100,000 vertical day. Long fast days thread.

[XXX-er]

The local hill has had a DH event for 37 yrs (except for covid) but the run is closed and we put up B-nets

[Hacksaw]

Just for reference. From Heliskihistory.com

The daily vertical heliskiing record in a private A-Star helicopter is 353,600 vertical feet. It was set in 1998 by Dominique Perret, Robert Reindl, Luke Sauder, Edi Podivinsky and Chris Kent. Robert Reindl was the guide for these skiers, most of who were Canadian Ski team members or former members.

The daily vertical heliskiing record for a regular Bell 212 helicopter group is 72,200 vertical feet. This was set in 1994. The group did not have exclusive use of the helicopter. They had to lap the other 2 groups that were using the same helicopter. The skiers in this group where, Elias “Iron legs” Moldowan, Paul Sylvester, Gerhard Guggenberger, Josef Mallaun, Bernhard Allgaier, Wolfgang Mayr, Gordon Dixon, Reinhard Schulz, Francis de Proft, Francois Burgaud, George Napetschig and Mike Wiegele as the guide.

The daily vertical record for heli-snowboarding was set while using an A-Star helicopter. The record was set in 1995 by, Ken Achenbach, Don Schwartz, Doug Lundgren and Andy Hicks. Bob Rankin was the guide and he was on skis. Their record is 153,000 vertical feet. Don and Doug both went on to become heliski guides.

Weekly vertical records are like daily vertical records in that they require perfect weather, avalanche conditions and helicopter conditions. These records are done over a six and a half days of skiing.

The weekly record in a private A-Star is 375,000 vertical feet. This record was set in 1995 by Paul Sylvester, Sandro Gabrielli, Marc Arnold and Mike Wiegele as the guide. The weekly record for a regular group was set in 1996, with the group skiing 315,800.

[singlesline]

Nice. I've always kinda wanted to do something like that, but never had the motivation to actually do it.

This might be the year for it (whenever the snow comes to Whitefish) assuming the kinks are worked out on Chair 4.

You'd have to ride it 45 times, which saves you an hour of lift time over Chair 1...plus no lines and no skate across the flats at the top.

...but you can't make it down fast enough (need 2 minute average descents) to actually complete 100k during the 7 hours the chair spins for, so you'd have to do it on a Friday and switch to night skiing.

More realistic result is you get in maybe 35 chair 4 laps and then have to do 20 night ski laps on chair 2. Which sounds pretty miserable to do in fading light, with tired legs, on chopped up cruddy snow...

[toast2266]

This might be the year for it (whenever the snow comes to Whitefish) assuming the kinks are worked out on Chair 4.

You'd have to ride it 45 times, which saves you an hour of lift time over Chair 1...plus no lines and no skate across the flats at the top.

...but you can't make it down fast enough (need 2 minute average descents) to actually complete 100k during the 7 hours the chair spins for, so you'd have to do it on a Friday and switch to night skiing.

More realistic result is you get in maybe 35 chair 4 laps and then have to do 20 night ski laps on chair 2. Which sounds pretty miserable to do in fading light, with tired legs, on chopped up cruddy snow...

Did the math!

There have been a couple days where I kinda started doing it. Not with any particular goal - just banging out groomers to see how much vert I could get. I don't think I ever made it more than 3 hours before I got kinda bored and decided to go do something else.

[grskier]

Not 100k - But some local shenanigans in the same spirit:
https://www.aspendailynews.com/opini...d44cde422.html

Sorry, but nothing in Aspen impresses me anymore. It’s embarrassing to admit and even harder to write. After growing up here and witnessing all of the unavoidable change slowly sweeping over the valley like the remorseless wrecking-ball minute-hand of a clock, I feel hopelessly jaded, beaten-up, numbed and dumbed down by the process of it all.

Whether it’s the insane price of a house in my old neighborhood, the exorbitant cost of a tomahawk rib-eye, the nonstop slither of commuter traffic, how many bowl laps a ski mountaineer with ultra-light equipment and a gear vest laden with goos can do in one day or how fast someone wearing a spandex unitard can run up Aspen Mountain, I am not easily wowed these days.

