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first double black!



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 8th 04, 04:25 PM
Monique Y. Herman
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Default first double black!

Whee! I did my first double black ever yesterday. Main Street at
A-Basin. I'm told that, as double blacks go, it's not that high on the
"pucker factor" -- but that's okay. It was a good confidence builder,
and it was a lot more fun than I thought it'd be.

--
monique

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  #2  
Old February 10th 04, 02:54 AM
klaus
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Default

Monique Y. Herman wrote:
Whee! I did my first double black ever yesterday. Main Street at
A-Basin. I'm told that, as double blacks go, it's not that high on the
"pucker factor" -- but that's okay. It was a good confidence builder,
and it was a lot more fun than I thought it'd be.


Major congrats... be careful.. next thing you know you'll be asking
about Dynafit vs. Fritschi. And Whippets.

-klaus




  #3  
Old February 10th 04, 03:03 AM
SkaredShtles
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Default

"Monique Y. Herman" wrote in
:

Whee! I did my first double black ever yesterday. Main Street at
A-Basin. I'm told that, as double blacks go, it's not that high on the
"pucker factor" -- but that's okay. It was a good confidence builder,
and it was a lot more fun than I thought it'd be.



Congrats! You weren't the chick on tele skis doing zipper-line bumps at
the bottom, were you?

I coaxed a buddy into Alley 3 and was disappointed to discover that the
"exit exam" was still closed off. Had to traverse back out to Pali Face to
finish up.

And damn East Face needs a boatload of coverage to be skiable.

Winter Park today was *muuuuuuuucho* better than A-Basin on Saturday,
though. A foot of fresh and not enough people to track it out. sigh

-T.O.M.-

  #4  
Old February 10th 04, 07:45 PM
Monique Y. Herman
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Default

On 2004-02-10, klaus penned:
Monique Y. Herman wrote:
Whee! I did my first double black ever yesterday. Main Street at
A-Basin. I'm told that, as double blacks go, it's not that high on
the "pucker factor" -- but that's okay. It was a good confidence
builder, and it was a lot more fun than I thought it'd be.


Major congrats... be careful.. next thing you know you'll be asking
about Dynafit vs. Fritschi. And Whippets.


That's a self-fulfilling prophecy, as I have no idea what you're talking
about. So now I have to ask: what are Dynafit, Fritschi, and Whippets?

--
monique

  #5  
Old February 10th 04, 07:45 PM
Monique Y. Herman
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Posts: n/a
Default

On 2004-02-10, SkaredShtles penned:
"Monique Y. Herman" wrote in
:

Whee! I did my first double black ever yesterday. Main Street at
A-Basin. I'm told that, as double blacks go, it's not that high on
the "pucker factor" -- but that's okay. It was a good confidence
builder, and it was a lot more fun than I thought it'd be.


Congrats! You weren't the chick on tele skis doing zipper-line bumps
at the bottom, were you?


Heh. No. I was the chick on alpine skis taking my sweet time. A few
turns, stop, find a line, rinse, repeat. I never fell, though. Oddly
enough, it seemed easier to turn on this steeper slope than on
less-steep slopes, so the moguls weren't as intimidating. Weird.

I coaxed a buddy into Alley 3 and was disappointed to discover that
the "exit exam" was still closed off. Had to traverse back out to
Pali Face to finish up.


I'm not quite to that point, yet. Alley 3 is part of the super-narrow
glade stuff, right?

And damn East Face needs a boatload of coverage to be skiable.

Winter Park today was *muuuuuuuucho* better than A-Basin on Saturday,
though. A foot of fresh and not enough people to track it out.
sigh


Sigh. I believe it.

I won't be able to ski till this weekend ... and I'm not even sure about
that, but I have high hopes.

--
monique

  #6  
Old February 10th 04, 10:31 PM
MattB
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Default

Monique Y. Herman wrote:
On 2004-02-10, klaus penned:
Monique Y. Herman wrote:
Whee! I did my first double black ever yesterday. Main Street at
A-Basin. I'm told that, as double blacks go, it's not that high on
the "pucker factor" -- but that's okay. It was a good confidence
builder, and it was a lot more fun than I thought it'd be.


Major congrats... be careful.. next thing you know you'll be asking
about Dynafit vs. Fritschi. And Whippets.


That's a self-fulfilling prophecy, as I have no idea what you're
talking about. So now I have to ask: what are Dynafit, Fritschi, and
Whippets?


I only know Dynafit in a ski context. It's a custom liner. I have some and I
swear by them. Once your stock liners pack out and you boots don't fit like
they used to you should get some too.

