Pro's and Cons of Selected Snow Travel Methods

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Pro's and Cons of Selected Snow Travel Methods

ml242
Copied from semi-rad.com, check out his other writing there.

SKIING, POWDER
AND
SNOWBOARDING, POWDER
Pros: Is best thing ever, on snow, anyway
Cons: Costs money for ride to top of ski slope, or costs significant exertion hiking to top; hard to predict and thusly can cost significant work hours, and/or cause loss of employment

SNOWBLADING
Pros: Who is to say, really
Cons: Is snowblading

POSTHOLING, UP TO KNEE
Pros: builds character
Cons: builds character

POSTHOLING, UP TO WAIST
Pros: burns calories
Cons: Builds anger

FATBIKING
Pros: New, exciting, everybody’s talking about it, puts smile on face for hard-to-explain reason, means you do not have to stop biking during winter
Cons: Takes time and effort to pump up flat tire; sometimes hard to convince significant other of legitimate reasons for buying yet another bike IT’S JUST BECAUSE I WANT ONE OK HONEY JESUS CHRIST CAN’T SOMEONE JUST BUY A NEW BIKE WHEN THEY WANT A BIKE THIS IS AMERICA ISN’T IT GET OFF MY ASS WOULD YOU

SKIING, CROSS-COUNTRY
Pros: Great way to burn calories and get outside in wintertime
Cons: Pretty much eliminates joy of downhill part of skiing

SKIING, UPHILL
Pros: Great way to burn calories and get outside in wintertime; usually enables downhill skiing
Cons: Is significantly more tiring than sitting on chairlift eating breakfast burritos in between runs

SLEDDING, PLASTIC SLED
Pros: Inexpensive, fast, easy to steer
Cons: Any visionary and/or motivated sledder can break a plastic sled within the first hour of usage

SLEDDING, INNER TUBE
Pros: Cushy, inexpensive, fast
Cons: Complete lack of steering, hitting bumps can mean instantaneous ejection and possible injury

SLEDDING, RUNNER SLED
Pros: Classic, easy to steer, photogenic
Cons: Hard to fit more than one person on sled; accidentally ramming into an unsuspecting sledder at full speed usually = emergency room visit; when unmanned, becomes a high-velocity death missile missile hungry to destroy ankles and shins

SLEDDING, SAUCER SLED
Pros: Lightweight, inexpensive, fun, complete lack of steering
Cons: Complete lack of steering

SLEDDING, CARDBOARD BOX
Pros: Inexpensive, disposable
Cons: Durability issues limit amount of fun achievable with one box

WALKING
Pros: No specialized equipment needed
Cons: Basically regular walking with less-solid footing

WALKING, IN HIGH HEELS
Pros: Looking good in that outfit even though it’s winter
Cons: Extremely elevated risk of eating shit in that outfit

RUNNING
Pros: Teaching self that you don’t have to stop running just because it’s winter; also not getting fat during winter months
Cons: See “Falling” and “Postholing”

AVALANCHE
Pros: n/a
Cons: Possible burial, possible serious injury, possible serious death; death = no more skiing or any other traveling on snow, or traveling on any other earthly surfaces, really

SNOWSHOEING
Pros: Inexpensive, enables hiking in winter
Cons: Downhill snowshoeing significantly less fun than other downhill snow travel methods; i.e. perchance there is gnar, you are simply walking through the gnar

FALLING
Pros: None
Cons: Result of fall is impact with ground, leading to broken bones, contusions, strange stains on clothing, sometimes strange stains inside clothing depending on angle/severity of fall

CRAMPONS
Pros: Stability, ability to climb ice
Cons: Puncture wounds of pants/flesh; hard to drive car while wearing

SNOWPLOW
Pros: Beats the shit out of shoveling; operator is hero to drivers everywhere
Cons: Usually requires early wakeup time

SNOWCAT
Pros: Enables access to non-lift-served ski terrain without physical effort
Cons: Literally crushes the pow, expensive to acquire; once acquired, people are really uptight about letting you drive it on their property

