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Mogul Stoke with Marcus Caston and Jonny Moseley - Return of the Turn Pt 1

crgildart

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I think the decision to groom down trails as soon as the start to bump up, especially blue terrain, is a business decision plain and simple. Grooming costs money but not grooming might cost more money... in terms of the biggest cash cow crowd complaining about bumped up blues and not coming back. Or, worse, weekend wonders suing the resort in spite of what the back of their lift ticket says.. Jury pool of non skiers would put the blame on the resort for not keeping the intermediate and easy advanced terrain free of those death pods..
 

Don in Morrison

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WP/MJ leaves a narrow strip of bumps on Cranmer and Sleeper while the rest of both runs are smashed flat daily. You can wander in and out of the bumpy part according to how adventurous you feel.
 

Eleeski

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I'm especially upset about some of Squaw's grooming. On Red Dog there's a medium pitch bump run that is really fun. It develops excellent lines and the freestyle team trains there. Problem is, they rope off the team area. That would be OK if they left a couple lines for the public but they groom right up to the fence. All we can do is watch the sweet bumps and drool.

To Squaw's credit, they leave more of the mountain in good moguls than almost anywhere else. Awesome! I've been to Maryjane and really enjoyed the grooming which seemed to leave exactly half in bumps of almost every run. Again, awesome!

Regarding grooming, Big Bear (which has some of the best grooming I've skied - but needs it with all the man made snow) manufactured some very fun bumps for a special event. I'm not opposed to quality groomer generated bumps.

The bumps that form from skiers after grooming aren't as fun as all natural bumps. Natural moguls seem to be intersecting tracks cut into the snow. Post grooming bumps are piles of snow that accumulate between turns. I tend to carve the natural moguls and skid the groomed ones. Maybe it's just me.

Moguls aren't always good. There are often a few days when they are too firm to enjoy. But the weather always changes and the bumps can soften nicely. Hopefully the resort hasn't gotten impatient and flattened them all on the lousy days.

Grooming percentages do matter to lots of skiers - and the resort bean counters. But leaving part of the run bumpy could keep us all happy.

I love good bumps - even if I can't keep up with the guys in the video.

Eric
 

cosmoliu

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Of course, Mary Jane always comes up when the discussion turns to bumps. Last March I noticed that some pitches that always previously were bumped seemed to be seeing groomer activity. Skiing with a local friend, he mentioned that there was a move afoot by management to do more grooming on the Mary Jane side, supposedly because visitors were demanding that more of MJ be "skiable". He encouraged me to voice my disapproval because if enough people were to speak up, that tendency might be nipped in the bud. It will be interesting to see what things look like this coming season.
 

markojp

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I see we're back to the 'racers can't ski bumps' argument, and how they end up running ski areas, and that's why there are no moguls...

:roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:

That's some entertaining stuff there.

:philgoat:
 

KevinF

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I detest bump runs that are half groomed and half bumped... I often find the lines in those bumps are absolutely god-awful from people venturing into the bumps for a few half-hearted ugly turns, turning back out, etc.

If it's bumped the whole width... it weeds out a lot of people before the first turn. :D

Friendly bump lines on a friendly pitch is really what you need...
 

Don in Morrison

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I also recall that Bash at WP is now half-groomed and half-bumps, whereas back in the day it was all moguls all the time.
 

Muleski

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I see we're back to the 'racers can't ski bumps' argument, and how they end up running ski areas, and that's why there are no moguls...

:roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:

That's some entertaining stuff there.

:philgoat:

Truer words were never spoken! Classic. I almost said "Epic."

The folks who I know, who either own or run good sized ski areas {or both} work very closely with their teams, and do a lot of research, to maximize their revenue by delivering what their customers want. In most cases a little bit of everything.

"Racers can't ski bumps".....one for the ages!
 

crgildart

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Mosley makes it look easy. Caston makes it look like perilous fun with his skis in the air as much as on the snow, tips up and out all over the place hahaha..

Who said racers can't ski bumps?? :rolleyes: Just pointing out the obvious difference between two individuals in the video. Both are killing it but one is making it look a lot easier..
 

Muleski

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Who said racers can't ski bumps?? :rolleyes: Just pointing out the obvious difference between two individuals in the video. Both are killing it but one is making it look a lot easier..

Agree, it's not YOUR post. It's some of "the reasoning" as to why there are not more bump runs at more ski areas these days, which I think had a couple of us chuckling.

We should, I hope agree that very good skiers can pretty much ski anything.
 

markojp

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Seldomski

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To many casual skiers, I think "blue square" = "it's a groomer." I don't think most casual skiers check the grooming report in the morning. So if they get on a bumped blue, they are going to complain. And if they get injured while doing that bumped blue... I think this is why everything blue tends to get groomed. Everyone else is doing it.

