The New Theme
Blue for the sky so high
Yellow for the sun so warm
White for the snow underfoot
The Bluebird Three those be
Giving cheer
To those weary of winter
To all who pine for spring
To all outdoors in winter gear
So you have come to the Wisconsin Skier searching for answers to your questions. Here are your questions and my wise answers! Search and you shall find wise answers!
ANSWER Yes! You can even sue them for serving up soggy fried cheese curds, the question you should ask though is can you win? Given all I know of this case is the search term, I would say no you will not win, I suggest you sue the skier that hit you, oh-yeah, they probably have the same amount of money as you do and you would spend more time, effort, and money attempting to collect than you would collect.
I suggest you sue the car dealer that sold the car the other skier rode to the hill in. They have deep-deep pockets and might be so dumb-founded by this silliness they be stunned into being a no-show at the court proceedings you end up winning the case by default.
Hmmm, what should you name your pot of chili? I usually call mine Chili the Red. You see I have Norwegian ancestry and this harkens back to my great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather Dustin the Magenta. Dustin the Magenta settled the land around Kilarney Ireland and developed our secret family chili recipe, so to honor him and the recipe I call it Chili the Red. However, you can name your pot of chili anything you want.
A frequent question I see being asked is How long is the Wisconsin Ski Season? Here is one answer to that but I think we are looking for more concrete guidance than that.
Already, ski resorts in Wisconsin are closing for the season with at least one closed for the season, and I suspect there are more. Even with abundant snow, most people are complaining about winter dragging on and want to bust out their golf clubs and skiing is not at the top of their list of to-do activities (it should be, this is real sweet of late). So, even if the resorts have good or even excellent snow conditions they shut down due to lack of public interest. If you have tickets for resorts use them up quick!
However, there are a few resorts out for bragging rights. Ski Brule and Granite Peak are two of those resorts and work hard to be the first to open and the last to close for a given season. Given current snow conditions, I believe it is safe to say they will be operating into mid-April. Mind you, one week of warm and rainy weather changes that very quickly and the risk of that grows each day.
In short, I would not say there is plenty of Wisconsin skiing left but the supply is definitely dwindling. Get your runs in NOW!
But yet the right weather. The weather was full on pure winter. Usually at this time of the year there are hints of spring, but not so this weekend UpNort or even at home. We had fresh snowfall at Blackjack and they left it on some runs fully wild and on others made an attempt at grooming. Needless to say the deep powder challenged our skiing ability, but that is a good thing, right?
One member of my skiing group noted the slush cup participants were not very bright. I had to point out there probably was not a participant above 20 years of age, ahhh, the irrationality of youth!
Unfortunately, the best scenes occurred when I was not able to photograph them or I missed the shot due to poor technique. Again, this is all a learning experience. The weather made for less than great light, again the photographs turn out blah, but that of course is due to the blah weather. We only saw a small patch of clear blue sky that day, but we did see plenty of snow falling!
The pond was longer than the last one I witnessed at Blackjack. Not a single snowboarder made it across and only three skiers made it across on the first run and two on the second. The snowboarders tended to fizzle out about half way across the pond and skiers too, of course the skiers sometimes would crash into the pond. This is too bad as the snowboarders can put on a great show when they get across.
I have more shots and as I edit them and select more worth publishing (and able to publish, see my comments about the age of the participants, if enough of their face is showing we can recognize them walking on the street I will be withholding publication) I will add them to the slideshow.
Did you witness any spring flings this last few weekends? Please share by offering up a comment!
The Boyfriend of the Wabeno Mannequins
In addition, this guy’s future is looking bright with more snow on the way!
The Day I Have Been Dreaming of!
Nothing was wrong with the weather. The sun was out, the air still, the temperature in the mid to upper 20s (around -3° C) just about perfect for snow riders. The snow was not sticky due to the temperature and was about as fast as it gets (a bit warmer would have added a bit more speed, but not a lot more). The snow was in good shape and the crowds were also just right.
Two Guys Riding up the Chair
My skiing was good that day. I spent about 2/3rds of the day skiing with my poles in my left hand and my camera in my right hand. I was filming most of the runs I made (at least until the battery died) and I came close to capturing a yard sale. I did catch the aftermath, but had I caught the crash it would have been super as the guy who crashed had a tumbling double ski release. However, I need to remember to point the camera down the slope and not perpendicular to plumb.
Holding the camera like I did gave me results with mostly showing the far horizon and the sky. I also need to stay tighter to the fall line and that wide traverses are not very interesting and the yard sale I talk about occurred during such a traverse (actually, I was skiing over to the left side of that trail and then I was going to seek the fall line again) and the crash was out of my lens at that time.
I took some still shots both with my camera (with kit lens with a polarizer) and my phone. The attached photo is from my camera and I changed the sweep orientation to portrait and swept Ski Brule in that fashion, I like the resultant image better.
The Sweet Snow!
If you are not a frequent skier, I suggest saving your money and ski at this time of the year rather than the holidays. Not only is the weather better, the snow deeper, the lift tickets cheaper, the lift lines shorter but there are more reasons to love March skiing.
Like many people who can not resist taking yet another photo of a sunset, I can not resist taking photos of and writing about these bluebird days.
Leave a comment and share what you like about bluebird days? Perhaps share a memory or stories related to a beautiful day on the slopes.
Lindsey Vonn FIS Downhill Champion! Say What?
Mind you, she has not skied since the crash, but she had such a lead built up and no woman was able to dominate the downhill event sufficiently to overcome Lindsey’s total. One wonders where Lindsey would be if she was able to compete till the end of the season, I bet she would be fighting it out with Tina Maze for the overall title.
Congratulations Lindsey!
Blackjack Ski Resort!
So what about the skiing and the rest of the place?
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Sir Isaac Newton
It has been a long times now but I have been introducing a bit of physics into our conversations on skiing. In this installment I link to I calculate the gravitational force pushing me down the ski hill.
Just a refresher, I am claiming I weigh 100 Kg (actually I am less than that and actually it does not matter). and am on a slope that is 30° above horizontal, which is a 58% grade. This means there is a force of 490 newtons pushing me down the ski hill. Remember, this is the force parallel to the slope and that is what counts here.
Again, F=ma and that gives us 490/100 = 4.9 meters per second2 of acceleration. Let us further assume I am skiing down the hill and it takes me 30 seconds to get from top to the bottom. At the end of the 30 seconds I would be traveling 4.9*30 = 147 meters/second
However, what does that mean, after all most of us (US resident folks that is) think in imperial units.
So, to convert from meters per second we will do this:
Now we will run the numbers:
Seems fast, no? In fact, I have run through this calculation a number of times, but there is a good explanation. What are we leaving out? A few things:
There is friction between the snow and the surface of our skis.
Again, this is a force that makes a huge difference especially as the speeds pick up. We know this is an important factor because racers work hard to minimize the air resistance.
Most recreational skiers do not ski 30° slopes.
The big limiter is wind resistance as the faster we go the stronger the wind resistance force becomes and we all know that there is a limit to the speeds at which objects can achieve solely via gravitational forces, for a sky-diver that limit is around 122 mph and one can assume skiers are not radically different one way or the other.
We may conclude the laws we are working with are incorrect, but they are not, we simply fail to include all the forces at play. In fact we can limit the condition and come to a conclusion the laws are correct and then revisit our assumptions and add in the additional forces. Those additional forces (especially the air resistance) complicate the mathematics and a second or third consideration may take on that math. In fact, I find it much like skiing in that we work to master the gentle slopes first and then when we master those we move to bigger ski challenges.
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