grolby

I haven't skied since high school. Ten years this winter. Maybe I should dig my old planks out of my parents attic and take my Tennessee-native wife skiing in February .

I actually think that I enjoy cycling and skiing for similar reasons, the sensation of flight and speed and that extra weight pushing you down as you carve a fast turn. I love descending on both. I've stuck mostly with cycling because you don't need lift tickets, and you can do it more of the year, and my particular combination of a good sense of balance but mediocre coordination works a lot better on the bike.

Gramercy

Snowbasin has the best skiing in Utah. It's the only place that has actually scared me, outside of some cliffs out of bounds in Aspen.

waterrockets 

Never tried it. I had a sweet situation in UT: my wife was an exec at Coca Cola and had a box of season passes to Park City and Deer Valley. Both of those were 30 minutes from our driveway. So, I only skied when it was perfect up there: snow the night before, blue skies at dawn. Really spoiled, but I'd head up and ski my legs off by noon, then come back down and go to work. No lift lines on Tuesday or whatever, perfect snow, close enough to be productive at my desk 40 minutes after I pop off the skis. Cost nothing but the gas.

Those were good times. For anyone who desires mountain access, with urban employment opportunities, Utah is incredible. The narrow gene pool makes for some nice scenery too.

happybday29475

The below is "in the drops" as it pertains to skiing!
Notes:
1. Body more upright than legs/bicycle
2. ski spacing
3. hand position
4. shoulders facing down the hill


source: https://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...24151830148382

I'm starting to get excited about all this skiing stuff...for me 2 more (big) cx races then it's ski season!

furiousferret

I just starting skiing last year; its a blast. Last trip, I jumped on a lift going to restaurant at the top of the bunny slope, when I reached the restaurant, they wouldn't let anyone jump off and I was forced to the summit. Unfortunately, those slopes were way too steep for me and it was a crash / slide fest on the way down.

The only reservation I have about skiing is knee pain; never had it in my life until after I skied. I don't want to wreck my knees no matter how fun it is.

botto 

careful. i keep promising my cousin that i'll come visit him in elko.

Hermes

I skied Snow Basin many times and it has one great run which is the men's downhill from the top that was used in the Winter Olympics and that is assuming good snow. Otherwise, the visibility can be very poor on flat light days and the runs fed by the gondolas, although long, tend to be pipe shaped. I prefer Deer Valley - no snowboarders, better overall terrain, better food and minimal, if any, lift lines.

Racer Ex 

Like I said, come on over.

Elko is known as the Venice of Elko County. It's also home to some of the dumbest Idaho and Utah blackjack players I've ever seen. "Hey, the dealer is showing a 6, and I have 17. Hit me."

Yokels.

On the subject of Sierra Cement: Rose has the highest base elevation of all the Sierra resorts, and being on the "backside" of most weather systems and adjacent to several hundred miles of desert you tend to get a lot lighter snow. Probably not as consistently good as Utah or CO, but better than the other resorts and on a good day every bit as good as those places at their best.

On a decent year your can find back country pow late in the year just across the highway.

None of the IOSS vibe.

Heads up though: if there's a big dump the night before a lot of the Starbucks staff in Reno seem to come down with morning sickness.

Utah...I dig Alta.

gsteinb

Apparently I'm going to be in the drops tomorrow.

MDcatV

Institute of Sikh Studies?

caloso

I grew up on Sierra Cement so when we took a trip to Park City, it was just amazing. So this is why the Utahns brag about their snow.

waterrockets 

I moved from CO to UT with a huge chip on my shoulder about ski conditions. I ate crow on that one. Utah snow is amazing, and Park City and Deer Valley really suck snow-wise compared to some of the other places (like Alta and Snowbird) that seem to always have great snow. Of course, when I had the transferable passes and could cherry-pick my conditions, Park City and Deer Valley were great. Nothing wrong with a young lady waiting for me at the top to wipe my nose and give me a hot chocolate shot either, compared with the ashtray stench of a Snowbird lift line...

rankin116

You guys should come ski in the East, just remember to bring your ice skates.

happybday29475

Cascade Concrete > Sierra Cement.

