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Outer Limits today

recbumper

Getting off the lift
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One of our gang is up at Outer Limits today. This deserved its own new thread :)

Outer Limits 2021.jpeg
 

Ken_R

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One of our gang is up at Outer Limits today. This deserved its own new thread :)

View attachment 130670

Mid-winter that run is a nightmare. Huge icy bumps.The run is longer than it looks in this photo. At least it feels that way. :roflmao: It is steep and consistently so. I never conquered it.
 

mdf

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Mid-winter that run is a nightmare. Huge icy bumps.The run is longer than it looks in this photo. At least it feels that way. :roflmao: It is steep and consistently so. I never conquered it.
It gets worse than huge icy bumps sometimes. Glare ice with small isolated bumps 20 feet apart. Hit one bump to slow down, then aim for the next one. Each time I ski it in those conditions I ask myself why when there is real snow on other parts of the hill.
 

Rod MacDonald

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Mid-winter that run is a nightmare. Huge icy bumps.The run is longer than it looks in this photo. At least it feels that way. :roflmao: It is steep and consistently so. I never conquered it.
I have, or at least the sticker from 1992 says I have..
 

Ogg

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It gets worse than huge icy bumps sometimes. Glare ice with small isolated bumps 20 feet apart. Hit one bump to slow down, then aim for the next one. Each time I ski it in those conditions I ask myself why when there is real snow on other parts of the hill.
Because it's a requirement to ski OL and Devil's Fiddle if they are open.
 

ScottB

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Is the lift running now? It was not about two weeks ago when I was there. It looks really melted out a lot too. It was a lot of work to ski when I was on it, but it was soft corn and great. The moguls in the picture are super sized VW bumps and this was about 1/2 way down. I needed several breaks to catch my breath, its a pretty steep pitch. Pic from 3/23/21

IMG_20210323_OuterLimits.jpg
 

Johnny V.

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We were there in 2020 the last day before the shutdown. Snow was nice and soft and I thought about skiing it, but figured I'd toast my legs for the rest of the day.
 

SSSdave

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I've never skied in New England though have relatives in Connecticut and would like to some winter when snow was decent. Interestingly the average slope gradient of Outer Limits from top to bottom of the lift that is 41% grade, is identical to my favorite bump slope at Heavenly, Little Dipper, though OL bumps have twice the vertical drop. The steepest 80 foot sections of OL measures about 60% grade that is slightly more than LD at its steepest sections. At Kirkwood, where I've skied most over decades, Look-Out-Janek its main bump run along the Cornice Express Quad lift line averages over 50% grade. In any case, the snow quality makes a huge difference in difficulty and when icy anything over 50% grade becomes very mechanical for this person. Note because the forum software resizes images that varies depending on image width, I made the LD image the same width so it displays scaled similarly.

OuterLimits-map1.jpg


LD-map1.jpg


Killington
Bear Mountain Quad
Outer Limits
2853 feet horizontal
1443 pixels on map 2.01 feet per pixel
1184 feet vertical rise
1184/2853 = 41.5% grade =
22.5 degrees average slope

steepest 80 feet between towers 6 and 7
66 pixels = 133 feet horizontally
2 vertical lines = 80 feet
80/133 = 60.1% grade = 31.0 degrees

Heavenly
Comet Express
Little Dipper
9470 top
8900 bottom
570 feet vertical rise
1390 feet horizontally
41.0% grade
 

Crank

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I don't remember Little Dipper, but, I used to ski Gun Barrel. Outer Limits is similar. However, the bumps on Outer Limits are bigger than any I have ever seen.
 

Ken_R

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I have, or at least the sticker from 1992 says I have..

I think I survived a "run" down but I was 12 years old and dont remember much of it. I know it was mega tough and I did not enjoy it. I honestly do not miss skiing in Vermont. All I remember is the extreme cold, the glaring patches of ice, firm conditions, a foot of powder but then rain which caused a crust to form on top... It did have its good days and I am sure had I gone to Stowe it would have been much better.
 

KevinF

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I haven't skied Outer Limits in 20 years. I skied it a few times back then, probably when I had no business being on it. I do remember that it does have some legitimately steep sections.

Do they still occasionally groom out Outer Limits? I remember a while back they started grooming Outer Limits every now and then.

I don't remember Little Dipper, but, I used to ski Gun Barrel. Outer Limits is similar. However, the bumps on Outer Limits are bigger than any I have ever seen.

