East/West trail difficulty rating comparisons

Wow, that sounds like a fun trip. It’s a double edged sword. You want (at least I want) fresh powder, but with storms come vis issues and such. For your sake I hope you have snowy nights and bluebird days!
 
JTG said:
Wow, that sounds like a fun trip. It’s a double edged sword. You want (at least I want) fresh powder, but with storms come vis issues and such. For your sake I hope you have snowy nights and bluebird days!
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Thank you! I hope I may have outgrown the ski sickness because I did ski one day last season at Mt Ellen in ZERO visibility rain/fog but the snow was amazing, and I didn’t get sick. Still I am going to cover my bases by wearing the ear patch above treeline just in case!
 
raisingarizona said:
Why is it harder in your opinion? I guess my ask is what makes a run harder specifically? Paradise is technically interesting for east coast ski runs but is it that hard? I never had an issue skiing it back in my teens and I wasn't that great of a skier back then. I could always make it work and never had an issue with it. It was fun but I didn't see much that was super hard to ski it. Theres lines at Crested Butte that make most strong expert skiers question their abilities and risk acceptance standards so much more. It gets really fucking exciting at these places. You seriously have no idea if you're trying to make these sort of comparisons. Comparing Paradise to Body Bag at CB or Alta Zero at Jackson is fucking cute at best. Sorry not sorry.
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Of course there are more consequential lines out west. Of course there are more intimidating looking lines out west. You can also get away with a lot due to the snow quality out west. Skiing Paradise with frozen bumps is hard. Skiing Main Chute, with average snow at Alta is not.
 
You will be fine, have a great time!

Another vote for if you can do eastern blues you’ll be fine on western blues. They may be steeper but in general conditions are better, if there’s ice it’s rare.
 
rebel1916 said:
Of course there are more consequential lines out west. Of course there are more intimidating looking lines out west. You can also get away with a lot due to the snow quality out west. Skiing Paradise with frozen bumps is hard. Skiing Main Chute, with average snow at Alta is not.
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Either east or west, the difficulty is modified by snow conditions, and western ski areas are not immune to poor snow conditions (hardpack, ice, obstacles due to low snowpack). For example, it’s not uncommon to find hardpack in the W/B alpine after freeze thaw conditions. Also, it is not uncommon for a tame line one year to be a horrifying nightmare another because of changes to wind deposition or lack of snow.

Elsewhere in the west, I have been “fortunate” enough to ski slide or die hard pack off of Lone Peak, refrozen crud at JH, sheets of ice at Telluride, top-to-bottom “firm” conditions at Kicking Horse, frozen man-eating bumps at Taos (and I could go on).

I’ve personally found the Cottonwoods to be an exception and not representative of an entire half of a continent.

The difference with something like Paradise, which people ski all the time in poor conditions, is that it’s certainly challenging, maybe not fun, and possibly increases the likelihood of injury. When conditions are poor at W/B, which is more common than people would like to admit, no one skis the high consequence lines because doing so could result in death. Hell, many of those lines are only skied in the absolute best of conditions—and even then there is no room for error.
 
Eastern resorts use the double black rating much more liberally than western resorts do. Groomers are often marked double black at eastern resorts. Out west, they are never groomed, and often include mandatory air or straightlining.

Whiteface is probably most similar to western resorts with their use of the double black rating. They only have it on The Slides, Cloudsplitter Glades, Slide View Glades, Sugar Valley Glades, and Rand's Last Stand. Trails like Skyward, Cloudspin, Empire, Hoyt's, and Lookout Below would be marked double black at any other eastern resort.
 
rebel1916 said:
Of course there are more consequential lines out west. Of course there are more intimidating looking lines out west. You can also get away with a lot due to the snow quality out west. Skiing Paradise with frozen bumps is hard. Skiing Main Chute, with average snow at Alta is not.
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Well there’s hard and there’s “this just sucks”.

If your challenging ratings are based on consistently having the latter I feel for ya.
 
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