quiet. You follow a trail on either the east or west side of the snow-clad Pemigewasset River with snowshoers and dog walkers. 

In all, the experience felt pared down. You got out of your car, went to lifts, skied and rode, went big-ish then went home. That is a good thing. What will we do with the many usual options when we return to normal? And the snow conditions were outstanding.

Loon Trail Map

Loon Web Cam 

Uphill Access Policy 

Dave Chambers

Marg’s Morzine Mishap

/1 Comment/in /by

Poor Marg. She Becomes A Poster Person For Travel Insurance.

[Please consider supporting SeniorsSkiing.com with a donation. We appreciate your help. Click here.]

When I think back over the last two decades, our group of skiing fanatics have been largely injury free. We are a large group of friends comprised of both Australian and British skiers. But there was Morzine.

The Apartment is in the heart of Morzine.

Today our first day skiing, we vacate our Appartment Telepherique in Morzine, France. Our accommodation here in 2013 is a luxury condo with huge post card views over snow covered mountains. Our group of six skiers alight from the Telepherique Tramway. The day is a glorious blue with wisps of low thin cloud dispersed amongst the pines. As the sun rises this mist burns away as we exit the Tramway. The snow is firm pack with a centimetre or two of fresh on top.

Suddenly our day goes pear shaped within 100 metres of the tramway on a gentle slope.

Yes, there was an accident and when I say words like hip and femur, it sounds like it could be serious. It is. Our skiing friend Marg in fact has had a slight altercation with some hard packed powder. Not more than a couple of minutes from the door of the Tramway exit. She has rearranged the bones in her upper leg or hip or thereabouts. And this on her very first day skiing of our trip here in Morzine, Avoriaz, Portes du Soleil, France. In fact, her very first run right off the Tramway.

Marg is transferred to helo. First run of 30-day ski vacation in the Alps. Credit: Dave Chambers

We have hired a rental car and are now underway to a hospital on the shore of Lake Geneva (which in fact is called Lake Leman) in a town called Thonon. We have decided that our very good skiing friend Marg,who  has been at the mercy of the staff for a couple of days now at Hopitaux Du Lemans, Thonon Les Bains, France, needs some cheer and mirth in the hopitaux as they call it.

No more skiing for the entire trip for poor Marg. An otherwise for us, normal ski trip, covering three countries, France, Italy, and Switzerland. Skiing for a touch over 30 days at Morzine, Les Gets, Avoriaz, Champery, Courmayer, Monte Bianco, Valle Blanche, La Thuile, La Rosiere, Champoluc, Alagna, Gressoney La Trinite, Frachey and Gressoney Saint Jean. Skiing all without Marg.

Insurance is expensive when traveling, that’s for sure. But one day that policy and your insurance representative will be among your best friends. Poor Marg required attention by five ski rescue persons and a helicopter, no less. Experts all, they very carefully bundled her up, administered some drugs and whisked her away to said hospital. Never has a girl had so much male attention. She later reflected on enjoying this and some of the best drugs for her rehabilitation.

We joke about this in her private room and generally try to cheer her up. Also there is considerable discussion as to the right angle or such of the pins and what pins are where and, well a girl can never have too much jewelry, but in this case it is medical grade stainless steel. “It’s just such a shame you can’t show it off and jiggle it around,” says Marg.

The result of all this activity, unfortunately, has demanded her complete repatriation back to Oz and her vigorous removal from Morzine by that new best friend: the Insurance Company!

But seriously we are sad to see her go, and a large portion of our day is now vacant without Marg. She is now a guest of said insurance company and a very exclusive guest she is. Having an invoice that now includes a lift by helicopter and a First Class flight all the way back to Australia for her and her new best friend, her nurse. Sometimes insurance companies are your friend indeed.

 

Volkl
Marc Liebman

The Personal Ski

/2 Comments/in /by

Does The World Need A Custom Ski Just For You?

[Please consider supporting SeniorsSkiing.com with a donation. We appreciate your help. Click here.]

You can buy a computer built just for you. How about a ski?

Way back in the winter of 2018, long before Covid raised its ugly head, I asked the heads of marketing (none of whom would qualify for a SeniorsSkiing/com subscription) from three manufacturers a simple question: “Has ski material science and engineering reached the point where—with a simple, easy-to-measure parameters, and algorithms— a ski manufacturer can produce a ski tailored to the way an individual, recreational skier skis?”

The answer was yes, they have been making custom skis for World Cup and Olympic Ski racers for decades. But what about us common folks?

Again, the answer was yes. Physical dimensions of the skier and other limits such as artificial joints could be entered by the buyer.

All it takes is translating measurement to manufacturing.

