volklyokel Posted December 19, 2005 Report Share Posted December 19, 2005 (edited) [Posted a variation of this in the latest topic having to do with Stats, but I thought this should really be posted here, in case there are some "southerners" who might be thinking of making a Christmas trip to Roundtop] At RT on Friday, that was the day after the overnight light ice storm we had down here, I really wasn't expecting conditions to be that good, but as it turned out, they were pretty darned good! I'd call it packed powder with a tad of granular thrown in. Made for good edging. RT had Upper Lafayette's open, which was really great, having been groomed all the way across. I'll bet bumps will form this week on the right side. Susquehanna had a couple of brown spots to avoid. I didn't see rocks, but I didn't exactly stop to look either. I love that run; the S-turn just makes it great, especially the double-fall line, off-camber turn on the first curve--you can really test your edges in there. Exhibition was open without any of the park "toys" set in place, so it was like riding it in the old days. The whole of Ramrod was open too. The top was groomed so it made it pretty easy to negotiate although it was narrow in that steep headwall section. The bottom was wide open and fast on Friday. I hit 640 vertical FPM (according to the watch) on that stretch. Barrett's Trail is open, but on Friday it had some minor grooming "holes" that you had to keep your tips out of and watch out for. I'll bet those are all filled in by now. At RT this morning, 12/19, their web page reports that everything is open except Gunbarrel and the pipes and parks. All the green slopes were open, but I can't comment on them since I didn't ride them. We've been fortunate to have below freezing nights for ample snow making. I'll bet after Christmas, RT (as well as Liberty) will have practically everything open. Volklyokel Edited December 19, 2005 by volklyokel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
volklyokel Posted December 19, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 19, 2005 The Suunto gives a time averaged rate of ascent/descent. It seems to update about once every 30 seconds or so, and my guess is that it reports things on the conservative side. Here's why: At Roundtop, Minuteman is probably the best run to use for any kind of calibration since the slope angle is fairly consistent all the way down (its a little steeper at the top, kicks you off very nicely). I can make the full descent of Minuteman in about 30 seconds (in Super G style). Its about a 500 foot descent, so if you do the math, the descent rate (including start and stop time) is something around 1000 FPM. Because of the averaging of the watch and due to the fact that the slopes are so short, I can't get the watch to report anything above 600 FPM on Minuteman. So I'm pretty certain that the watch under-reports the actual rates of ascent/descent. It does better when you're making long and sustained ascents or descents. The highest I've ever had it (while skiing) was on a fairly long, groomed black at Solitude, called "Fast Lane," where the watch reported something slightly above 800 FPM. Anyway, regardless of equipment biases in the rates of descent, Exhibition and the bottom of Ramrod were very fast last Friday. Enjoy! - VY Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XSKI712 Posted December 20, 2005 Report Share Posted December 20, 2005 so what do those convert to in MPH? i could probably sit down and figure it out, but i'd rather not, since one of yous could probably just tell me. thats always been a question thats really bothered me, is how fast i'm actually going... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThinkSnow Posted December 20, 2005 Report Share Posted December 20, 2005 so what do those convert to in MPH? i could probably sit down and figure it out, but i'd rather not, since one of yous could probably just tell me. thats always been a question thats really bothered me, is how fast i'm actually going... Well, the numbers he gave are actually just for descent, so it wouldn't be used for speed since you're probably going much faster horizontally than you are vertically (unless you're cliff jumping ). But, if you multiply FPM by 60, and divide by 5280, then you'll get MPH. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
volklyokel Posted December 21, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 21, 2005 Okay snow hogs and board snakes. Here's a little math lesson... Below is an old USGS topo map of Rountop (there are two lifts missing). The top of Minuteman is around 1350' and the base of the run (marked in yellow) is about 895' above sea level. Thus the total vertical drop of Minuteman is something like 455' (yeah, I know - truly pathetic!). The scale is a direct cut and paste and shows the horizontal length of Minuteman to be about 0.4 mile which is 2112 feet. But what we ski on is the slope length which is computed from the Pythagorean theorem [ sqrt(455*455 + 2112*2112) ] = 2160 feet. So according to the rate of descent of my watch (~600 feet per minute), I'd have to be traveling about 32 MPH. The stopwatch part of my watch says I make the run in about 30 seconds which means I'm going more like 49 MPH, so the rate of descent, because of time averaging and other factors, underestimates the true descent rate and thus the overall speed of the downhill run. Obviously, to make this test, you have to ski on an early morning weekday. Do not attempt to make timed runs on weekends! You may now resume not giving a rats ass about all this and continue your plunge down, hopefully, longer runs than this one! Volklyokel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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