What do you consider a big ski day?

This is something I've been thinking about lately....

What do you consider a big day vertical-wise? And where/when do you typically ski?

There are a lot of variables into how much vert one can rack up in a day; like, how busy the lifts are, snow conditions, lift speeds, etc. For instance last week, i logged 24000 vertical feet skiing both solo and with a friend in about 4 hours at Steamboat. A few days later, lift lines were longer and I logged 22000 vertical in about 5 hours skiing all day solo with the exception of the last hour. But I can log about 10,000 vertical per hour if I'm solo and skiing the Peruvian chair at Snowbird. And I've read about people doing 100,000 vertical feet in a day.

Backcountry skiing is another "big day" I would be interested in. But I have a better feel for what I consider a big day earning my turns.....

Tentatively, considering others responses, I would say:

• In bounds skiing = 16,000 vertical feet lost.
• Backcountry skiing = 6000 vertical feet gained.

So I'm curious what you consider a big ski day......

Same as a big coincidence.

Do you want the answer for me today?

Or me from 15 years ago?

When I'm tired at the end of the day. Many 20K days in LCC feel a lot bigger than 35K+ I've had at other resorts

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Originally Posted by Danno

Do you want the answer for me today?

Or me from 15 years ago?

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Now would be preferred, who can remember 15 years ago???? 15 years ago, I skied 100,000 vertical a day, all day and it never snowed less than 6 inches overnight. You should have been there!

local fixed grip chair is a 15 minute ride, the choke point no matter how fast you ski the down,

27600 for the up but that was so 12 yrs ago altho it didnt matter how slow the chair was

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Originally Posted by XXX-er

local fixed grip chair is a 15 minute ride, the choke point no matter how fast you ski the down,

27600 for the up but that was so 12 yrs ago

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I'm not talking about your personal best, but damn 27,600 vertical gain only using your legs in one day is massive...

I just want to know what YOU consider a solid/big day on the hill, vert-wise.

All vertical feet are not the same.

In JH, fast chairs, good snow and smooth groomers with no waits:

40k on a groomer day, (10 trams or 15 Bridger ganjalas)
25k on an easy pow day, maybe 6k on a super mank day.

If I hike 1k it's a big day.

2/3 Granite laps is a big day.


Is xxx saying he's ascended 27.6k in a day under his own power?

I’ve only logged vft a handful of times. For me a big inbounds day is bell to bell and legs are buzzing while sitting in my recliner at home sipping a nice cab sauve. That usually coincides with pow.
I cannot fathom hundo plus k vert, I guess if skiing groomers only but man that seems boring. I’ve gone hard af before in the right conditions, pow and vis and was able to get around five O’ish k on a few occasions, all off piste.


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well the way you asked the question its what you wanted to know

so we used to have an event as a fund rasier for spinal cord research where people did 18 laps around the chair/ 27500 ft in 1 day, start and finish at noon, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=...st%20challenge

i'm in that ^^ pack somewhere, most of thse people are on a team, not many are soloing, some are just there to party & checkout the cute skier girls, there are food/ kegs, a bitching sound system & DJ, a spoken word poet doing readings from sir eds book at 3am



maybe a couple doz normal BC skiers did it so its a very possible goal for an average to strong BC skier,
Angle Parking is the only person to do it 2 yrs in a row, only 1 woman the xc ski coach ever did it, a couple of identical twin 15 yr old brothers did it side by each, I was the oldest at 56, we had a great ultra runner/ shitty skier do it in < 13hrs

we had a quadrapalegic ( incomplete spinal ) ski 1 lap in 8 hrs

it was a thing to do but it was not really that much fun hitting 4 or 5 walls in the dark, after a few years everybody who wanted to had done it so the event petered out

the million ft in a year that Greg H ill and those other guys did just really floors me

wtf? Is that a yes?

you skinned up 27, 600' cumulatively and skied it, Lap after lap, yes?

