Sunday 3/23/08 - Death slides on Lower Ovation!!!

[tyrolean_skier]

That trail looked exactly the same today. It has not been groomed at all.

The trail report has it marked for grooming tonight, hopefully it will indeed get opened and ... be skiable!

I will go over to Bear tomorrow and see if that actually happens,

[Humpty Dumpty]

Personally, I stayed off lower Ovation last weekend. Superstar, Double Dipper, and OL were fine. There were a number of people out on race stock who were treating them as a Super G course. I'm lacking the equipment, technique, and testicles to ski that terrain at that kind of speed. I don't have that kind of edge grip skiing on 86mm-waist all mountain skis.

I hit around 70+ mph on Double Dipper.........

Riiiggghhhttt...

Umm, yeah. 192cm M777's with a Vist V13 plate and S916's. Plus an "aerodynamic" outfit. I started at the top of the main pitch, after the rollover (so I could see the trail was empty), and made about 6 turns down the face. I was easily going 100 ft/sec, or roughly 70+ mph....about 1500 ft of trail in ~15 seconds.

70 mph? holy crap! maverick, you're writing checks your body can't cash!

here's an after school project for you homostar:

get yourself a gps unit and stick it in the front pocket of your jacket. go as fast as you can down any slope. check the results. i bet you will be highly disappointed in your top speed. you are not going nearly as fast as you think.

how do i know this?...cause i have done it. i too thought i was going much faster than i was. and if you recall, i raced D1 in college, so i ain't no herb. top speed was around 53 mph. disappointing, yet enlightening.

you sir, have a very big ego that needs to be chopped down.

in conclusion, please see my sig. line.

franz klamer, out.

[lilywhite]

Anybody enjoy the grooming on lower-O this weekend?

They groomed HALF the trail!!!!

This would be fine except that the ungroomed half was super slick shiny glaze ice. Deadly.

We took one run down it. The groomed half was fine, with a couple spots of real bad ice. No big deal. Real nice on the far left from what I hear.

I was scoping out the ungroomed side, hoping for some spots with blown in pow.....no dice...80%+ blown off to glaze ice. I spotted a woman about 1/3rd down the pitch, out on the ungroomed ice....she had taken her skis off and was perched on a tiny spot of soft snow. I stopped and asked if I could help - she said she had been standing there for 15 minutes....had accidently skied over there when she missed her turn.

I was trying to help figure out how to get her off of there, when a guy about 100 feet above us veered into the ungroomed at about 30-35 mph.....he promply fell and lost his skis, and slid all the way to the bottom bouncing off ice bumps, head first. Probably a good 500+ ft, at least 30-40 mph. One of the scariest crashes/slides I've ever seen. The guy looked banged up, but he got up by himself after a minute. Standard advanced level skier.

At some point the woman dropped one of her skis. She then started working her way over very carefully. After about 5 minutes, death slider #2 shows up, and we get a repeat. His slide looked even more brutal, but he got right up and seemed to be fine. Again, 500+ ft at 30+ mph. He managed to shower us with spray and made the women drop the rest of her gear.

Two near misses....

Finally, after a few more minutes, she managed to work her way over.....and then what? I told her her best bet was to just slide down on the groomed, and try to stay in control. She went down facing the snow (not what I was thinking...duh) and was generally ok but got pulled over to the ungroomed at the end. Seemed to be alright. Not much else I could have done....?

Man, I wish I had video.....

Anyway, we get down to the bottom, and finally a ski patroller shows up on a snowmobile. We told him what just happened, and he said he had witnessed it from the base and came up. We suggested they close the trail until they can get it groomed. He said he would go talk to his boss.....trail stayed open the rest of the day, from what I could tell.

Seriously.....what the HECK are they thinking????

We have dual failures here - mountain ops for not grooming that half of the trail, and ski patrol not using proper judgement in opening the trail.

They are extremely lucky someone didn't get badly hurt or die.....

I've seen similar ugly situations B-sweet headwall can be worse with greenies or bay blues on it, but Lower O?....no excuse for K.

[Mister Moose]

get yourself a gps unit and stick it in the front pocket of your jacket. go as fast as you can down any slope. check the results. i bet you will be highly disappointed in your top speed. you are not going nearly as fast as you think.

how do i know this?...cause i have done it. i too thought i was going much faster than i was. and if you recall, i raced D1 in college, so i ain't no herb. top speed was around 53 mph. disappointing, yet enlightening.

