On 2004-02-10, Chuck penned:

Congrats.

Thank you!

I did my first single black this year. I too found it easier to make
the ski's turn on the steeper terrain though I didn't stop at all
between turns (except to help a fallen skier get his poles back). I'll
probably only get out 1 or 2 more days this season with this weekend
being one. I may try a double black on one of those trips. I do have
to wonder if a black in PA counts the same as a black anywhere else.

Congrats to you!

Which resort in PA? Off the top of my head, I seem to recall that Seven
Springs, Blue Knob, and Hidden Valley, not to mention Roundtop and Ski
Liberty, are all in PA, but they certainly aren't all the same in terms
of difficulty.

(Minuteman at Roundtop was my first ever blue.)

I think the only thing I can say with absolute confidence is that runs
in PA are pretty short. There's just not much vertical to work with.
Other than that, "anywhere else" is hard to guage, and varies by
condition. Here in Colorado, it sure seems like Vail blacks are easier
than A-Basin blacks, but that may just be because the A-Basin blacks are
shadier, so it's harder to see the terrain.

I wouldn't worry too much about how the blacks you've skied compare to
blacks at other mountains, but I would suggest that it's fun exploring
new resorts, and that it's probably a good idea to start out on a blue
at a new resort, just to get a feel for the place. Of course, on any
given day, conditions can alter the difficulty of the runs quite a bit.
I have a feeling that, regardless of steepness, eastern ice would mess
me up, now that I'm used to Colorado snow.

That being said, my first non-eastern ski trip was in Utah, and the runs
seemed a lot tougher to me than the ones I'd skied out East. I think
that's mostly due to the fact that they weren't groomed, though. I
thought I was doing okay on single blacks at the time, but when I got to
Utah, I had to scale back to blues to be comfortable.

--
monique