What is the perfect run?

[whipski]

I think it's the steep varied run with some trees and open faces that is blowing in with heavy snowfall that every time you get off the run it is untracked again.
Kind of reminds me of skiing backcountry.

[Coño Frío]

...or rendezvous and the hobacks any day in February 2014.

[flatNshallow]

If you are turgid at the end of the run.... it might be the perfect run.

[danmelon]

I don't know but I've had a few this season.

[BlowerSnowBlower]

I think the perfect run should include the perfect turn. Many years ago I'd heard Alf Engen had achieved the perfect turn, so I asked his son Alan about it. With a gleam in his eye he told me that Alf had come close but never fully got it. He called it the clean cut and it involves going below the surface of the snow without disturbing the surface. Somewhat unobtainable maybe. But perfect sets a pretty high bar. I'm also inclined to believe cono frio's answer.

[bikeorski]

The perfect run has to end with you throwing your skis sideways into a smear, throwing feather-light powder all over your buddy's face at the bottom of said perfect run.

[thefrush]

...skiing backcountry.

/thread.

[SiSt]

The next one.

[Tahoe Bromide]

Shasta, skiing the west face to car door on nearly untracked creamed corn in warm sun is about my tops. The same in powder would be even better although the traverses would probably require more effort.
I wasn't even on my own gear that day and my turns were far from perfect but it was an absolutely memorable descent. Mood, weather and snow conditions factor heavily into that equation imho.

[mall walker]

I happened to be at A-Basin a couple years back on the day they opened the east wall...

That was pretty close to perfect. Also the first week or so I moved to Utah, meadow skipping in Beartrap Fork after a big dump. Those are the most memorable to me at any rate, in terms of pure soft snow bliss.

Skiing Mt Marcy from the summit with my Dad for my first backcountry trip would be another "perfect run" in a different sense

[Crampedon]

No tracks in front of you, a foot of fresh that fell overnight on a groomer done at sunset, a little sun, and some good friends to share it with.

[skiHOG]

Schoolmarm. Like four times.

[AweShuksan]

He called it the clean cut and it involves going below the surface of the snow without disturbing the surface. Somewhat unobtainable maybe.

It's possible, you just need to be in the right place at the right time.

Happened to me once. Baker in the mid '80's on a Friday morning. The mountain had been closed all week while it stormed almost non-stop. Heavy coastal snow and nothing was sliding. I was on a pair of soft 210 tele skis, waist of 55mm and leather Merrill boots. Me and my buddy struggled to get to a slope steep enough to maintain forward momentum. Our soft skis bent easily into reverse camber which allowed us to step forward on level terrain without climbing skins. Got to a point on Pan Face with direct fall line to the return cat track and let 'er go. Four or five "turns" from top to bottom although you could barely call them turns. And there were 4-6' sections between each "turn" that were still unbroken powder. Mostly skiing blind although I did get a quick visual of the slope below each time I shot out of the snowpack. It was as much body surfing as it was skiing. Perfect run? No, far from it but it did leave us both laughing at the bottom, not believing how deep it was.


I've had far better days skiing thigh/hip deep snow that was accumulating so rapidly the previous runs tracks were but a shallow, 1" deep "U" shape in the unbroken powder surface. And no one there.

But the "perfect run" is any run that makes it impossible to not be brimming with laughter as you descend.

[Timberridge]

I'm pretty convinced its a 25' long, 8' wide opening in thick east coast trees and pricker bushes, wherein you get your picture snapped by your buddy with just the right amount of tip rocker coming out of the snow, which you then post up in ECRC, and everyone subsequently replies "awesome! way to get at it", "pic of the day!" for three pages.

[Ted Striker]

with just the right amount of tip rocker coming out of the snow

Extra points if the name or logo of the indy-ski-brand du jour is visible.

[pipedream]

any run inbounds where you have to manage your sluff.

Esp. when said sluff is from turns made through 39" of fresh that fell overnight.

[whipski]

So many memories... a favorite was a late spring early summer skinning up east Beckwith (west of CB) with 2 bucks in velvet crossing the snow in front of us and then following a finger of snow about a 1/4 mile up a shallow drainage where the tundra on either side was loaded with wildflowers. Bluebird day and the aroma of the wildflowers inundating on descent.

[hatchgreenchile]

First chair up Storm Peak at the Boat with ~15"+ on the ground. Not crossing a track on the way down? Perfection.

[AlexC]

The closest I've come is Mount Green in Rogers Pass. It's 5,000 vertical feet of wide open skiing from the summit to the valley below.

This is it looking down from the top. You can see the highway at the edge of the shadow at the left of the picture:

[TEXASS]

Bloody Couloir, Mid april ,two days after a good dump. able to drive up past the scree field, sunshine, and no wind. 2600 feet of bliss

ahhhhh remembering it like it was yesterday

http://splitboard.com/talk/topic/bloody-42407/

[peace_coast]

steep techy couloir with a funky crux that you can open it up after onto a big apron of hero pow

[powtario]

When I inhaled a perfect meter falling over 3 days of overheard blower at Verbier. I couldn't see for a couple hundred feet, but luckily the breathing came back sooner than that.

[Cocximus]

The goat, stowe

[bodywhomper]

A few
-deep untracked at Kirkwood where it feels like slow motion free fall; for run after run
-darwin couloir with two feet of fresh in the spring with three good friends
-dog lake area under a full moon with 2-3' of fresh where the face shots make your eyelashes freeze shut, but it doesn't matter.

[garyfromterrace]

Top to bottom powder on a 3500'+ first descent with open bowl, to 1500' couloir (that you didn't really know if it connected).
That was perfect.
Cinnamon Bun's the name.