sibhusky

They finally managed to put Whitefish on their site, it was missing entirely before: http://www.skinet.co...tefish-mountain However, "endless quad burner"? Hellfire's not that long! I always find my quads in more pain on slopes with consistent pitches and few turns because of the lack of variety. Hellfire's not one of those.

No Jackson? Wow! Tells you a LOT about the demographics of the survey.

In the ski world, this coming season is 2011.

Well, if you go to the SKI magazine link, you'll see the comments are from 2009. Also, if you go to Epic, you'll see a link from there to YOUR link. That link is from 2009. This year's reviews will be titled 2011.

Yeah, for the 09-10 season, not the 10-11 season.

Isn't that last season's list? It's got 2009 in the URL.

Big problem. My two contenders for "worst" are down in the best. Oops, make that three. No, four. What, are you kidding me? The four most irritating sites are listed under what you think are the BEST? I'm not even going to dignify this poll by a response. If a site gives me a headache just looking at it, I leave. I want information, easily found. End of story.

Can you add the URL's so we don't have to go look them up?

La Nina at Big Mountain Ski Areas Favored by La Nina

I totally didn't understand you were MOVING there. I thought you were taking a trip. Well, no wonder he is negative, he's in junior high, a tough age, an age I wouldn't repeat with myself OR with my daughter ever again. And he'll be the newbie in town, good for about one week of "cool", if that. We moved to Whitefish between Siblet's Sophomore and Junior years of HS, she was expecting it and looking forward to it and we were totally unprepared for how insanely tough it ended up being. Senior year was far better, thank goodness. Best of luck to you on just the school transition alone. Have you done a school tour with him yet? Talked to the principal, etc? It might help slightly. Where exactly are you moving to? I'm thinking the ski area thing is the LEAST of your worries. I'm thinking that by the time ski season arrives, with these local guys coming out to take you on tours, it'll be a real boon to help with whatever is going on in his head to just get him out of himself.

And what resort(s) were you at that he didn't like and what exactly didn't he like? His reasons might be "stupid" reasons to us, but maybe there are resorts that don't have those "issues". I think that some Colorado resorts have different "flavors" from others. Why don't we work on finding out what his issue is?

All I care is that it will be a La Nina year here. That what we live for.

Barb, how old is the kid and where was he before, just wondering?

A son of friends needs a room mate. He's in his 20's. 2 blocks from gondola $640 a month + utilities.

Are you stalking me or something? By the way, there's a whole cadre of people who withdrew from the list who are not showing and not IN the count. (They didn't beat Fred, but some would have been in the top ten.) They got tired of people checking the list and telling them they were losing ground or whatever. I was low enough down not to care and actually rely only on my own altimeter and ignore their stats so I'm not arguing with the liftie for not scanning me properly. Although I do attempt to get scanned, I don't OBSESS over it like some. If you poke around with the tool, you'll see I am missing about 20% of my vert in their records.

Well, my daughter taught her boyfriend-at-the-time, who was a snowboarder, to ski so well that in SIX days he was going down Connie's Coulee here at Whitefish.... That being said, she was a racer with years of analyzing technique and critiquing movement behind her and he was a four-sport varsity athlete all through high school, with, IMO, a too high risk tolerance. Since they broke up, he has plateaued mightily and doesn't acknowledge that he really hasn't progressed beyond those glory days. (They are still friends, but no "free instruction" now....) So, I guess with the right instructor and athleticism and testosterone, you can learn pretty fast to "get down" pretty much anything. Most people take a LOT longer, tho.

Well, I have to go back 30 years to comment, but I hear it hasn't changed much. Good mountain, but not much money spent on grooming or infrastructure. You get what you get. Whitefish is in my plans...It's a La Nina year. Hopefully it means I'll actually get some tree skiing in.

video of Whitefish skiing after closing. It's ridiculous. We've had three snow storms since closing. I've got four inches of snow on my lawn. AGAIN. It snows, it melts, we get sun, it snows again a week later, etc. I mean, it's May 5, we had no winter, now we've got no spring.

There were certainly at least three "adults" who should have known better, but beyond that, I don't know the ages of many of the remaining idiots who continue to sling mud around on this board. I know this site was founded to avoid the moderation that was going on the Camelback message board, but that was corporate censorship of stuff critical of the resort. However, moderation of silly name calling threads would go a long way to ensuring there is "value added" instead of drivel. Who wants to wade thru all of that when there are plenty of competing ski forums out there already? If everyone would just take a deep breath and decide whether there's really a "value add" before they post something here, EVEN IF YOU'RE 12 YEARS OLD, this site would improve. If you have nothing to say worth hearing, then shut up or tell the clothes in your closet.

I agree the trip reports have been great this year. And I enjoy seeing them. But clearly this site is more social than anything else these days. Hence, the most valuable content is not even about the site's own title. Unless of course, you consider what everyone is doing this weekend valuable to anyone else. Frankly, that is the stuff of Facebook and Twitter-twatter, hence the loss of activity here. But let's think about what the POINT of a PA Ski and Ride site SHOULD be. Why would NEW PEOPLE come here? To read about trips to Jackson and Aspen? I don't think so. If so, maybe the site should be renamed "Ski and Ride", get rid of the PA part. I think that if the site owners want to stay viable in the future they need to focus on how to differentiate themselves from TGR, AlpineZone, Facebook, and other places. Theoretically, you should be differentiated by offering resources for mid-Atlantic skiers and boarders to meet, exchange rides, ask about conditions, whatever. I think you need to promote this more. This is the kind of thing us old guys think about when we analyze things. You know, "what is our mission?", "why is there air?", whatever.....

I agree with you about the flame war part, but his skiing knowledge and helpfulness about the area were valuable. and I don't believe you about the posting until I see it happen. It's like your diets.

Well, I think there is a point hidden there. The site is heavily tilted towards BOTH an age group AND a geographic area. The other named sites are more diverse. Once stuff drifted too much towards general discussion of Doug's eating habits or whatever and away from trip reports or discussion of ski-related issues, or mindless bickering started taking over, you lost any chance at being considered as a "resource" for skiers. What you SHOULD be is a resource for people skiing in the mid-Atlantic region, either for meeting or for questions about the areas. You CAN"T compete as a resource for information about SKIING OR BOARDING in general. I think that the owner, whoever that may be these days, needs to focus on the goal here and start tweaking forums and discussions towards the goal if the site is to have viability. Right now it's just hanging on due to the affection of some of the longer term members. From where I sit, you are on "life support".

Actually, I think the end was ski999 leaving.

SO, there was an El Nino this year, no snow and NOW what: Shot of the day at Whitefish Mountain Resort....after closing:

A bit more about that day was posted here