Durability: This is generally out of the area's control. On a 60F day the snow at Big Bear is going to be slop by noon now matter how good a job they did overnight. The runs New2PDX cites negatively have sunny exposure. High skier density will degrade the snow quickly too, and that's inevitable at "urban" ski areas. Regrooming during the day is the only option by the ski area, and I see this mainly late season at Mammoth for reapplication of salt.
I agree that a good amount can definitely be outside a resort's hands. And some of what they can control involves trade-offs. I think the Wasatch illustrates this pretty well... on a warm sunny day, sun-exposed bowls like Sunshine Bowl at Solitude (East-facing) and Bassanova at Snowbird (Southwest-facing) will start ok and very quickly turn to slop--I've experienced both when they're really unpleasant before noon. But East-facing Peri's Bowl at Brighton starts off as icy hardpack, gets nice as soon as the sun reaches it, and then stays enjoyable well into the afternoon. And those patterns seem to hold across less sun-exposed runs, too... Solitude and Snowbird will start out nice and get sloppy lots of places on warm day; many of Brighton's runs will start out firm-bordering-on-icy but stay nice all the way into night skiing. I'd like to see some of these areas do some experimenting with split-style grooming... groom it to hardpack on skier's right and with a looser groom on skier's left (or vice versa, whatever) and communicate that to visitors to give them better options and allow them to pick the experience they want. I haven't seen any ski areas do this, though.
Tony, I think you've commented in the past about how you carefully avoid Chisolm at Mountain High West--a good plan overall, since it tends to be
so busy. But however Mountain High manages that surface, it stays smooth-feeling in most conditions from 9:00 am to 11:00 pm even with all those tons of crazy people jammed onto it all day. Similarly, some of the runs at Mt. Hood Skibowl stay smooth-feeling for long hours and high crowds. I assume that salt is the key.
And I feel no compunction about giving resorts higher scores in grooming even if a good chunk of the apparent grooming quality is due to low crowds or layouts that reduce bottlenecks--I'm sure those factors enhance my enjoyment of groomed runs at some areas (PowMow, Telluride, Cooper Spur)--but it seems to me like that improved experience should factor into scores.
Variety: I like there to be several choices of groomers, particularly steep groomers.
No argument here, but maintaining a balance of groomed vs. ungroomed terrain is important too. The day after a big storm Mammoth has a fairly light touch on grooming. The next day, after the powderhounds have churned the new snow, grooming at Mammoth is more widespread. At some places like Big Bear, moguls have become close to extinct. Nearly everything is groomed, every night.
That totally makes sense intellectually and from a fairness angle. But for me personally, the presence or lack of moguls is pretty much a non-issue (so long as they're not surprise moguls). Do you think that visitors should rate Big Bear lower on the "grooming" metric because they've exiled moguls?
Transparency: I like to know what's groomed. Desirable, but most areas have many specific runs that are groomed all the time. When you have a massive place like Vail with a rotation of grooming, then it's more important to have posted list.
But for a visitor, it's far better to have a reliable way of figuring out each day's groomed runs than having to search out and rely on others' comments. For a real small mom & pop type ski area, I get not posting groomed runs. But for any of the spots that are actually in contention for a spot in Ski Magazine's rankings, come on... posting groomers each day is a miniscule expense, and making that information
accurate is a pretty straightforward element of running a decent operation.
Bonus points if a groomed run, when the sun and weather are right, starts generating corn with every skier/rider who goes down. This is always out of the area's control. Too much skier density will chew up the snow before it hits the corn stage. The best groomed corn I get every season is on runs that are roped off for racing during late season at Mammoth. When they drop the ropes at 11AM or so, it's as good as it gets. Otherwise you have to find runs (groomed or otherwise) that get relatively little traffic and thus the snow is still smooth when the timing is right for corn. For lift served corn, following the 360 degree exposure off Mt. Bachelor's Summit as the day progresses is the gold standard.
What you say makes sense, but I don't think that necessarily means it's 100% out of the area's control. I've been a couple spots with "noon groomers" or something like that (runs closed until midday just for the benefit of skiers, not due to a race... Copper and Sun Valley, maybe?). Having many different runs groomed also increases the odds, and helps spread out the crowds. I definitely believe Bachelor's a great spot for this, I just haven't caught the right conditions yet. A location in a region that gets a good amount of sun probably increases the odds too, although that
is outside a resort's control.
