Loveland "blues"

[BigE]

Having heard many folks say things like "Ontario blues are like Quebec greens", and Quebec blacks are Western blues, I found the video of HH skiing most interesting.

I checked the on-line trail maps and noticed that the video that skisynergy provided of HH carving the last drop on NIX NOX is a blue square.

Are all the blues at Loveland pitched like that? Is that representative of Colorado blue squares?

Thanks!

[Thor]

I skied Vail quite a bit. "Blue squares" are pretty mild. I skied Alta, Deer Valley, Whistler and most blues were not that different (within 5 degrees from each other i'd say). Even small resort blues are similar. I found that the real differences begin when you go to black diamonds. Places with less steep terrain tend to promote black diamond to double black diamond so they can say they have at least some expert terrain. My experience is that greens and blues are rather similar. Blacks and double blacks are not. In a small place in MI ( I think it is named Mount Bohemia) they have short triple black diamond runs: steep runs with a cliff band to jump I am told. When you go to Europe my friends tell me that black runs there are more difficult than ours but almost none of them is a true double black runs for US/Canadian standards nevertheless. Plus my friends tend to get drunk so I do not trust them too much with their judgement.

[Rusty Guy]

I would say Nix Nox is typical of our blue runs, however, on the steep end of the scale. I'm not good at judging degrees of pitch. I haven't looked at the video, however, Nix Nox is usually bumped up by mid season since I have never known it to be groomed.

Hope that helps.

I would add I have skiied a bit around Ontario and never found their rating system to be that different from ours.

[jclayton]

My experience in Europe is that double black diamond runs don't exist on trail maps . They are all lumped together in the " off piste " catergory . some are called " itineraries " i.e. marked off piste runs . In France they are graded according to pitch,access and distance from the pisted runs . There are some quite good little books for many resorts , a bit like Squallywood .

[BigE]

I would say Nix Nox is typical of our blue runs, however, on the steep end of the scale. I'm not good at judging degrees of pitch. I haven't looked at the video, however, Nix Nox is usually bumped up by mid season since I have never known it to be groomed.

Hope that helps.

I would add I have skiied a bit around Ontario and never found their rating system to be that different from ours.

Thanks Rusty, that really helps alot!