What’s a respectable amount of vertical for a day?

Harvey wrote

Can someone please explain the appeal of racking up a lot of vert.

Speed is fun I get that.

It really is that simple.

Harvey wrote

^^Right.  I think I did 7-8k of pow vert at snow ridge one day. I didn't measure it but I figure 500 per run maybe 15-20 runs. It was a whole day of fun including the hiking.  I'd take that over 30k of vert an steep icy any day.

Can someone please explain the appeal of racking up a lot of vert. It's a sincere question.  

Speed is fun I get that. I also like pulling up half way down, looking around, chatting for a minute and taking it in.

That is one reason I love Plattekill. I never feel rushed.

There is clearly an appeal as so many focus on it. I just don't understand.

East coast is a lot of days of skiing on hard surfaces with the woods closed and no moguls/icy moguls. Counting vert is just a way to spice it up when conditions are east coast normal. For me, it is mostly keeping track, rarely the driver. The speed is also a factor.

Think of a midweek day at Hunter (where I have 200+ days) when it hasn't snowed for 2 weeks and the place is a giant rink (again). I can spend the day doing Hellgate to Broadway to Kennedy non-stop and have a blast. When the legs get wobbly, I stop at the usual places.

Another in the ‘in all my 50 years I have never once counted vert’ crowd here.  Powder, trees, hiking, exploring....none of those lend themselves particularly well to racking up big vert.  Quality over quantity!

x10003q wrote

East coast is a lot of days of skiing on hard surfaces with the woods closed and no moguls/icy moguls. Counting vert is just a way to spice it up when conditions are east coast normal. For me, it is mostly keeping track, rarely the driver. The speed is also a factor.

Think of a midweek day at Hunter (where I have 200+ days) when it hasn't snowed for 2 weeks and the place is a giant rink (again). I can spend the day doing Hellgate to Broadway to Kennedy non-stop and have a blast. When the legs get wobbly, I stop at the usual places.

Dude, you totally get me

20K is a good number, provided all blue or black.  3 laps of the Slides is good too.

Zero. I always want to finish where I started.

I call it getting caught in the hamster wheel.   Strava is the app I use.  You can keep track of your activities summer and winter.  I don't really care about all that stuff its more important to me that I get out and have fun.  That said when the snow is flat and fast it is does keep my interest to push myself to go a few extra runs.  Mine was done at Sun Valley.  No lines, High speed quad, 3100 vert.  No snow in weeks decided to see what could be done.  I would prefer a foot of snow but not in the cards so I did 75k of vert. in 7 hours. Pretty sure even if people had the opportunity most could not beat it. That will be my record probably forever.  

Honestly, I usually don’t count runs myself and most places I wouldn’t stick to one lift even if I did. I don’t have Strava or anything similar on my phone and probably won’t get it because I use it for pics. When it’s just a typical EC day with hard snow and not much terrain variety I can still have fun just skiing fast for couple hours.
For instance, I get Lincoln’s Bday off every year. In the past, if it fell midweek, I would just hit mount Peter and spend the morning cranking out as many runs as I could on whatever they have open- thus my question.

Brownski wrote

Let’s say I’m skiing by myself on a weekday at a 450 foot hill, no lift lines, nothing to distract me until three in the afternoon. What’s my hot-laps goal for a day

The one time I counted runs I think I did 41, which is a little more then 18k. I’ve never tracked it at a full sized mountain but 18k on a 450 foot hill seemed ok. I was thinking of setting a goal for myself for tomorrow but now it sounds like I might have good snow (we’ll see)  and my kids might have a snow day so the point might be moot.

As someone in the Mid West i made 41 runs at Caberfae Peaks and only got 14,856' of of vertical, but for Mid West standards that is a good day.

I'm more of a smiles per turn or per vertical foot kind of guy. So any amount of vertical per day would be acceptable. Can't say I ever had a bad ski day.

Max Vert days mean you are riding the lift too much...You could have done an easy 50K yesterday on Sagamore...but bored out of my mind...This Wednesday maybe 15K of quality woods

20 k when using my tracker

Whatever makes you happy,it's only skiing ,for me 30k twenty years ago was everyday 7 days a week goal.This season any thing over 25k is big.Today at Snowbasin about 20k of solid untracked and broken powder skiing was I had in me.

Understandably Gore's a bore without the woods

20k resort skiing is a good day. 2k touring is a better day

Never said Gore's a bore without the woods, just that 35-40 runs on Sagamore would be boring but you would have 50K...I know someone who skied Rumor 35+ times in a day...not woods and not bored
Oh and not groomed

Them's fightin words bro!

PeeTex wrote

20k resort skiing is a good day. 2k touring is a better day

Agree.

And here's the thing, if 2k or 5k is ok in the BC because of a better experience and the potential for better snow, the WHY isn't 15k (vs 30) better on a slower chair that leads to better snow.

How do you jive:

"We rule, we earned our turns!"

with

"Slow lifts suck!" and "Gore has flat spots!"

All three things lead to better snow.

MAKES. NO. SENSE.

When you live in a mountain town with a ski area you sometimes only have a couple of hours to ski some days. That’s when a fast lift sure is nice.

Sleeper pow days too. My favorite storms are when we get rain in town and snow up high. The kids go to school, people go to work and the mountain stays empty while it dumps sideways. Even with a high speed six banger tracks get covered right back up with instant refills. I love fast lifts for those days and racking up very like a dirty hog.

With lift tickets somewhere from around 75 to 200 bones for a day most folks would rather spend there time skiing or enjoying the lodge, not sitting on a slow chair lift.

I get it though, on busy days the snow quality is a lot better here from midway up on the terrain served by our slow triple chair. Elevation has a big part in that of course but it just doesn’t get hammered like the lower half off the six pack. Still, I can’t wait to see the Agassiz chair replaced. A detachable whatever is gonna be sick for the midweek dumpers.

I get it too.

Think of it this way, if I was like normal people, NYSB wouldn't exist.