The hardest part would be translating how a skier skis into data that can be used by a computer to then control the manufacturing process. For elite racers, they have zillions of gigabytes of footage “experts” can analyze coupled with on-snow testing.

Unlike ski racers where the variations in their technique are subtle, recreational skiers are all over the map. If you don’t believe me, watch a well-traveled slope. Even the “untrained” eye can see the differences in technique, some good, some, well, not-so-good bordering on awful, or where they are in learning to ski.

All three ski designers hypothesized that with two to three minutes of video of a skier on a a ski whose design parameters were known skiing down a known piece of terrain with measured condition, a custom ski could be done. The individuals all agreed that this approach would eliminate many variables.

From there, they could have internal experts go through their analysis, come up with whatever inputs a computer model needs, and, voilá, out would come the engineering/design specs for the ski.

Cost of manufacture is another story. Credit: Volkl

Now we get to the second issue: Producing the ski. Ski manufacturers make huge investments in equipment that can be used to turn out thousands of skis so they can amortize the investment over each ski produced. In this “personal ski” scenario, the molds and materials can still be used. Workers would have to be re-trained. How and why happens is beyond the scope of this piece, so just accept the fact that custom construction is possible.

Which brings us to cost. The custom ski would cost more than the $1,000 for a top-of-the-line ski. How much more, my informal panel wouldn’t or couldn’t agree on a number, but again, for the sake of dreaming, let’s say $3,000. Whether or not the ski was salable at that price is a different subject, again beyond the scope of this post.

So the obstacle was not cost, nor engineering, nor manufacturing, but identifying and then gathering the needed data that could be translated into ones and zeros. In the end, they all said,  “Why bother?”  The current designs meet the needs of 80—90 percent of recreational skiers. And therein lies the rub and why, at least not yet, everyone can’t have a custom designed ski.

 

Cross Country Skiing
Roger Lohr

Make More Tracks: XC Ski Injuries And How To Avoid Them

/1 Comment/in /by

Either Falls Or Pre-Existing Conditions Can Cause Problems.

[Please consider supporting SeniorsSkiing.com with a donation. We appreciate your help. Click here.]

Injuries are rare in XC, and conditioning is the best medicine. Credit: SnowSportEngland

Cross country (XC) skiing is a sport with a very low incidence of injuries for a number of reasons.

It’s a low impact sport with low sliding speed, plus the free heel allows twisting if you fall. The ski boot is connected to the ski binding only at the toe, and the heel is free.

On the other hand, there may be some injuries during the ski season by falls or by aggravating pre-existing conditions. Like the Maytag repairman, ski patrollers at XC ski areas are not the busiest employees because they do not have to address many serious skier injuries.

According to Sophia Sauter, a registered physiotherapist, about 75 percent of injuries sustained by XC skiers are the result of overuse due to the repetitive nature of skiing, while the remaining 25 percent are the result of trauma. Here are some common injuries and appropriate treatment.

Traumatic XC ski injuries (25 percent), for example, include ankle sprains, thumb sprains, knee ligament sprains, groin muscle strains, and wrist sprains. Upper body injuries are often the result of falling down. Since XC skiing speeds tend to be somewhat slow, the impacts are often less severe than impacts at much higher speeds. The recommended treatment for the traumatic injuries is RICE: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. Then, slowly restore range of motion, strength, proprioception (such as the ability to drive using brake, accelerator, and steering wheel without looking at your arms and legs), and power. It’s suggested to see a physiotherapist to obtain a proper diagnosis and set of rehabilitative exercises.

Overuse injuries (75 percent) from XC skiing, could include knee pain, compartment syndrome on shins, Achilles tendon problems, rotator cuff and shoulder problems, and low back pain. The recommended treatment for these problems is a bit different. In these cases it’s important to correct muscle imbalance (e.g. tight/weak), equipment faults, and possible training errors. Seek medical advice from a physiotherapist or other qualified health professional specializing in injuries common to XC skiers.

Most people skip the warm up or preparing for recreational activity altogether, but the best way to avoid injury is prevention. This means using appropriate training progressions, maintaining physical strength, balance, flexibility, adopting appropriate recovery techniques, and treating any lingering individual alignment problems, weaknesses, and imbalances. It makes sense to warm up before hitting the trails.

Physiotherapist Sophia Sauter suggests a full body analysis with a professional to identify individual mechanical inadequacies. Also consider a specific core stability and functional strength program for athletes. Popular core-strengthening strategies might include yoga, Pilates, and a regular fitness regimen.

Think about getting in shape staying, warming up, and dealing with your injuries before going out on the trails and you can continue to have a great season.

Warm ups can help prevent strains and sprains. Credit: CONCR