Don't forget dithering errors that still creep in, the quick changes in calculated position up your recorded 'highest trip speed'. I've done it too, and found what I thought was 50 was really 40. I did get a lot of inconsistent suspect results on the high speed memory - the best way I found was to glance at the GPS while at speed and watch for a consistent number... if you dare take your eyes off the road long enough to focus on the shaking GPS. Over 40, staring at 1/8" numbers seemed pretty stupid.

[Humpty Dumpty]

get yourself a gps unit and stick it in the front pocket of your jacket. go as fast as you can down any slope. check the results. i bet you will be highly disappointed in your top speed. you are not going nearly as fast as you think.

how do i know this?...cause i have done it. i too thought i was going much faster than i was. and if you recall, i raced D1 in college, so i ain't no herb. top speed was around 53 mph. disappointing, yet enlightening.

Don't forget dithering errors that still creep in, the quick changes in calculated position up your recorded 'highest trip speed'. I've done it too, and found what I thought was 50 was really 40. I did get a lot of inconsistent suspect results on the high speed memory - the best way I found was to glance at the GPS while at speed and watch for a consistent number... if you dare take your eyes off the road long enough to focus on the shaking GPS. Over 40, staring at 1/8" numbers seemed pretty stupid.

i wasn't aware of the dithering errors. what unit are you using? i have an e-trex venture.

re: the bolded text above...homostar is so awesome, he can constantly watch the mph reading while not even watching where he is going. he will get a true reading without crashing. he may registar 80 mph! you may say no f'ing way! butt it is true. i think i may have a man crush on him.

alberto tomba. out.

[Highway Star]

Personally, I stayed off lower Ovation last weekend. Superstar, Double Dipper, and OL were fine. There were a number of people out on race stock who were treating them as a Super G course. I'm lacking the equipment, technique, and testicles to ski that terrain at that kind of speed. I don't have that kind of edge grip skiing on 86mm-waist all mountain skis.

I hit around 70+ mph on Double Dipper......... :twisted:

:lol: Riiiggghhhttt...

Umm, yeah. 192cm M777's with a Vist V13 plate and S916's. Plus an "aerodynamic" outfit. I started at the top of the main pitch, after the rollover (so I could see the trail was empty), and made about 6 turns down the face. I was easily going 100 ft/sec, or roughly 70+ mph....about 1500 ft of trail in ~15 seconds.

70 mph? holy crap! maverick, you're writing checks your body can't cash!

here's an after school project for you homostar:

get yourself a gps unit and stick it in the front pocket of your jacket. go as fast as you can down any slope. check the results. i bet you will be highly disappointed in your top speed. you are not going nearly as fast as you think.

how do i know this?...cause i have done it. i too thought i was going much faster than i was. and if you recall, i raced D1 in college, so i ain't no herb. top speed was around 53 mph. disappointing, yet enlightening.

you sir, have a very big ego that needs to be chopped down.

in conclusion, please see my sig. line.

franz klamer, out.

Umkay.....

http://forums.epicski.com/showthread.ph ... post361981

Last time I skied with a GPS, I hit ~55 mph in a straight line tuck on a moderate intermediate trail. This was on 195 AK launchers. It had snowed about 4-5 inches and they didn't groom, it was a little crudded up.

This was much faster....super-G/DH carves on a 35 degree pitch, groomed out. Speed oriented skis, with an aero outfit. Easily 70 mph. Probably more like 80-90 mph at the bottom. Quite fast.....scary fast.

[Humpty Dumpty]

I hit around 70+ mph on Double Dipper.........

Riiiggghhhttt...

Umm, yeah. 192cm M777's with a Vist V13 plate and S916's. Plus an "aerodynamic" outfit. I started at the top of the main pitch, after the rollover (so I could see the trail was empty), and made about 6 turns down the face. I was easily going 100 ft/sec, or roughly 70+ mph....about 1500 ft of trail in ~15 seconds.

70 mph? holy crap! maverick, you're writing checks your body can't cash!

here's an after school project for you homostar:

get yourself a gps unit and stick it in the front pocket of your jacket. go as fast as you can down any slope. check the results. i bet you will be highly disappointed in your top speed. you are not going nearly as fast as you think.

how do i know this?...cause i have done it. i too thought i was going much faster than i was. and if you recall, i raced D1 in college, so i ain't no herb. top speed was around 53 mph. disappointing, yet enlightening.

you sir, have a very big ego that needs to be chopped down.

in conclusion, please see my sig. line.

franz klamer, out.