I remember from the times that I've skied Outer Limits that the bumps are big, which is surprising as it's such a wide run. The bumps down the left side of Stowe's Starr are the biggest ones I've skied regularly in the Northeast. A combination of the relative narrow-ness and the left-leaning fall line combine to suck everybody into one section.

I've never skied Devil's Fiddle.
 

ScottB

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They do flatten OL occasionally. I skied it earlier this season and it was completely flat, must have just groomed it and they were blowing snow on it. I don't know why the bumps get so big on it, but they certainly do. I don't think they make snow on Devils Fiddle, so its not open and skiable nearly as often. Kind of like Shockwave next to White Heat at SR. I actually prefer Shockwave because they never groom it as opposed to White Heat which they flatten quite regularly. White Heat is not nearly as steep as OL in my judgement.
 

Ogg

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They do flatten OL occasionally. I skied it earlier this season and it was completely flat, must have just groomed it and they were blowing snow on it. I don't know why the bumps get so big on it, but they certainly do. I don't think they make snow on Devils Fiddle, so its not open and skiable nearly as often. Kind of like Shockwave next to White Heat at SR. I actually prefer Shockwave because they never groom it as opposed to White Heat which they flatten quite regularly. White Heat is not nearly as steep as OL in my judgement.
I had one of my worst ski experiences ever on a groomed OL. Nobody was skiing it but I decided to try it anyway so I could say I skied OL that weekend. It was boilerplate. I went down and lost a ski and slid for what felt like half the run. I had to make my way over to the soft snow in the roped off area under the lift to climb back up to retrieve my ski. I then gingerly made my way down to the bottom. I'm sure this was good entertainment for the people riding the lift and I would like to think I got some sympathy for being young and stupid.
 

mdf

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I'm sure this was good entertainment for the people riding the lift
...and in the lodge with those big slope-facing windows.

The very first time I ever skied Outer Limits was before winch cats, back when the moguls really were the size of volkswagons. I think I fell on every single mogul. It took me the better part of an hour to get down.

At the bottom I dragged myself into the lodge. A mountain-hippy-looking guy sitting in the window turns to me as I come in the door and says "Nice run, man."
 

Ogg

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...and in the lodge with those big slope-facing windows.

The very first time I ever skied Outer Limits was before winch cats, back when the moguls really were the size of volkswagons. I think I fell on every single mogul. It took me the better part of an hour to get down.

At the bottom I dragged myself into the lodge. A mountain-hippy-looking guy sitting in the window turns to me as I come in the door and says "Nice run, man."
That is back when OL got it's rep. I have been trying to find an old "Outer Limits, stop the brutal grooming" T-shirt or sticker for a while but nobody has produced them for a long time.
 

mdf

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There was a period in the late 1980's or early 90's when they groomed OL every Monday and then left it alone, resulting in prime moguls over the weekend. I discovered this when my friend and I decided to go up and ski M-T to avoid the crowds.
 

Ken_R

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This is the steep part of the Birds of Prey course at Beaver Creek. It includes a few flat benches that you can and will launch off :roflmao: Also the WNW aspect doesnt help at all. The top part can get scraped by the wind. This was my testing ground to see if a ski can hold an edge.

Screen Shot 2021-04-08 at 9.49.37 PM.png
 

Wannabeskibum

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I haven't skied Outer Limits in 20 years. I skied it a few times back then, probably when I had no business being on it. I do remember that it does have some legitimately steep sections.

Do they still occasionally groom out Outer Limits? I remember a while back they started grooming Outer Limits every now and then.



I remember from the times that I've skied Outer Limits that the bumps are big, which is surprising as it's such a wide run. The bumps down the left side of Stowe's Starr are the biggest ones I've skied regularly in the Northeast. A combination of the relative narrow-ness and the left-leaning fall line combine to suck everybody into one section.

I've never skied Devil's Fiddle.
Yes, they do groom outer limits. Devil’s Fiddle is steeper in spots than OL but the pitch is not as sustained. They made a lot of snow on OL this year. The Fiddle opened on natural snow and I skied it in February. It is a great trail. The trick to skiing OL well is breaking the run into thirds - essentially the upper section, mid section, lower section. A lifetime of skiing OL has enabled me to ski @SSSdave ’s favorite Dipper run at Heavenly.
 

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