I'm not sure what the solution is. Maybe better signage? Maybe a new category of slope? Like blue triangle means it's blue steep, but it may not always be groomed. Blue square means it is recently groomed (unless it's a powder day). Black diamonds can either be groomed or not - I think that's understood by anyone who skis them. And someone who is familiar with blacks is probably also checking the grooming report.

Frankly, I find many bumped blue runs to be harder than bumped black runs. Seems the bumps get way bigger, icier, and have much weirder shapes on the blues vs blacks. Edit** So I think this in a nutshell is why the blues get groomed more often than not. Ungroomed, they can be worse than a black and piss off the most lucrative clientele.
 
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crgildart

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It's some of "the reasoning" as to why there are not more bump runs at more ski areas these days, which I think had a couple of us chuckling.

I'd say that's because not many can or want to learn to ski bumps and complain to ski resort management when blues bump up.. Also, if someone gets hurt and it's common knowledge bump averse tourists have been complaining about the bumps.. well,, Just easier and more business prudent to mow them down rather than please the bumpers.. Most of whom buy cheap passes instead of walk up ticket prices..
 

KingGrump

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Who said racers can't ski bumps?? :rolleyes: Just pointing out the obvious difference between two individuals in the video. Both are killing it but one is making it look a lot easier..

It's home court for the bumper in chute 75. Specialized equipment - bump skis, chopped poles. Advantage goes to the bumper.
Take the same bumper with the bump skis and chopped poles onto Caston's territory, steeps, powder, crud, etc. The advantage will most likely goes to Caston.
Horses for courses.
 

SBrown

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Of course, Mary Jane always comes up when the discussion turns to bumps. Last March I noticed that some pitches that always previously were bumped seemed to be seeing groomer activity. Skiing with a local friend, he mentioned that there was a move afoot by management to do more grooming on the Mary Jane side, supposedly because visitors were demanding that more of MJ be "skiable"....

:eek:
 

SSSdave

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SSSdave >>>But years of watching others ski moguls well obviously has tended to grate against the psyche of SOME of those advanced skiers that has been aggravated for decades by some individual's chest pounding and skiing media. In any case from the earliest days there have always been some racing enthusiasts and resort career people that absolutely enjoyed moguls without any issues. In fact many of our best mogul skiers have racing backgrounds...
SOME of those in management began to groom away lower gradient mogul slopes more and more that was an understandable balance...
If resort managements that control their grooming crews were reasonable, they would allow at least some lower gradient slopes to mogul up naturally.

-------------------------------

Of course numbers of we mogul enthusiasts have been saying the above in one way or another for quite a number of years now. If resorts are honest about this and I welcome such, they will listen to us instead of being so one sided that at numbers of resorts there are no longer mogul runs underneath LOWER gradient slope lifts. Slopes that skiers can first become comfortable skiing.


Seldomski >>>I don't think most casual skiers check the grooming report in the morning. So if they get on a bumped blue, they are going to complain. And if they get injured while doing that bumped blue... I think this is why everything blue tends to get groomed. "


At larger resorts there has always been much terrain that is ungroomed including blue runs. The notion they all need to be groomed lest some get hurt and lawsuit resorts is just extreme nanny-statism that the ski industry set guideline about long ago to allow we enthusiast our just fun. For instance after storms, a much worse condition than bumps is wet cement snow. Do skiers ever complain to resorts they went down such an ungroomed blue trail unable to turn then when horsing around a ski to shed speed, stuck a ski in deep and ejected out over the top? Of course not because anyone that found themselves looking down such a run is going to turn around at the top of such runs. No runs are ever groomed only at the top whence someone descended suddenly finds the bottom half or a run ungroomed. That would be a good reason to complain. Otherwise snow sliders are responsible for their own exploration including runs they can see when they enter a trail as not being groomed.
 

crgildart

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At larger resorts there has always been much terrain that is ungroomed including blue runs. The notion they all need to be groomed lest some get hurt and lawsuit resorts is just extreme nanny-statism that the ski industry set guideline about long ago to allow we enthusiast our just fun. For instance after storms, a much worse condition than bumps is wet cement snow. Do skiers ever complain to resorts they went down such an ungroomed blue trail unable to turn then when horsing around a ski to shed speed, stuck a ski in deep and ejected out over the top? Of course not because anyone that found themselves looking down such a run is going to turn around at the top of such runs. No runs are ever groomed only at the top whence someone descended suddenly finds the bottom half or a run ungroomed. That would be a good reason to complain. Otherwise snow sliders are responsible for their own exploration including runs they can see when they enter a trail as not being groomed.

Around here they will close runs or even the entire whopping 115 acres of lift served terrain if it's solid sleet ice.. and they'll close runs and pack down the heavy wet snow rather than open it to tourists.. So, ya, nanny state all the way..
 

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