# time spent riding versus sitting on chairlift?



## Jaa (Oct 31, 2011)

So I borrowed my sister's GPS watch and took it riding for a day. For our midwest local hill with 300 foot vertical, I was clocking in only 1 min of actual snowboarding versus 5+ min of chairlift riding. Yes, it only took 1 min to get frmo top to bottom where I'm at. To get an hour of actual snowboarding in I would have to do 60 runs at my local hill over and over again.

How many minutes do you other guys get riding a typical run where you live versus time spent chairlifting? Just curious if I should shelf snowboarding as a hobby for now until I move somewhere with real mountains.


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## Memphis Hawk (Dec 26, 2011)

At my closest mountain it's 10 minutes to the top, and you can go anywhere from 8 minutes - 30+ minutes of straight snowboarding, depending on how crazy you wanna get with your path. They don't have any boundaries so as long as you stay on the front side of the mountain you will either wind up at the lift again or somewhere within 10 miles of it. haha


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

Around here its more measured by vert per day. And it depends on the hill, the chair, snow and crowds. We've varied from 22k to 70k vert in a day.

So you get a generous 1k of vert for 3 runs....at 22k = 66 laps x 5 min = 5.5 hours on the lift and at 70k = 210 laps x 5 min = 17.5 hours on the chair...i'd say ur fooooked til you get to a bigger hill.


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## john doe (Nov 6, 2009)

Do you have fun snowboarding? If you answer yes then it is worth it. If you hang up the board until you get to a better place then you are bypassing time when you could be getting better at riding.


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## slyder (Jan 18, 2010)

I agree with John Doe our local hill is similar, very short, hard packed and crowded. Riding is riding. If I can get really good in these kinds of conditions, I will truly have a blast when I get to a great hill.

Plus I have gone so much I know the times to avoid if I choose. I have be able to hot lap 15 or 20 runs at times that the crowd is way down. That truly is fun and tiring.

Ride what you have and make it fun. I know you did this to just see the time up/down but don't dwell to much on it. I've meet some new friends, great people, and it is time I spend with my kids.

Jaa where do you ride sounds awfully close to home...


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

Lift time should include waiting-in-the-line time. At Seymour, I can get down Mystery in 3 minutes, and it takes about 10 to go up. That sounds bad, but at Grouse for instance you have to add in 3/4 hour waiting in the line on weekends. The Seymour lineup very rarely gets past 20 minutes, and that's only for an hour or two around noon.

Even at that, when the lineup gets too nutz (like yesterday), I just find a park feature or jump that I want to work and start hiking it for my laps.


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## grafta (Dec 21, 2009)

Donutz said:


> At Seymour, I can get down Mystery in 3 minutes, and it takes about 10 to go up.


I ride the same place as Donutz, sure it's small, and you _can_ bomb it in 3 mins... but if you get creative you can find a lot of features within that small space.

It'll improve your riding and you'll have more fun. If you ride with people who go straight down, ditch em and go find some features to hit.

(keep in mind I do feel your pain, riding hard pack isn't as much fun)


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## ThunderChunky (Oct 1, 2011)

About a minute for me. It's 600 vert and this lift ride is about ten minutes.


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## hikeswithdogs (Sep 23, 2011)

Welcome to riding in the Midwest , do whatever it takes to spend your winters in the west as soon as you can.


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## SimonB (Oct 13, 2010)

Donutz said:


> Lift time should include waiting-in-the-line time. At Seymour, I can get down Mystery in 3 minutes, and it takes about 10 to go up. That sounds bad, but at Grouse for instance you have to add in 3/4 hour waiting in the line on weekends. The Seymour lineup very rarely gets past 20 minutes, and that's only for an hour or two around noon.
> 
> Even at that, when the lineup gets too nutz (like yesterday), I just find a park feature or jump that I want to work and start hiking it for my laps.


Are you really saying that you wait 45 minutes in line BEFORE getting your ass on the chair lift?? I hope the ride down is worth it...

At my local hill (750 ft., 15 min. drive) the ride up takes 5-6 min. on a good day. 10+ on week-ends due to group lessons (and newbies that falls and make the chairlift stop). I can bomb down in less than a minute. But it usually takes 3 to 5 minutes (depending on trail selection) playing around or more if hitting the park.

And I don't think I've ever waited more than 10 minutes at the bottom, even on big week-ends.


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## grafta (Dec 21, 2009)

SimonB said:


> Are you really saying that you wait 45 minutes in line BEFORE getting your ass on the chair lift?? I hope the ride down is worth it...


