10 hardest runs in the west.

I don't think anything at Big Sky could qualify, except maybe one of the lines under the tram on a good snow year (Dobie's from the top?). The gullies are like skiing a steep groomer.

I think it really all boils down to what you consider a "run." There's probably 20-30 different named chutes at Bridger that are retardedly technical, but probably don't count as a run in themselves. Same goes with Jackson and a bunch of other places. It's too subjective of a thing to judge, and kind of pointless unless you just want to prove how rad you are for skiing them--no offense.
 
Silverton has got a few spots for sure on this list. Jackson has got some too. Beyond that its a personal preference.
 
I went to Big Sky once, dont remember what the gullies were but there were some real gnar couloirs under the tram but other than that it was pretty damn flat
 
you westerners are such posers coppying our thread. try sking on ice down some of your hard runs... i bet east coasters could do it way better.
 
^honestly, shut up, im sorry but skiing on the east and west are very different, different styles and a lot of other shit changes. What makes the east cost runs hard isnt the same for the west for the most part. Im from the east cost and just because our mountians have shittier conditions doesnt mean that they are harder trails. Its compairing apples to oranges, they are both deliciouse but they taste different and the way to eat them are different. haha sorry i had to throw in the metophore
 
but by the way i do think that the east has just as hard of shit if you know where to look for it (maybe not on the ski mtns though) sorry for the thread jack and tripple post im done
 
the only place on the west coast that i have been scared was chiwawah bowl at a basin, the visibility was terrible, its like 1.5 hours behind the resort, i had no idea where i was, and i could tell it was steep as hell and probably going to avalanche, it didnt, but whenwe got to the bottom of the bowl, there were chunks of snow the size of cars just sitting there....pretty scary, but then you hike out and ski margeree bowl to the bar, margeree is DOPE.

i remember just looking down runs back east and getting the shivers.
 
Corbet's at jackson hole is pretty tough, i watched some people do it last season, im a pretty decent skier, but i decided not to do it in the end lol, alta zero is also intense, you can hit it up after a good dump

 
have any good pics of alta zero by chance? I was looking for one the other day and I couldn't really find much.
 
yeah i going to go with areas

1. silverton CO

2 jakcson hole wy

3 kirkwood CA

4.alta ut

5 Squaw valley ca

for the top 5
 
seriously? i skied the east for the first time last season and it was honestly nothing compared to the west. a double black out there was a 30 degree slope with some moguls. that may be a blue or blue/black out here.
 
if you skied into the canyon from chair 8 its pretty steep, though the traverse around hemispheres would be kinda a bitch.
 
Corbet's can actually be really easy to do, you just have to do it right after a storm, when the winds are blowing all of the snow into it. I have been to Jackson twice, but I haven't been able to do it, because both times it was a solid ice sheet. The easiest way is to do the cliff to the right, and it is usually only 15-20 feet.
 
Thats kinda bullshit, rankings of runs are never legit. Alot of times runs are made black because of a couple trees and mogals and if the resort doesnt have much to offer they might make a run a black just to have a black run etc etc

 
Corbet's is really just a one-move run. If you can air 10-15' then go straight down a pretty mellow powder field then it shouldn't be a problem--it's just a little intimidating from the top.

Alta zero, on the other hand, is a crazy-ass run depending on the snow conditions and line choice. I really wanted to do it this past march, but after getting away with skiing Corbet's 8 weeks after knee surgery I decided against it. However, I don't really think it would make any top ten list of named in-bounds runs.
 
this thread is retarded, i dont even know why im letting it get bumped. Runs? i mean, if we're limiting it to inbounds, I guess Alpental has the steepest in North America, but our backcountry is way better, and if anyone here has ever been climbing in legitamet mountains its pretty clear to see that there are way gnarlier runs out there, not to mention we've got this place called alaska in the west, fairly good ive heard, so pretty much to finish my rant, the west has so many real mountains that it would be stupid to list off good inbounds runs because theres too much to choose from, whereas the east doesnt have very many mountains, so the pitches they find that are good are few enough that they can be put on a list. and we get icy moguls in the west sometimes too and theyre not that bad if you know how to ski so stop bitching.
 
Wild West and Silver City... Two super crazy runs at Sunshine Village, Banff Canada. They usually dont even open them cuz people will die. its some crazy shit.
 
The bunny hill at Snoqualmie Pass West - the vicious 10 degree sidehill leads thousands of beginners off the run to certain doom every year.
 
Nah dude. The gullies are a piece of cake. Big Sky has the Couloir which is pretty intimidating at first but definitely not hard to ski. Some of the stuff at Jackson is pretty sick though for sure.
 
Theres this one run at my hill that was too gnar to build a chairlift for so they put an escalator ramp in instead, and shit, I see at least 100 falls every day on that beast~
 
it all changes by the snow levels. how hard certain runs are can change alot over the course of just one year, some get harder some get easyer. some open up.
 
KT-22 (the whole lift, but mainly fingers, and eagles nest), and the Palisades at Squaw are pretty gnar.
 
I definitely agree, I was younger when I went but even then when I got on the slopes I was like... are you serious? Shouldve gone to moonlight basin but I didnt even know it existed until the last day of the trip heh~
 
VERY good point. Things that are normally easy in the winter under normal snow pack can be easy. But that same run in early season(at least here in Tahoe) can be out of this world hard to ski a line well. Boulder fields with rocks ranging in size from a table to a house(with large gaps here and there) are not easy to ski with little snow.
 
In terms of difficulty, Big sky cannot compare to some of the chutes/runs to be had at Bridger Bowl. It just looks a little cooler in pictures.
 
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