I went to college in Seattle. Upon going skiing with the locals on a day with 2' of new heavy pow overnight and rain all day, everybody was stoked: "If we can learn how to ski this we'll be masters everywhere else!"

I suppose it's somewhat like crit racers from Portland.

shovelhd

A4/A5. A5 is a killa.

needmoreair

Learning how to surf through the pack without expending energy so you can get be at the front at critical junctures is a huge, huge skill to learn. Once you're able to do that you can hit a climb at the front, ride at your own pace, and slowly drift back so that you're still in contact over the top. And that can be the difference between making the front group and getting popped off the back.

This is something you can pick up over the course of a season if you're aware of it. Looking for those openings, looking for those chances to slingshot around out of the wind, in the draft. That's what good riders do. They're able to be at the pointy end when it's necessary and they're able to be there without expending much more energy than it'd take tooling around in the back. This is a skill, though, and one you have to be both cognizant of and continually looking to implement.

Sure, there are times when an element of fitness plays a role at being at the front when it matters, but more times than not, positioning and awareness of it are far more significant than fitness. And THEN that fitness comes into play in order to stay there.

rkwaki

+1, well said...

tetonrider

i probably could. where i chose to make my home was not at all an accident. aside from terrain, the inaccessibility of the area and our isolation can make it frustrating sometimes but also means that visitors tend to treat it with a bit more reverence.

i'm a little biased, but i think in terms of beauty (and ski terrain), winter is hard to beat here.





you don't need lift tickets to ski...and i've had a whole bunch of years where i've skied 200 days (without traveling to the southern hemisphere). admittedly, that's a bit obsessive.


there's some good backcountry stuff outside of elko. look up the line 'terminal cancer'; it's a classic.

people love to hate on maritime snowpacks, but they can turn cliffs into skiable lines in one storm cycle and generally provide a bomber snowpack, at least as soon as it stops storming.

the downside to utah's 3-4% blower is that it takes 20+ feet of snow to make resorts like snowbird skiable.

as we say around here...jackson sucks; tell your friends!

one of my favorite days--a shot i took of my friend from an early november storm cycle. chest deep!


i am a snow geek. surface hoar from an october storm. i bike up this pass in the summer and climb/ski it in the fall/winter/spring. surface hoar = fun skiing but buried surface hoar = scary avy conditions.


no lift-tickets required, grolby! ;-) another shot of a friend going down, down, down the apocalypse couloir.

botto 

if you can ski in new england, you can ski anywhere.

globecanvas

Please note that this strategy only works on very short climbs.

gsteinb

dude, the first rule of fight club is…


My numbers are different.

MDcatV

of course, but point being, there are times that regardless of skillset if you dont have the legs, you dont have the legs. our district championship race comes to mind, there's a 5-ish minute climb that is gradual but kicks at the top, then a non-descent downhill (i.e. pedaling required) into a few rollers, couple turns, into a 3-ish minute climb that is kind of steep, then goes through a few rollers. if you're off the back of climb 2, getting back to the group is very difficult.

every year, the bigger teams drive it hard (30+ mph) into the first climb, hammer up that one, keep pressure on until the second climb and maintaining position at the front just holding wheels is big, big effort. center line makes it that much more difficult. last year, a local bigger team had their national elite guys, local elite guys, and masters elite guys for about 14 in the field and they did this lap after lap until everything snapped. MDcatV snapped 2nd time through despite being in the top 10 at the bottom of climb 2, it was all about the legs.

to bring this back on topic, maybe if i'd been in the drops i would have won

echappist

I thought shovel was talking about a new car to get

echappist

Lemme guess, ncvc and kelly benefits tearing up the field?

MDcatV

kelly. ncvc hasnt torn up a field since i've been racing 1/2.