rogman wrote:Vertigo with thin early season cover is not safe. Lot of big, sharp rocks below the headwall. You can get seriously hurt. That's not a smart poach. And anyone who goes on a public forum and brags about ducking ropes pretty much deserves to have the book thrown at them. It's like talking about Fight Club.
No bragging.
There's a certain trail on bear that you can ski on one side very safely in 2 feet. The other side needs 6 feet.
So the trial is always closed.
It's the most poached trial on the hill.
If you know where to go its safe. If not you will catch a helmet full of rocks.
I never poach away from my home mountain. Saw people doing it at snowbird while they were doing avi control. That's nuts. Butt if I skied there over a 1000 times. I may have been with them.
deadheadskier wrote:That's totally lame. Not an issue at Wildcat. I guess patrol at Cat thinks those who duck ropes know what they are getting into and are capable of skiing less than ideal conditions.
Thats cool that patrol gives you option of getting the goods first. I call it going backstage were you need to dodge snow making equipment, snowmobiles and funky snow conditions. Often early season snow conditions will only support a limited amount of traffic forcing SP to leave them roped. Sometimes it seems that patrol let's us ski the slope in before opening the trail. I like that Wildcat officially gives the skier the choice.
It's a known ski patrol practice .. called alpha testing .. some refer to it as Guinea Pigging ..
Wildcat, and many other patrol teams face no where near the challenges of the K patrol.
More Jerry's per capita than any other Eastern ski area. Even a trail named Anarchy
deadheadskier wrote:That's totally lame. Not an issue at Wildcat. I guess patrol at Cat thinks those who duck ropes know what they are getting into and are capable of skiing less than ideal conditions.
Thats cool that patrol gives you option of getting the goods first. I call it going backstage were you need to dodge snow making equipment, snowmobiles and funky snow conditions. Often early season snow conditions will only support a limited amount of traffic forcing SP to leave them roped. Sometimes it seems that patrol let's us ski the slope in before opening the trail. I like that Wildcat officially gives the skier the choice.
It's certainly not official, it's just the laid back vibe of the place. Very similar to MRG in that regard. You will occasionally see in the snow report a warning not to explore closed terrain. If you read that you know it has to be bad. Beyond that, it's a ski and let ski mentality.
I don't think Killington could ever pull that off though.
Too many tourists who ski only a few times a year and don't know any better and would get in over their heads. Patrol wouldn't want those folks following the regulars under ropes.
Skiing the top of Cannon when they drop the ropes for the season can be a two hour tour. If you're lucky you hit ledge and go over your skis and don't break anything. Slush sets up like quicksand when the sun leaves if it ever makes an appearance. I've skied early K when it's slush/ice butt it's warm enough and enough people so … so you get what you get. If skiing was supposed to be safe you'd wear a helmet.