That creeping malaise shifted abruptly last week when something came skidding across my radar at high speed, leaving a giant plume of snow. Skier’s Chalet denizen J.F. Bruegger accomplished an intriguing feat. He skied a total of 38 laps on Lift 1A. Think about that. Bell to buzzer, only skiing mogul runs — no groomers — on 1A, in one day. I’ve written repeatedly of 1A, how it’s analogous to “Fight Club,” and that the secret to skiing the area is to stay at 1A and not get sucked into following people over to Ruthie’s lift or the gondola. J.F. put the notion of what’s really possible to the test on an old-school, slow-speed, fixed-grip lift.

But he didn’t stop there. A week later, Bruegger and his wingman, wild Willy Volckhausen, shrewdly identified the Sam’s Knob quad at Snowmass as the lift out of all four mountains with the fastest foot-per-minute climb ratio, and both completed a thigh-burning 68 laps in one day. This feat to me is even more impressive, because it sent shockwaves through the die-hard, somewhat narrow-minded, self-limiting “Ajax only” ski community, to whom the very concept of skiing Snowmass is not only unutterable, but entirely unfathomable. To get the gory details, go to his Instagram haunt @skineon.

Not surprisingly, the feat instantly spurred a copycat accomplishment; two local Aspen High School kids went up and did 40 laps on 1A days later. This affirms and reaffirms to me something I’ve always known. The spirit of skiing is alive and well in Aspen. I ran into J.F. the other day at 1A of all places — it was like skiing with a celebrity. At the bottom of the gondola I saw another local icon, Prentiss Boyd Billings, who mentioned a “ski marathon’ idea he formulated, and skied some 66 odd laps on the old center pole FIS Lift 6 in one day, many moons ago.

The recent feats J.F and Willie accomplished — everyone in town is talking about them — reminded me of an event along the same vein I did with the Marolt brothers in March 1996 called the “Black Diamond Challenge.” Keep in mind this was kind of pre-internet and no one really had cellphones. The only existent tracking device was an Avocet wrist-worn altimeter that all the cool guys had. The objective was to tackle the daunting task of skiing every single black-diamond run on Aspen Mountain in one day. Was it even possible?

The accountants called and invited me to participate in the event they had concocted, and I gladly obliged. The Friday before the affair, I nervously ascended the alley stairs to their offices above the old Sabatini ski shop, and Steve handed me an Excel print-out of the list of runs to ski, in which order, serviced by specific lifts. To the Marolts, skiing is numbers. Our day was approximately seven hours long with roughly 46,000 feet of vertical. In contrast, J.F.’s 1A exploit was roughly seven hours with 55,000 feet of vertical.

Surprisingly, we only needed the gondola four times that grueling day and predominantly rode chairlifts. I showed up toting a plastic City Market bag filled with Gatorade, beef jerky and PowerBars and hesitantly left it at the gondola building, not to see my rations again until that afternoon.

The day was brutal. I bonked, then rebonked. The three Marolt brothers took off with such blistering speed it caught me by surprise. By the end of the day, we’d lost some competitors. The only ones left were them, me, and one other person. At the bottom of corkscrew, they took off to get one final gondy lap. “Screw that!” I said and went straight home. I remember drinking glass after glass of water at the sushi bar in front of Osada at Takah Sushi that night. The next morning I was literally sick with a fever and couldn’t even ski.

When I heard of J.F.’s accomplishment the first thing I did was call Roger Marolt and have him email me the list of the Black Diamond Challenge. Some of the runs I remember — like skiing Christmas Tree, the traverse to Keith Glen, then hiking back up the top section of Ridge of Bell to get to the Shoulder ... or skiing Silver Queen then hiking up the Goat Road to get to the top of Super 8 Gulley. I could barely keep the Marolt brothers in my sights on that unusual climb. The rest I’ve conveniently blacked out. Those guys aren’t known for waiting for people.