Umkay.....

http://forums.epicski.com/showthread.ph ... post361981

Last time I skied with a GPS, I hit ~55 mph in a straight line tuck on a moderate intermediate trail. This was on 195 AK launchers. It had snowed about 4-5 inches and they didn't groom, it was a little crudded up.

This was much faster....super-G carves on a 35 degree pitch, groomed out. Speed oriented skis, with an aero outfit. Easily 70 mph. Probably more like 80-90 mph. Quite fast.....scary fast.

35 degrees? holy sh*t! that's about as steep as you can get in bounds. humpty is impressed.

you can borrow my gps unit if you like. i'm sure a red rocket engineer like yourself would like to evaluate the results.

btw, does your penis go into turtle mode at that high speed? it must be frightened that it may get decapitated at terminal velocity. i know mine would.

[Humpty Dumpty]

I hit around 70+ mph on Double Dipper.........

Riiiggghhhttt...

Umm, yeah. 192cm M777's with a Vist V13 plate and S916's. Plus an "aerodynamic" outfit. I started at the top of the main pitch, after the rollover (so I could see the trail was empty), and made about 6 turns down the face. I was easily going 100 ft/sec, or roughly 70+ mph....about 1500 ft of trail in ~15 seconds.

70 mph? holy crap! maverick, you're writing checks your body can't cash!

here's an after school project for you homostar:

get yourself a gps unit and stick it in the front pocket of your jacket. go as fast as you can down any slope. check the results. i bet you will be highly disappointed in your top speed. you are not going nearly as fast as you think.

how do i know this?...cause i have done it. i too thought i was going much faster than i was. and if you recall, i raced D1 in college, so i ain't no herb. top speed was around 53 mph. disappointing, yet enlightening.

you sir, have a very big ego that needs to be chopped down.

in conclusion, please see my sig. line.

franz klamer, out.

Umkay.....

http://forums.epicski.com/showthread.ph ... post361981

Last time I skied with a GPS, I hit ~55 mph in a straight line tuck on a moderate intermediate trail. This was on 195 AK launchers. It had snowed about 4-5 inches and they didn't groom, it was a little crudded up.

This was much faster....super-G/DH carves on a 35 degree pitch, groomed out. Speed oriented skis, with an aero outfit. Easily 70 mph. Probably more like 80-90 mph at the bottom. Quite fast.....scary fast.

wait!!! were there manditory gs turns required here? why would you bother to check your speed with mgsts? go faster!

you da woman highwaystar! you go girl!

[RENO]

I hit around 70+ mph on Double Dipper.........

Riiiggghhhttt...

Umm, yeah. 192cm M777's with a Vist V13 plate and S916's. Plus an "aerodynamic" outfit. I started at the top of the main pitch, after the rollover (so I could see the trail was empty), and made about 6 turns down the face. I was easily going 100 ft/sec, or roughly 70+ mph....about 1500 ft of trail in ~15 seconds.

I don't know about 70+ but there were 4 or 5 different people I saw on Double Dipper skiing it at very high speed. I don't have the reference to be able to judge the speed but I'd believe people were hitting 50. I'm not sure I remember seeing anybody on a pair of Yugoslavian 2x4s.

You would not have missed me...

Here's the skis HS used. Mannnnn they're long! 1 turn is all that's needed with these on Lower Ovation...

[tyrolean_skier]

That trail looked exactly the same today. It has not been groomed at all.

The trail report has it marked for grooming tonight, hopefully it will indeed get opened and ... be skiable!

I will go over to Bear tomorrow and see if that actually happens,

Yep, they actually did groom it and they did a very good job.

[skiingsnow]

That trail looked exactly the same today. It has not been groomed at all.

The trail report has it marked for grooming tonight, hopefully it will indeed get opened and ... be skiable!

I will go over to Bear tomorrow and see if that actually happens,

Yep, they actually did groom it and they did a very good job.

Cool! K usually does a great job grooming in my opinion, despite some the slanderous filth some spread here about the grooming!!

[JerseyGuy]

Cool! K usually does a great job grooming in my opinion, despite some the slanderous filth some spread here about the grooming!!