WTF do you think I said ^^ in the post,

did you look at the 125skiers in the link it was an event,

start at noon & finish at noon ski all night

so that is a big day cuz its all i could do

I only got to 21500 the next year and said fuck it, I quit that foolishness to drink beer get high with the patagonnia/ DPS/ dynafit reps and shoot roman candles at one another on piste at midnight

20 high tease

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Originally Posted by 2FUNKY

I’ve only logged vft a handful of times. For me a big inbounds day is bell to bell and legs are buzzing while sitting in my recliner at home sipping a nice cab sauve. That usually coincides with pow.
I cannot fathom [emoji637][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]]k vert, I guess if skiing groomers only but man that seems boring. I’ve gone hard af before in the right conditions, pow and vis and was able to get around [emoji6[emoji640][emoji637]][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]]k on a few occasions, all off piste.


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Yo, 2F, punch in those emoji numbers, can't follow.

You're much stronger than me, I know. B2B is highly unlikely for me.

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Originally Posted by brutah

Now would be preferred, who can remember 15 years ago???? 15 years ago, I skied 100,000 vertical a day, all day and it never snowed less than 6 inches overnight. You should have been there!

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Well, at 40 I would have said 3k was a big BC day, now the idea of 3k sounds very long, 17 years later shit is different

groomer day 20k is a big day
skiing hard terrain 15k is probably a big day
BC 1500' is a big day for me

With you on the uphill, anything over 6k is a big day.

Lift served is tougher to say. If I am smashing moguls all the way down, probably 12k is a big day.

Age stratification: ski touring

In my mid-late 30s 10k was big day.
Now at 52, less active, 6-7k seems big.

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Originally Posted by Danno;[emoji[emoji6[emoji640

[emoji638]][emoji640][emoji639]][emoji637][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji639]][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji639]][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]][emoji639][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]]]Well, at [emoji640][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]] I would have said [emoji639]k was a big BC day, now the idea of [emoji639]k sounds very long, [emoji637][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji639]] years later shit is different

groomer day [emoji638][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]]k is a big day
skiing hard terrain [emoji637][emoji6[emoji640][emoji637]]k is probably a big day
BC [emoji637][emoji6[emoji640][emoji637]][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]]' is a big day for me

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I just have to jump in here and say you look really good for [emoji6[emoji640][emoji637]][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji639]] Danno! I would not have come close to [emoji6[emoji640][emoji637]][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji639]] if I’d have guessed.


As for the question at hand: If lines are manageable I’ll be pretty gassed at
[emoji638][emoji6[emoji640][emoji637]]k on a power day [emoji639][emoji6[emoji640][emoji637]]k on a non powder day.

delete the goddamn app

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Originally Posted by XXX-er

WTF do you think I said ^^ in the post,
....
so that is a big day cuz its all i could do

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Hahaha for what its worth I thought you explained it well. 27600 is impressive, sounds like a really fun event!

My biggest days also always come when skiing is all I have to do that day.... And when I get a full day to ski, I typically go for a walk.

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Originally Posted by brutah

Hahaha for what its worth I thought you explained it well. 27600 is impressive, sounds like a really fun event!
.

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it was like having fun only different but my point IS a couple of doz more or less average BC skiers in BC young and old have solo'ed the whole thing so it is what's possible if only one trys hard enough

I had no idea how to train so e-mail Greg Hill right, buddy said the training will let you know you can do it ( it didn't ) also do speed work, uphill 1hr as fast as you can which i think was key

3 runs get a coffee

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Originally Posted by Trackhead

Age stratification: ski touring

In my mid-late 30s 10k was big day.
Now at 52, less active, 6-7k seems big.

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Similar but a more pronounced decay in my world.
5-6 years ago when I had all the freedom in the word and toured 50+ days a year 10k was a big day (as in motivation to go out the next day was low to non existent). I could do 6-7k every day for a week without feeling it too much.
Last year (first with a baby, in my 40s, after a couple of much busier years and injuries that prevented good summers on the bike) I had a couple of 7k days that damn near did me in and anything over 5k felt like a mission. Average day was 4k and that was sustainable for a few days.

First season back at the resort and the legs are starting to feel it at 20k, 15k if it's battle skiing. I got 2 to 2.5 hours of going balls out then I gotta head home or my knees start making weird noises.

