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Time spent skiing vs time on the lifts

Skisailor

Angel Diva
Wow. Where is Big Sky? It's the U.S. Resort that claims the most lift serviced acreage and the biggest vertical in the country. Doesn't look like they evaluated it at all.
 

bounceswoosh

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Interesting. Of course, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics - the overall average lift length and wait time for the mountain are relatively meaningless, since most of us don't enjoy skiing all the terrain (people on the greens don't tend to be on the double blacks, and vv). And the fastest lift in the world isn't going to do me any good if it's on the bunny slope. Although - looks like they crowdsourced it, so it's at the very least data from enthusiastic skiers. Probably not a lot of bunny slope skiing.

Still, very interesting. I think they need to do onsite studies =)
 

bounceswoosh

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Wow. Where is Big Sky? It's the U.S. Resort that claims the most lift serviced acreage and the biggest vertical in the country. Doesn't look like they evaluated it at all.

They only show the top 30. Do you see a list of the full 300?
 

Skisailor

Angel Diva
Yeah. I misunderstood the bottom graph at first. So yeah - I guess it just doesn't make the top 30. A little surprising considering the vertical and walk on lifts/non-existent lift lines. But it's true that some of the key lifts are slow, fixed grip . . .

Still, I've skied quite a few on that list and I am a bit surprised based on my own experience.
 

bounceswoosh

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Yeah. I misunderstood the bottom graph at first. So yeah - I guess it just doesn't make the top 30. A little surprising considering the vertical and walk on lifts/non-existent lift lines. But it's true that some of the key lifts are slow, fixed grip . . .

Still, I've skied quite a few on that list and I am a bit surprised based on my own experience.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics =) Vail made their top 30. That doesn't fit with what most people report.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
Data is from one particular tracking device called Trace. Costs $199. Was originally called Alpine Replay but changed the name to Trace in 2014. So I would expect the distribution of the data points by ski area/resort is skewed in various ways. There is a comment in the article that notes Squaw is not included either.

According to an online article about ski tracking from 2014, Trace teams up with a few ski areas. That's could be a reason Mt. Hood makes the "Top 30" when some other places don't.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
The places on the list in the northeast are Stowe, Okemo, Loon, Hunter, Whiteface. Haven't skied at Okemo but have spent a day or two at the others. Those are very different ski resorts so the stat being measured may or may not be the best way to choose a destination. Wonder if the average waiting time was based on weekdays or weekends? Also wonder about the claim that they had data for "every resort in North America" with a total of around 300. Even with closures in recent years, I think there are over 400 ski resorts in the U.S. alone. Of course, depends on the definition of "ski resort."

We took a look at the average times spent waiting and sitting on a lift vs. average vertical in a day for every resort in North America. We took the top 30 from more than 300 resorts (so this represents the cream of the crop). – Alpine Replay
 

sibhusky

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Wow. Where is Big Sky? It's the U.S. Resort that claims the most lift serviced acreage and the biggest vertical in the country. Doesn't look like they evaluated it at all.
They don't list a single Montana resort. Trying to pull up the list of 300 now, but the site is crawling.

Maybe I'm glad we didn't get included. Apparently our (Whitefish's) "base elevation" is 5807 feet. Only 1400 feet wrong. The upper elevation is off by 300 feet, giving us a 700 foot vertical. Where WERE these people?

And they left off our main lift entirely as even existing!!!!
 
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sibhusky

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I can only guess that the users of Trace don't actually ski very well, sticking to the Magic carpet and Chair 9.

Just discovered they are also missing Chair 7, our second most popular chair lift. And they've got two listings for the carpet and list that as the most popular chair. Clearly there's a problem when you crowdsource your data.

Especially if you're mining data for Montana, where there are no crowds.
 
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pinto

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
haha ... They have "Durango Mountain" in there. Which (a) is ridiculous and (b) doesn't exist. It's been back to Purgatory for a year.

I've not been to Revelstoke, but I have to agree with Snowbird and JH just because of their trams. They take you up 4,000 vert in a few minutes, and it's almost impossible to beat them back down, especially if you are skiing difficult terrain. Often it's 10 min up for 4 min down.
 

altagirl

Moderator
Staff member
haha ... They have "Durango Mountain" in there. Which (a) is ridiculous and (b) doesn't exist. It's been back to Purgatory for a year.

I've not been to Revelstoke, but I have to agree with Snowbird and JH just because of their trams. They take you up 4,000 vert in a few minutes, and it's almost impossible to beat them back down, especially if you are skiing difficult terrain. Often it's 10 min up for 4 min down.

Well, yeah, if there's no tram line. But I've had days where I've waited well over an hour for the next tram.

I do know people who made a habit of skiing the same tram car all day long - just flying down groomers on empty spring days to catch every red tram car all day long to rack up as much vert as possible. Whatever floats your boat! ;)
 

pinto

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Well, yeah, if there's no tram line. But I've had days where I've waited well over an hour for the next tram.
Well, that's true, though not sure it was part of the methodology lol. Time spent skiing vs time on lift and in line. There we go.
 

MrsPlow

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Revy is awesome for fall line - we did just over 23000 vertical metres in a day a few weeks ago, and could probably get to 25 or 26K without too much trouble.
 

bounceswoosh

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Revy is awesome for fall line - we did just over 23000 vertical metres in a day a few weeks ago, and could probably get to 25 or 26K without too much trouble.

METERS?
 

MrsPlow

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Yep. :smile: Total lift served vertical is about 1500 metres, and it takes maybe 25 mins to get all the way up and about 6 or 7 mins down; you can get some good quick vert on the Stoke chair too. Conditions were ideal too - blue bird, no queues, hardly anyone around, and they'd groomed a couple of the big fall line runs. Didn't stop for lunch mind you... I'm more of an off-piste, powder/glades fan normally, but it was actually a really good day.
 

bounceswoosh

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Yep. :smile: Total lift served vertical is about 1500 metres, and it takes maybe 25 mins to get all the way up and about 6 or 7 mins down; you can get some good quick vert on the Stoke chair too. Conditions were ideal too - blue bird, no queues, hardly anyone around, and they'd groomed a couple of the big fall line runs. Didn't stop for lunch mind you... I'm more of an off-piste, powder/glades fan normally, but it was actually a really good day.

Nice! Yeah, it's impressive how much vert I can rack up in a short time on groomers ... but no, never anything like 23k meters. A "high end of normal" day for me at Breck would be 23k feet (not groomers). So less than a third of what you did.
 

MrsPlow

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Nice! Yeah, it's impressive how much vert I can rack up in a short time on groomers ... but no, never anything like 23k meters. A "high end of normal" day for me at Breck would be 23k feet (not groomers). So less than a third of what you did.
That's about normal for us too.
 

Albertan ski girl

Angel Diva
These stats seem off - some of the resorts on the list (ie Whistler), I've heard of people waiting over an hour to get on a gondola. I understand that it's all relative to vertical, but Louise about 1000 meters, and I've never waited more than 15 minutes for a lift - and that's the busiest resort around here. I'm completely shocked (except for Revy) that more Canadian resorts don't make the lift. Fernie too has over 1000 meters vertical, no lift lines, kicking horse is about 1300 meters lift-served vertical, no lift lines. I think the longest I've ever waited at the KH gondola has been 5 minutes...
 

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