Keep in mind this was kind of pre-internet and no one really had cellphones. Then picture this: We did this event on a busy Saturday in March. It was dangerous to ski in such a hurried fashion all day, and we didn’t make any friends doing it. A stunt like that is an excellent way to get hurt and also to receive a proper-ass chewing from ski patrol. I even had to pee off the Bell Chair at one point.

There’s been some dialogue recently within the ski community that the ski bum of old is dying or croaked in their sleep and no one even noticed until the sheriff did a wellness check. Hogwash, I say! Don’t insult us. The ski bum has adapted, morphed, shape-shifted, evolved into a higher-functioning beast out of necessity, in order to survive an ever-changing landscape of skyrocketing rents and super-gentrification.

Ski bums are still out there. You just have to look more closely. What you’ll find is that the spirit of skiing is alive and kicking doors down in Aspen.

Contact Lorenzo at suityourself@sopris.net or via instagram.com/lorenzosemple3/

[grskier]

The Snowmass endevour was 82,000 vert - ish

[singlesline]

Did the math!

There have been a couple days where I kinda started doing it. Not with any particular goal - just banging out groomers to see how much vert I could get. I don't think I ever made it more than 3 hours before I got kinda bored and decided to go do something else.

Easier answer is to go somewhere with bigger/faster chairs and more options for "fast" ways down.

I just looked at my ski tracks app and my biggest days at whitefish last season were both 36k vert. That included a bunch of like...flower point to t-bar laps, so it would be easy to get more vert if I didn't care about having fun. Lapping Toni Matt all day would be a slog.

But I did 37k the one day I skied at Vail, and that was despite: leaving before close, spending the first half of the day with a friend and his family (including stopping for lunch), not knowing my way around the mountain, and mostly exploring off piste.

They have something like 15 chairs that are at least as fast as Whitefish Chair 1 in terms of vert per minute, so you've got a lot of variety and can avoid busy choke points where you can't ski fast (as long as you are there midweek when there aren't crowds and lift lines). And some of them have top to bottom black runs that get groomed and could be bombed fast with appropriate skis.

[el hefe]

Good Job Man!!! I'll try at SS this year, good set up with the gondola having night skiing.

[SnowMachine]

Yeah, Alpental. He got a little bit of a late start that day and was working for the ski team setting up and tearing down in the evening so had a couple laps on a slow double but most all of it was on Ch1, ~80 laps or something. I went out and skied with him that day for a couple hrs in the evening but it got cold and a little busy so I flagged out after 2hrs or so and left him to it. Funny thing was one of the ski area employees noticed him doing it and then went out repeated it the next day and hit 108,000 to set the record for most vert at Alp in a day, so the boy was a little annoyed he didn't stick it out for the last hr.

He had also hoped to break 100mph down at Mt Bachelor late April, but got shut down by the speed police after hitting 90mph on an empty warm up run under Pine Marten on some really fast 212cm sg skis. He was going to put his speed suit on and give it a go but got called over by patrol at the top and asked to kindly knock it the fuck off or lose his privilages.

Kudos to you for hitting 100K too, that takes some mental toughness along with the ski fitness.

Your boy sounds like a monster. Kuddos.

[carpathian]

I've thought of doing this here at Alyeska. Top to bottom vert is just over 2000' so 50x laps would do it. They did use to have a North Face Lap-a-thon where the winners were pushing 60 laps in steep off-piste conditions. catch every other tram for 8 hours straight?! that will wear you out!

I also want to do the 100 mile challenge. Have to run GPS watch and count all on-chair distance as well. I've done the math it would be an all day effort.

[Shredhead]

How about 273k? In about 3hours of actual ski time? Obviously a different beast than any of us going out to rip laps, but crushing nonetheless

https://aztechmountain.com/blogs/hea...hours-of-aspen

Eddy was one of my best buds. He was the cat driver for the Sundeck and I was the night auditor across the street, at what is now the W.