There are so many factors (conditions) that play into this. Also, IMO a big day should be at the edge of [your] limitations.

Resort: Is it a storm day, groomer day, what terrain are you skiing?

Generally speaking, a day over 40k in resort is what I’d consider a pretty solid day. Last year mid April was skiing with a good crew more or less bell to bell and racked up just shy of 60k. That was skiing multiple fast laps in the Alta chutes, T3, Amphitheater, etc. Good mix of technical terrain. That was a “big” day for me. I think skiing 100k on a fast groomer day is completely doable if that’s your goal.

BC: Main question is, are you breaking trail?

I’m a wimp. I think 4k would be a big day for me. 5k would be a, damn that was crazy. And 6k would take me a couple days to recover.


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Simple:

Opening bell to closing bell.

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Originally Posted by Djongo Unchained

Yo, 2F, punch in those emoji numbers, can't follow.

You're much stronger than me, I know. B2B is highly unlikely for me.

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Sorry boss, the virus is real. Fixed it!


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I don’t really have a good answer for the lift served days, my local ski area has slow quads and the skiing/riding is very physical due to both the terrain and the “robust” snow. Probably my highest effort day was 6 Arm laps with a full Hemis lap to close the day down.

A “full” day of touring is 6k+, a big day would be 10k and I’d be tired the next day and want to sleep in and eat. I’m probably overestimating my current abilities, that applied a couple of years ago before I took on a house project and didn’t get out as much as I was before the project started.

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Originally Posted by S_jenks

Simple:

Opening bell to closing bell.

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Followed by Happy Hour, then dinner, then close the bars down at 2, then wake up again at 7:30 and do it again. While sleeping on a thin mattress on the floor.

At least that was the S.O.P. 20+ years ago when I was actually capable of big days.

Alternatively, Heavenly Gunbarrel Challenge is a pretty damn big day. Something like 40-50k worth of bumps nonstop for 6 hours in the April sun?

Like 2funky, chasing the boys bell to bell.

Still the same as 15 years ago: crowd's the limit.
8000k+ (communist meters) is a big pow day . Last year Engelberg mid week. Best in 20 years.
I had regular 10k + in the glory days in the early 2000s where you had walk on trams on powder days.
Wildest was 13.5k (45k feet?) at the Krippenstein. Deep and deserted. And an 4m base at the top
5-7k is average.
3-5k is family pow day where I switch with the wife at lunch and she gets the other half of the day.

Ski touring: 1200-1500k plus is big.
800-1200normal.
Anything less is earl season old man fun Touring. Mainly tree laps when it's dumping and resort doesn't make sense for exotic reasons.

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I got 52k at Wildcat one spring day on their quad from 9-2. Only reason I quit was to meet my parents later in the day. 5 runs an hour at 2,100 a pop.

Depends on what I'm skiing...

I got 32k' the other day at highlands and only skied a handful of groomers at the end of the day. it wrecked me.

If I were just skiing groomers, 40k is doable right now.

Inbounds I don't keep track, I just ski hard and have fun. I feel like keeping tally kinda defeats the purpose and makes me feel like I have to hit some number to be happy. Esp since my day count has slowly dwindled over time and being it here in Front Range CO it's hard to rack up vert being mostly a weekender with all the hordes. I honestly have no idea what my numbers would be. I ski fairly fast. I dunno. It might come down to a big day is "we skied nothing but steep bumps & chutes all day and I'm torched". I don't track/Strava either. I dunno, ha. Maybe you've convinced me to play hooky some weekday and go on a barn burner, see what I could do once.

B/C, I def am aware of what my vert is. But only because that's part of the planning process, schedule, and might have a safety component woven in there. Big days for me are anything north of 4K climbing. I still don't track stats on my days though; this is all off maps, GPS and such.

I thought you were asking what is a good day for big skis, lol.
Everyday!

Touring: anything over 4k feels like a reasonably big day. Of course, depends if I'm following an established skin track or breaking trail.