C'mon, now... is ANYONE collecting these Skippysnow quotes? This is great stuff!

[Bling Skier]

I hit around 70+ mph on Double Dipper.........

Riiiggghhhttt...

Umm, yeah. 192cm M777's with a Vist V13 plate and S916's. Plus an "aerodynamic" outfit. I started at the top of the main pitch, after the rollover (so I could see the trail was empty), and made about 6 turns down the face. I was easily going 100 ft/sec, or roughly 70+ mph....about 1500 ft of trail in ~15 seconds.

70 mph? holy crap! maverick, you're writing checks your body can't cash!

here's an after school project for you homostar:

get yourself a gps unit and stick it in the front pocket of your jacket. go as fast as you can down any slope. check the results. i bet you will be highly disappointed in your top speed. you are not going nearly as fast as you think.

how do i know this?...cause i have done it. i too thought i was going much faster than i was. and if you recall, i raced D1 in college, so i ain't no herb. top speed was around 53 mph. disappointing, yet enlightening.

you sir, have a very big ego that needs to be chopped down.

in conclusion, please see my sig. line.

franz klamer, out.

Umkay.....

http://forums.epicski.com/showthread.ph ... post361981

Last time I skied with a GPS, I hit ~55 mph in a straight line tuck on a moderate intermediate trail. This was on 195 AK launchers. It had snowed about 4-5 inches and they didn't groom, it was a little crudded up.

This was much faster....super-G/DH carves on a 35 degree pitch, groomed out. Speed oriented skis, with an aero outfit. Easily 70 mph. Probably more like 80-90 mph at the bottom. Quite fast.....scary fast.

70 mph on an elan 777 at 194 cm.....in 4" of snow....I CALL BULL sh*t!

[btbeirne]

Riiiggghhhttt...

Umm, yeah. 192cm M777's with a Vist V13 plate and S916's. Plus an "aerodynamic" outfit. I started at the top of the main pitch, after the rollover (so I could see the trail was empty), and made about 6 turns down the face. I was easily going 100 ft/sec, or roughly 70+ mph....about 1500 ft of trail in ~15 seconds.

70 mph? holy crap! maverick, you're writing checks your body can't cash!

here's an after school project for you homostar:

get yourself a gps unit and stick it in the front pocket of your jacket. go as fast as you can down any slope. check the results. i bet you will be highly disappointed in your top speed. you are not going nearly as fast as you think.

how do i know this?...cause i have done it. i too thought i was going much faster than i was. and if you recall, i raced D1 in college, so i ain't no herb. top speed was around 53 mph. disappointing, yet enlightening.

you sir, have a very big ego that needs to be chopped down.

in conclusion, please see my sig. line.

franz klamer, out.

Umkay.....

http://forums.epicski.com/showthread.ph ... post361981

Last time I skied with a GPS, I hit ~55 mph in a straight line tuck on a moderate intermediate trail. This was on 195 AK launchers. It had snowed about 4-5 inches and they didn't groom, it was a little crudded up.

This was much faster....super-G/DH carves on a 35 degree pitch, groomed out. Speed oriented skis, with an aero outfit. Easily 70 mph. Probably more like 80-90 mph at the bottom. Quite fast.....scary fast.

70 mph on an elan 777 at 194 cm.....in 4" of snow....I CALL BULL sh*t!

If ever a situation begged for a SKI-OFF, this would be it...

[Phantom]

Isn't Ovation a double diamond? The conditions stated above should not have been an issue for skiers who the appropriate skills to handle a double diamond. The problem is all the Killington skiers who don't have a clue what they're doing and don't belong on trails with this rating.

Ding ding ding!

I actually remember signs at the top of White Heat and Hardball at Sunday River stating that they were NO FALL ZONES and for EXPERT SKIERS only. Maybe they need the skull and crossbones at the top like in Kirkweed.

We see death slides all the time on Lower O. I wonder if anyone has actually died there?!?!

B)

Heard there was a Darwin Award winner about 10 years ago.
Slid into the trees skiers left.

After reading this thread I have to wonder what part of double black we're missing here.

My only problem with K is that they have made easy trails like Cascade double black.
Lower Ovation is not in the same class as Cascade.

I think they should do away with ropes and hang little signs like:
Unrated, good luck with that.
Your death wish will be granted.
You hate life, but are not outright suicidal.
Ugly, but doable.
OK
Good
Fun when I went down it.