Powder days we would ride up and deliver the food to the deck. We had to wait till 9, but we started at the top.

I trained with him for the first 24 Hours and was going to be his partner. But Russ brought in America Airlines as a sponsor and got him on Good Morning America.
Russ flailed after 12 hours and Eddy had to finish by himself in 8th. You really need a strong partner to draft and to keep you going at 4 am.

I think Skideepow raced one year?

Good times, but I’m happy with just a couple hours a day now.

[detrusor]

353k vertical feet in an a star in a day has to be a miss print. 100 3000 fit runs?

[PNWbrit]

353k vertical feet in an a star in a day has to be a miss print. 100 3000 fit runs?

The total for the group in the heli...

[mildbill.]

I think the mogul event is at Heavenly down the Gunbarrel run. Not sure if it still exists.

Gunbarrel 25. Gunbarrel lift is 1600ft or so, 40k plus of steep moguls to finish the event (competitors are given 6h, fastest finishers do it in <3h), iron man finishers (most laps in 6h) do ~50 laps / 80k ft.

Super fun and hard event, I've had the pleasure of joining mogul5480 and superstar punani over the years.

You see lots of high speed powerslides early when it is still firm (n facing run) and the fastest competitors get a fast sideslip line dialed in. Supu skis the zipper line all day.

One year I tried it on a pair of 212cm salomon race room ladies super G skis from a d1 ncaa ski swap, made it to 16 laps before I cried uncle and switched to 194 legend pros for the last 9 laps. Those skis were never the same.

Old age has brought wisdom and now I have a pair of closeout mogul skis for gunbarrel sessions.

[Djongo Unchained]

Your boy sounds like a monster. Kuddos.

He is.

Top 1%er around these parts.

Jus' like his old man.

[Shaaarrrp]

Is this even possible near SLC?
Collins is 1853 feet, open 7 hours 15 minutes (435 minutes). You'd have to do 54 runs @ 8 min laps including the chair ride seems crazy fast. I'm running in slowmo compared to some folks but not sure I've ever beaten 10 or 11 mins.

Best resort in UT for this challenge?

[alive]

Ok, this guy makes those big days seem like a joke. Almost 80,000 vertical feet in 24 hours without using the lift

[BFD]

that is incredible. strongest skier I know did 6 laps on mt hood in 24hrs. that is over twice the vert.

[Core Shot]

Ok, this guy makes those big days seem like a joke. Almost 80,000 vertical feet in 24 hours without using the lift

That dude missed upper body day.

Wicked awesome skimo. But dayum

[singlesline]

This might be the year for it (whenever the snow comes to Whitefish) assuming the kinks are worked out on Chair 4.

You'd have to ride it 45 times, which saves you an hour of lift time over Chair 1...plus no lines and no skate across the flats at the top.

...but you can't make it down fast enough (need 2 minute average descents) to actually complete 100k during the 7 hours the chair spins for, so you'd have to do it on a Friday and switch to night skiing.

More realistic result is you get in maybe 35 chair 4 laps and then have to do 20 night ski laps on chair 2. Which sounds pretty miserable to do in fading light, with tired legs, on chopped up cruddy snow...

My Whitefish math wasn't that far off. These guys still needed night skiing, but they finished well before it got dark.



Managed to squeeze in 41 Chair 4 rides before close which is a few more than I thought. Only had to do 10 night ski laps.

Picked a good day for it--cold temps, limited crowds, and should have had a pretty good groom in place.

I guess I'm not going to make an attempt this year then...don't want it to seem like I'm just a copycat

[alive]

Very cool... I'd say go for it if the weather lines up. Looks like a great spot for a go at this. I'm even guessing you could get more vert on the right day with access to night skiing.

[stealurface831]

the gunbarrel 25 is the one at heavenly. Plake started it and ran it for awhile. 1600 vert. record is 53 laps in 6 hours.

looks like its still going:
https://www.skiheavenly.com/explore-...barrel-25.aspx