Donutz was talking about Grouse mountain, it's easily accessed via public transit from Vancouver downtown and gets really busy (so i've heard).


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

grafta said:


> Donutz was talking about Grouse mountain, it's easily accessed via public transit from Vancouver downtown and gets really busy (so i've heard).


Yeah, I have 2 sets of friends who have family passes to Grouse. They've both independantly said to me that they just don't bother with midday weekends at all.


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## timmytard (Mar 19, 2009)

Here is a run I did @ Hemlock Valley resort, I went almost directly under the chair lift, so my route down was pretty direct. 
Untitled on Vimeo
You can get some way longer & steeper runs if you venture out of bounds though.

TT


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

SimonB said:


> Are you really saying that you wait 45 minutes in line BEFORE getting your ass on the chair lift?? I hope the ride down is worth it...


As grafta said, that's not my mountain. And no, I don't think it's worth it on Grouse. I find the runs to be generally wide, flat, and featureless.


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## SimonB (Oct 13, 2010)

Well, I didn't mean you personally, but more like "people paying 60$ to stand in line 45 minutes". Plain ridiculous if you ask me...


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## LuckyRVA (Jan 18, 2011)

Rode Elk Mtn in PA yesterday which has about 1,000 of vert. Probably took me about 2 mins to go directly from top to bottom down underneith the lift. Maybe twice that if I crossed the mountain. I didn't pay attention to the time it took to go up but Elk has some seriously slow lifts...I wouldn't doubt if some of the longer lifts take more than 10 mins.


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## easton714 (Dec 28, 2011)

SimonB said:


> Well, I didn't mean you personally, but more like "people paying 60$ to stand in line 45 minutes". Plain ridiculous if you ask me...



Err...base lift at Keystone on Saturday had a wait of a solid half-hour. Several others on the front were close. The back was better (10 minutes or so)...but you had to wait in that first one once just to get to the back.

Lift tickets there are $100 (ish).

At A-Basin on Friday, I never waited once and rarely even shared a chair with anyone.


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## Bock_E (Dec 14, 2011)

My home is a small place called elm creek if anyone's heard of it it's pretty much a small terrain park with about 20 features and two tow ropes. I get a twenty second run and a thirty second rope tow and I'm ready for another run Hahah it's just crazy the amount of laps I get in in a day though!


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## Leo (Nov 24, 2009)

I try not to focus on these things. I also take my sweet as time going down our local hills. Occasional quick bombers sure, but mostly not. Press here, side hit there, box here, jump there...

A sign of a true lover of this sport is one that makes due with what they have and still has a ton of fun.

David Z, his friend Brad, Sabato, and myself rode a 450vert local hill in a steady mist of rain for the entire day the othe week and we all had a blast.

Sure, we could have bitched and moaned about the rain (we kind of did), but instead we saw empty runs, good company, and some sort of snow under our boards. 

If I'm riding, I'm happy.


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

SimonB said:


> Well, I didn't mean you personally, but more like "people paying 60$ to stand in line 45 minutes". Plain ridiculous if you ask me...


You'll get no argument from me.


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## CheeseForSteeze (May 11, 2011)

I dialed in so many tricks at Snow Creek near my parent's house, it's just north of Kansas City, MO. 300 ft vert. They do what they can and their terrain park crew works hard and they love it. It shows because the usual crowd are super cool, vibing, good times all around. They actually have some gnarly riders there, lotta kids crossing over from the skating scene in that area.

A mountain is what you make it, though yea, it'd be nice if the season was longer.


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## KIRKRIDER (Mar 18, 2008)

No lines worth mentioning in Kirkwood, one of the reasons I love it there, but the chairlifts are ANCIENT. They have one speed quad...the rest is very slow, old and prone to stop. Always be ready with something to do on that chair...say a long safety meeting for example.


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## Sick-Pow (May 5, 2008)

Snowolf said:


> Or rappelling gear! I was stuck riding the old blue chair at Meadows last night. It's slow but the main problem is it has a steep unloading ramp that 90% of the snowboarders can't handle and 50% of the skiers yard sale on so it fucking stops frequently for 3-5 minutes. Took me a half hour to get to the top on one run and that fucked me out of 2 runs before closing. I am not a fan of heights but I was seriously thinking about jumping from that fucker last night!!!


Sounds like our chair 4 at loveland....except the old chair just threw them down the ramp so far, no one has to wait.


