What is Double Fall Line?

can you say triple fall line



I guess not, maybe quadruple? certainly one of mymulti-fall line favorites on a good day

Grillman wrote

a little different than Tiger West.

Ya think??

gorgonzola wrote

can you say triple fall line



I guess not, maybe quadruple? certainly one of mymulti-fall line favorites on a good day

YEP, me too......start skiers right and work left, or I'll just hang skiers left all the way down hitting the steepest part. We have some damn good terrain at Greek, just wish our headwalls were longer. Man that would be kewl.

Stoke meter is high after looking at that pic G

How's the wheel, camper?  You ready to shred this year?

Wheel is still detached, but I'm ready......new brace is on the way

Looking like a knee replacement is in my near (2 years or so) future. Is what it is. Nothing I can't drink my way out of

campgottagopee wrote

Wheel is still detached, but I'm ready......new brace is on the way

Looking like a knee replacement is in my near (2 years or so) future. Is what it is. Nothing I can't drink my way out of

that's the 'tude!

campgottagopee wrote

YEP, me too......start skiers right and work left, or I'll just hang skiers left all the way down hitting the steepest part. We have some damn good terrain at Greek,

that's one of the great things about greek, you can ski a few dozen different line variations on those two trails!

A "double fall line" is an indication of bad trail design, IMO. Or a consequence of bad decisions after a quality initial cut. I used to think these were "cool" for the "challenge". But I now recognize them as simply annoying. The most egregious "double falls" are those in which one side of the trail is essentially unskiable because the snow blows into the lower side of the trail (Upper Goat at Stowe and Kitz at Jay are two classic examples). Basically, you end up with a "double fall" that isn't even skiable (or at least isn't worth skiing, IMO) and everyone dumping into the lower end, so you have a half trail with a classic fall line.

I am not including trails that have multiple faces in a turn, these might include trails like Upper Cannon at Cannon, Jester at Sugarbush, Polecat at Wildcat, etc. These trails present two different options, a steeper option or a longer roundabout option. These are cool but they are not typically defined as a "double fall" because you can ski either option without feeling forced one way or the other. A typical "double fall" has a significant pull towards one aspect that you have to consciously fight against.

It is really fun when you are first pushing yourself and learning how to ski that way. Then it just becomes an annoyance after that. My two cents.

 :)

Upper Mackenzie at Whiteface is a very challenging trail which has double fall line features top to bottom.

In addition to Cloudspin, Paron's Run has a double fall line as well.

Upper Exhibition at Mount Snow has an extreme double fall line.  The side to side fall line is likely steeper than the top to bottom fall line.  It get icy and windswept really easy, so it's always the last snowmaking trail to open off the top of the mountain.  It has yet to open this year and probably won't.  They can't grade out the double fall line or they'd destroy the lift.

Upper Mac and Upper Cloudspin at WF are classic trails that both feature substantial double fall lines.  Most ski areas don't make trails like this anymore as they are problematic to groom but WF went and cut Hoyts in a similar fashion.  Usually this results because the trail is not straight but features significant turns which is where the double fall line comes from in many cases in addition to things like cutting thru cliff zones like on Mac.  IMO these are the best trails as they don't ski vanilla and require skills to ski well so you don't get sucked down into the low side.

River sounds a bit like Sno whining about lack of grooming or snowmaking on his post.

Pretty much any wilderness slope is double fall line to some degree (pun intended) or another.  Very rarely does mother nature think in singular dimensionality.

but i get his point - multi faceted trails are cool when they follow the natural contour but when they go against the grain not so much. not to single out sno but trails like his mount snow pic suck and one of the reasons i havent been back to hunter in a long time as most trails are cut across the natural fall line

Mount Snow has one of the highest density trail layouts out there. At least on the main mountain.  Hunter and Mount Peter have similarly dense layouts.  This means that they have trails just about everywhere humanly possible, so some are good and others notnso much.

The only reason the trail in my picture exists is because they've had a lift in that location since 1964, so they widened the route and put in snowmaking.  I took that picture at tower 20 on the Grand Summit Express.  The lift they had before then was a 2 person skis on gondola.  I imagine that trail was cut by widening the liftline when the gondola still existed.  Not sure why they didn't try to get rid of the double fall line when GSE replaced the gondola.

I doubt I'm alone here on this one but I love playing with a double fall line on natural terrain. Slashing turns on dfl features is so much fun!

If every trail was sanitized to be flat fall line skiing would be kind of boring imho. I guess it would be perfect for the PSIA demonstrative skiing dorks out there but blah.

Agree with everybody that a natural double fall line makes a trail more interesting. Cascade and Double Dipper at Killington are good examples

A great example is Goat at Stowe:

That may be the best picture of the season right there

jcamotts wrote

A great example is Goat at Stowe:

Ahhh... Double fall lines.  Gives guys like me two directions to fall.  First from the little trees into the bigger trees, then down, down, down...

Aha yes BUT falling is twice as fun !