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What counts as a day of skiing (backcountry/AT)?

Monique

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I track days on slopesquad.com , and of course it's critically important to get this right ;-)

We did a hut trip this weekend. As it turned out, the road that takes you most of the way wasn't closed to vehicles yet, but after we got most of the way up, the driving just seemed too squirrelly. My husband dropped me and our friend off - the two of us ladies skinned up from there to the hut, started the fire and settled in, while my husband backtracked, parked the car, and skinned all the way up. We got maybe a mile of skinning in (we backtracked to meet him as it got dark); he got maybe three.

Saturday, friend and I went out and explored on skis. We were hoping for some turns, but the slope we chose was just too mellow to actually glide (except on the snowmobile tracks ...) So 3-4 hours of what was essentially crosscountry skiing on AT skis.

Then Sunday, skiing out, mostly wedging down a packed-out road with a short stint of uphill at the start.

I'm thinking that across the three days, I can legit consider it one day of skiing, even though I got maybe five actual turns ... right?
 
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Monique

Monique

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It's your slopesquad...you can count anything you want

Excellent! I'll count every day I think about skiing ;-) I can just boot up, click in, and count it.
 

Philpug

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Bob Peters (Skiing Chuck Norris) says 25 turns.
 
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Monique

Monique

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You know, now that I think about it, there were definitely more than 5 turns ... perhaps not 25 ... but I'm going to go with the "well hell, I spent several days on skis" interpretation of whether I was skiing.
 

Andy Mink

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If you put them on, it's a day of skiing. Every day I carry a rifle or shotgun in the field, it's a day of hunting whether I get anything or not!
 
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Monique

Monique

bounceswoosh
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If you put them on, it's a day of skiing. Every day I carry a rifle or shotgun in the field, it's a day of hunting whether I get anything or not!
Excellent point!
 

DanoT

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I'm not a turny guy but I once did as many powder turns as I could squeeze in on a side country powder stash run .It was 25 turns in 400 vertical feet, The point being: 25 turns is not very much skiing.

One run is all it takes. If BP says 25 turns, I can go with that.
 
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Monique

Monique

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I'm not a turny guy but I once did as many powder turns as I could squeeze in on a side country powder stash run .It was 25 turns in 400 vertical feet, The point being: 25 turns is not very much skiing.

Counterpoint : how many turns do big mountain skiers make coming down thousands of feet?
 

DoryBreaux

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Bob Peters (Skiing Chuck Norris) says 25 turns.
I dont like this because it means that guys like me who dont know how to make more than 4 turns in 2k vertical feet have to cram on our lunch breaks to really call it a ski day. Yes I'm complaining about having to ski faster.

@Monique I would count that as three days. Any day that your feet are in your boots and you are in the mountains should count!:D
 

UGASkiDawg

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Excellent! I'll count every day I think about skiing ;-) I can just boot up, click in, and count it.
Hey I was a ski bum in SuCo for 5 years, by the end of it if I looked at my ski boots I counted it as a ski day:huh:
 

KevinF

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Bob Peters (Skiing Chuck Norris) says 25 turns.

But the number of turns needed is divisible by the total of beers consumed at the top before descending.

I like these metrics. My beer race league (on a little 250 foot high bump) still has 18 gates, and it's two runs a night, so I'm guaranteed at least 36 turns. And with warnups, I probably get around 50 turns total for the night. :)

And, since it's beer league racing, there's definitely alcohol consumption as well (what else are you supposed to do while you wait between your two races?). Although our beer consumption is at the bottom, not the top.
 
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Monique

Monique

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@Monique I would count that as three days. Any day that your feet are in your boots and you are in the mountains should count!:D

Especially in these boots. It is unreal how much my AT boots hurt my feet compared to my "regular" boots. After we got back from the hut trip, I turned right around and went to the fitter, with only a brief interlude to take a shower (I figured I shouldn't carry an aura of eau de campfire and sweat with me into the shop). I bought these AT boots a few years ago, but they've never fit right. It's partly my fault and partly a vicious circle where I don't ski much AT, and then my feet hurt, so it's another disincentive to go out there again. Anyway, they're punching them out some more and I'm going to commit to actually skiing in them this weekend so that I can evaluate. I would be happy to throw money at the problem, but the fitter would like to try to fix the boots rather than putting me in new ones. These are practically pristine. He says it's odd because the boots that I've been happy with - Dalbello Krypton Storm and now Tecnica Mach 90 - are actually narrower than my Scarpa Dominas. Then again, I've had the others punched out a lot, too. Fitter thinks maybe the ankle has too much room so that my foot is sliding forward and so the widest part of my foot ends up forward of the widest part of the boot. Anyway ... fingers crossed that this week's adjustments help. I have my eye on new AT boots if only because the buckle situation on the Dominas is out of control - they like to slip under the tongue, and as soon as you fix one, another one slides under - but it would be pretty egregious given how few days I have on them.
 

crgildart

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Did you ski that day? If you do it by moonlight you could start your run at 11:59 pm and get two ski days for that one run :)
 
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Monique

Monique

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This photo encompasses the majority of *downhill* skiing accomplished over the weekend. There was also a turn or two from the cabin down to the land of one million creek crossings, but I don't have photographic evidence. Then there was the slope we thought was skiable, but actually it was too shallow - until I exited the lovely powder and skied down on the snowmobile tracks. And I'm sure I pulled off a few turns on the 2.5 mile descent back to the car. I'll put together a slightly longer trip report this evening.

1xZmbCA.jpg
 

DoryBreaux

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@Monique if you're looking at a different AT boot look at the Backland from Atomic. If you're in a 90 flex alpine boot and happy it should be plenty. Also the Lange XT has a pretty bitchen heal pocket if I recall. @Philpug weigh in?
I work, resort ski and skin all in one pair of alpine boots. They fit just about as just right as any boot ever will, and they ski better than any AT boot out there. Having a hike mode helps a ton, but at the end of the day its all about how they fit and ski.

Nice pic btw!
 

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