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## Efilnikufesin (Oct 8, 2011)

Snowolf said:


> Damn you guys need some high speed quads! At Meadows our longest lift is about a mile long and typically takes 5 minutes if running full speed. From the top of Cascade at 7300 feet to the bottom of Hood River Meadows at 4900 provides 2400 vertical and depending on route, nearly 3 miles.
> 
> When the lift lines are stupid like on weekends and holidays, I splitboard instead.


High Speed quads rock! I hate going to places at this point that don't have a high speed quad. Need to take some avalanche courses though so I can head up to hit some of the slides in the Adirondacks. Envy you guys out in the PNW with that terrain though.


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## MarshallV82 (Apr 6, 2011)

I grew up in Deadwood, SD with Terry Peak as my local mtn, it was pretty painful.. 1100 vert feet, but the longest run there was maybe 2 mins if you just cruised it. They now have two high speed quads and a old red chair that takes forever, so it's not too bad for a small ski hill. 

I live in summit county now, ride mostly at Keystone. I hate slow lifts.. There's a couple runs at keystone I like but only hit once or twice a day because I hate the slow lift. 

I remember last year I went to ski copper and went up some slow chair during a blizzard, I swear I had 6 inches of snow on us before we got to the top. 
was a fun day though!


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## timmytard (Mar 19, 2009)

Snowolf said:


> Or rappelling gear! I was stuck riding the old blue chair at Meadows last night. It's slow but the main problem is it has a steep unloading ramp that 90% of the snowboarders can't handle and 50% of the skiers yard sale on so it fucking stops frequently for 3-5 minutes. Took me a half hour to get to the top on one run and that fucked me out of 2 runs before closing. I am not a fan of heights but I was seriously thinking about jumping from that fucker last night!!!


But you would have caused a catastrophic cable derailment, causing hundreds of deaths.

TT


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## tAo77 (Oct 14, 2010)

Bock_E said:


> My home is a small place called elm creek if anyone's heard of it it's pretty much a small terrain park with about 20 features and two tow ropes. I get a twenty second run and a thirty second rope tow and I'm ready for another run Hahah it's just crazy the amount of laps I get in in a day though!


Ha! Elm Creek is about 25 mins from me! I've never ridden there, I usually head west to little ole Powder Ridge, the original home of Bjorn Leines and Dan Briesse- great riders can come from our little midwest bumps!


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## PanHandler (Dec 23, 2010)

the mountain i ride has a high speed 6 chair so it really isnt that long up, and i can spend about an hour going down the mountain if i want.


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## Pipes (Jan 30, 2012)

your pretty lucky, my local "hill" if you can call it that, takes probably 5-8 minutes depending on the line, and maybe 20 seconds to get down... its a joke. im hoping to move out to whistler after high school though


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## jello24 (Apr 10, 2010)

my local mountain, Cypress, takes around 5-10 mins on the chairlift up, and 1-3 mins on a blue run down, depending if you're cruising or faster if you're pointing it straight downhill. No lineups when I go, which is weekday nights, so you can just keep lapping and not have to worry about the chairlift ride.

If you cruise on one of the long green runs, usually get 3-5 mins on the ride down, depending on how mellow your cruise is, which is great on a clear, moonlit night.


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## LJLLJL (Mar 6, 2011)

2 min up with a drag lift, 20-40 s down depending if I'm trying to carve or hitting jumps. But it's close to me, no lift lines or need to wait my turn for the jump and ~20$ day pass, so it works for me...


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## Sincraft (Sep 6, 2010)

I try to get at least 25 runs in a day when I go, on an easy day maybe 15, more hardcore maybe 40. I'm only about 50 mins away. Small vert of 500-750'. Speed lifts help. But ya that ratio is about right


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## Death (Oct 21, 2010)

Hot laps baby, hot laps. I just came back from a mountain trip where I was riding like 8-20 minute runs, this is great and all but I get in like 10-15 runs a day.

At my local small hill I put in runs under a minute, when riding park, this is so much more practice. I do tons of runs in a day and it's much more exhausting, even if I'm riding the chair that much more. These small hills don't usually have chair lineups, all they need is some express lifts :thumbsup:


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## newguy36 (Feb 23, 2010)

My hill has a 500 foot vertical. If I'm trying to get down as fast as possible it takes me about 2 mins to get down. To get to the top it takes 5-10 mins(depending on lines, and how often the lift stops)


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## ClevelandSB (Dec 4, 2010)

the longest run at my local hill is .1 miles

yes point one miles


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