Inbounds: varies a lot. Lots of days involve sidecountry excursions that involve some hiking. 15k might be big on those days. For purely lift served, ungroomed skiing, 25k feels like a reasonably big day. For groomed skiing, I'm not really sure. I can't remember the last time I skied all day on groomers. Just doing the math, somewhere around 4 laps / hour for 7 hours is possible. Roughly 2k per lap. So maybe 40-50k would be a decent day of it, with somewhere around 60k being the theoretical maximum at my local hill.

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I used to ski 40,000 vert on a powder day at squaw. Now with the crowds, maybe 12.

Bc, for me, 5k or 10 hours, but some of it is hiking a couloir

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A big day in the legendary Little Cottonwood Canyon.
A big storm is forecasted. You just moved to SLC from the bay area so you're a powder skier now and you're going to use one of your ikon days at Alta. You try to get a parking reservation but they're full. No problem Snowbird doesn't require a reservation they want as many people on the mountain as possible so you're GTG. The storm delivers!!! 13" overnight and another 12 is forecasted throughout the day. Road closure is announced the night before. No problem you leave your apartment at 5am to get to the mouth of the canyon to be in front for when the canyon opens. You get a mile and a half from the mouth and traffic is stopped, there's already 500 cars in front of you. Canyon finally opens at 8:30 you start moving at 9. You travel the 7 miles and arrive at the bird and finally find a parking spot in gad valley at 11:30. You boot up. Jimmy is long since gone and Todd G has passed so nothing good is going to open anytime soon. Wilbre, zoom and mid gad are the only lifts running. You look at the brand spanking new wilbre lift, it's running at about 1/4 mile per hour. While you're watching it, it stops because someone fell off the end of the magic carpet. You decide to take zoom, only problem is the lines for wilbre, mid gad and zoom are all inter mingled into one giant cluster fuck and you don't know where the end of the line is. 12:30 you're finally on zoom. You're riding up the chair scoping out that untracked line you're going to shred but you don't see any untracked lines. The locals who moved to SLC last year who you're riding the lift up with told you Little Cloud is about to open. You get off zoom , ski over and look down to Little Cloud and it's not even spinning yet and there's 300 people in line already. You hear P gulch and the tram are about to open so you haul ass down to the brand new tram only to see that it's about a 10 tram wait and the tram is on wind hold because the winds are gusting up to 20 mph on the peak. You look over at the peruvian lift, it's not spinning but there's only 10 people in line. You say sweeeeet!!! This will open soon and I'll get freshies all through P gulch. However you're a newbe and you have no idea that they built the top of the new peruvian lift in an avalanche path and the employees are up there digging out the top shack and unloading ramp by hand. The tram starts running you watch and watch and watch as P gulch gets tracked the fuck out before your eyes. You finally get a few tracked out runs in, you look at your watch and it's 3:40. You're not even tired because you've been standing in lines all day. You decide to do one more to beat the traffic home. You arrive at your car at 4:30 and it's grid lock getting out of the parking lot. You finally make it out of the parking lot and onto the highway at entry 1 at 5:30 only to be stopped in the red snake. 45 minutes later you make it to the merge and all the folks coming from Alta won't let you merge and are pissed because it took them 3 hours to get from Alta to entry 1. You pull into your apartment parking space at 8:45pm. That's a big day in the legendary LCC.

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Originally Posted by Djongo Unchained

Is xxx saying he's ascended 27.6k in a day under his own power?

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Meters, not feet...

27500 meters would be pretty fucking huge and one those hot Rando atheletes has done it but that ain't us

The idea of the event originally was for average skiers to ride the lifts to ski 18 runs down being the height of Evererst ( yes I know the math is wrong) in one day, Valhalla Pure the BC store would give you a commemorative water bottle in the bar apre ski and it was called the everest challenge

than a local MD/ exercise junky/ favorite son wanted to do it without a chair so he did 27500 feet in 24 hrs entirely alone and we all said wow,

3 months later he had a bike accidnet at WBP and became a quad and we all said wow again

a couple years later the event was concieved ( didnt read the whole link eh ) , to to honor disabled people raise some money and have some fun ( not really) and people got into it to do as a fund raiser, it was called the Extreme Everest Challenge till it petered out