IIRC Whippets where the Nitrous cartridges we'd fill balloons with and
inhale for a buzz in my younger days. Chances are, that's not what's being
referred to here.

Matt



  #7  
Old February 10th 04, 10:54 PM
Chuck
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"Monique Y. Herman" wrote in
:


Congrats! You weren't the chick on tele skis doing zipper-line bumps
at the bottom, were you?


Heh. No. I was the chick on alpine skis taking my sweet time. A few
turns, stop, find a line, rinse, repeat. I never fell, though. Oddly
enough, it seemed easier to turn on this steeper slope than on
less-steep slopes, so the moguls weren't as intimidating. Weird.



Congrats.

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.
--
Chuck
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  #8  
Old February 11th 04, 12:15 AM
Alex Heney
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Default

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 16:54:07 CST, Chuck
wrote:

"Monique Y. Herman" wrote in
:


Congrats! You weren't the chick on tele skis doing zipper-line bumps
at the bottom, were you?


Heh. No. I was the chick on alpine skis taking my sweet time. A few
turns, stop, find a line, rinse, repeat. I never fell, though. Oddly
enough, it seemed easier to turn on this steeper slope than on
less-steep slopes, so the moguls weren't as intimidating. Weird.



Congrats.

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.


A black in any given resort equates to other blacks in the same resort
(if you're lucky).

There is no real correlation between the grades of slopes between
different resorts, never mind different states.

CynicA given resort will determine what their ideal skier profile
is, and then make sure they grade the slopes to attract that profile
of skier./Cynic

Even if they have no really difficult terrain, almost all resorts will
designate their hardest runs as double blacks, and most will create at
least one green from each lift, if at all possible.

Which can lead to some real anomalies. I have only skied in North
America once, when I went to Jasper, Lake Louise, and Sunshine. Jasper
& Lake Louise were mostly graded fairly closely, apart from the fact
that at Jasper, they had just put in a new chair up to Eagle Ridge,
and decided they *must* have a green run down from it.

That green was harder than several of the LL blues, and was probably
harder than ANY of the Sunshine blues. Sunshine generally was graded
significantly higher than the other two. Most of their blues would
have been greens at either of the other two.
--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
It's deja vu all over again.

To reply by email, my address is aDOTjDOTheneyATbtinternetDOTcom

  #9  
Old February 11th 04, 12:49 AM
Monique Y. Herman
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Default

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

  #10  
Old February 11th 04, 12:59 AM
Monique Y. Herman
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Posts: n/a
Default

On 2004-02-11, Alex Heney penned:

A black in any given resort equates to other blacks in the same resort
(if you're lucky).

There is no real correlation between the grades of slopes between
different resorts, never mind different states.


I seem to recall someone telling me that at Breckenridge, the difference
between a blue and a blue-black was that the blue-blacks weren't
necessarily groomed. Just to add some confusion.

Even if they have no really difficult terrain, almost all resorts will
designate their hardest runs as double blacks, and most will create at
least one green from each lift, if at all possible.


I hadn't noticed this particularly, but I have a couple of green-related
nits to pick with resorts.

1) "Longest run." Every resort has this statistic, and it's always the
catwalk that zigzags across the entire mountain 14 times. How about
"Longest non-traverse run" or "Longest black, blue, green run"?

2) Greens vs. catwalks. I wish these were more clearly distinguished.
On some maps, you can guesstimate, but on some, you're stuck. Catwalks
are annoying enough as a skier, but when you're with friends who
snowboard, they're torture!

Which can lead to some real anomalies. I have only skied in North
America once, when I went to Jasper, Lake Louise, and Sunshine. Jasper
& Lake Louise were mostly graded fairly closely, apart from the fact
that at Jasper, they had just put in a new chair up to Eagle Ridge,
and decided they *must* have a green run down from it.

That green was harder than several of the LL blues, and was probably
harder than ANY of the Sunshine blues. Sunshine generally was graded
significantly higher than the other two. Most of their blues would
have been greens at either of the other two.


Oof. That really sucks for beginners who just want to see more of the
mountain.

Actually, though, some greens can end up being pretty demanding --
they're heavily travelled, so they're either bare in places or icy.
They're mostly flat, but there are big "slow" signs to keep you from
picking up speed to carry you through the flat areas (granted, I
understand that new skiers shouldn't have to deal with people treating
their area as a race course). And there are tons of obstacles, er,
people scattered across the run, moving erratically, falling, etc. that
you have to avoid.

--
monique

 




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