SNOWMOBILE
Pros: Fast, fun
Cons: Relatively expensive, can be hard to fit on roof rack of a car or in closet of small apartment

-Brendan
The cross country skiing one had me spitting my coffee.
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Re: Pro's and Cons of Selected Snow Travel Methods

campgottagopee
Good stuff
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Re: Pro's and Cons of Selected Snow Travel Methods

MikeK
Banned User
This post was updated on .
In reply to this post by ml242
ml242 wrote
SKIING, CROSS-COUNTRY
Pros: Great way to burn calories and get outside in wintertime
Cons: Pretty much eliminates joy of downhill part of skiing
Yeah that's why they created XCD...

SKIING, CROSS-COUNTRY DOWNHILL
Pros: Versatile, great exercise, inexpensive
Cons: Learning how to Telemark pretty much eliminates any joy in the downhill part of skiing

Then came Telemark...

SKIING, TELEMARK
Pros: Frees your mind and your soul from lifts and the constraints of society
Cons: Like every binding since pins with cables

And to fix that we now have AT!

SKIING, ALPINE TOURING
Pros: Can go anywhere with the turning power of a resort setup
Cons: Pretty much eliminates the joy in cross-country skiing

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Re: Pro's and Cons of Selected Snow Travel Methods

skimore
MikeK wrote
And to fix that we now have AT!

SKIING, ALPINE TOURING
Pros: Can go anywhere with the turning power of a resort setup
Cons: Pretty much eliminates the joy in cross-country skiing
I didn't see joy listed as one of the Pros in CC skiing
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Re: Pro's and Cons of Selected Snow Travel Methods

MikeK
Banned User
skimore wrote
I didn't see joy listed as one of the Pros in CC skiing
I didn't see it listed as a pro for any the categories...

But if you see anyone making 10' strides on flat terrain with stiff plastic boots, skins, rockered and 100+mm waisted skis, let me know... and the Norwegians too.
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Re: Pro's and Cons of Selected Snow Travel Methods

skimore
This post was updated on .
MikeK wrote

But if you see anyone making 10' strides on flat terrain
I don't consider that joy  and you stated a  con was it taking away the joy
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Re: Pro's and Cons of Selected Snow Travel Methods

MikeK
Banned User
skimore wrote
MikeK wrote

But if you see anyone making 10' strides on flat terrain
I don't consider that joy
I guessed that
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Re: Pro's and Cons of Selected Snow Travel Methods

JTG4eva!
When the opportunity arises to put the full AT setup to proper use I do look forward to the solitude and quiet of the BC.....but I expect the Touring part of the experience to be the least joyful.  The joy (hopefully) will be in the down, said joy made all the sweeter having earned the up!

I'll say it for ya......spoken like a true newbie to AT who hasn't yet suffered a slog!
We REALLY need a proper roll eyes emoji!!
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Re: Pro's and Cons of Selected Snow Travel Methods

MikeK
Banned User
I guess that's one of the cool things about XCD.  The slog can actually be enjoyable.  Obviously not for everyone.  I never think of touring as a slog.  If I was just going straight up to ski steep shit, yeah, it would be... it's hard even with easy gear.

You certainly don't get the best down control, so you don't tend to ski anything too steep.  Some guys do though.  Depends on how good you are.  There were maniacs skiing everything that's skied today on 215cm Fischer E99s and Karhu XCD-GTs in leather hiking boots.  Basically traditional length xc skis with metal edges.

Depends on what you are after... you can have a lot of fun on easy terrain with light gear.

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Re: Pro's and Cons of Selected Snow Travel Methods

jjp24
I find skinning through quiet, snow-covered woods to be quite a joy, especially when it looks like this

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Re: Pro's and Cons of Selected Snow Travel Methods

Harvey
Administrator
https://www.facebook.com/Julerull/videos/10156437991935501/
"You just need to go at that shit wide open, hang on, and own it." —Camp
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Re: Pro's and Cons of Selected Snow Travel Methods

campgottagopee
That ^^^^^ right there could be the funniest thing on the intraWebz