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How would you describe a cable car ?

 Poster: A snowHead
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I agree with GrahamN absolutely no chance there's a piste with a 60 degree section on it. Maybe the backside of a scraped mogul for 50cm or so but not an actual slope.
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Swirly wrote:
I agree with GrahamN absolutely no chance there's a piste with a 60 degree section on it. Maybe the backside of a scraped mogul for 50cm or so but not an actual slope.


Just checked it 58' not 60' oh, well whats 2' between you and the bottom wink

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Wayne, that sign says % making it just under 49 degrees: still pretty steep but nothing like 60.


Edit but I'll leave my mistake in above as it's a common one.

100% is 45 degrees so 58% is more like 29 degrees. I thought 49 seemed a bit too steep for a piste (let alone 60). That would be standard black run fare. I can't think of anything that's 58 degrees around, possibly some of the 5.5/5.6 descents are and I imagine there's a lot of unskied stuff in Peru that is and maybe some in Alaska but it's going to be rare around here.


Last edited by Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see? on Wed 10-03-10 16:35; edited 2 times in total
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are you boys never tired of comparing size? Shocked
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Wayne, Pretty sure that pic is showing incline PERCENTAGES not degrees, although it's hard to make out. They are two very different things.
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Swirly wrote:
100% is 45 degrees so 58% is more like 29 degrees. I thought 49 seemed a bit too steep for a piste (let alone 60). That would be standard black run fare.


If I am wrong then I will change the website - so I really would like to know.

But I don't understand how 100%=45'

I assume that o' is nowt and 90' is pointing up.

Hang on a min I'll load up photoshop

back in min
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Wayne, to calculate percentage gradient you divide height change (Y) by horizontal distance (X) and multiply by 100. A 45 degree slope has the same vertical change as horizontal so X=Y and Y/X * 100 equals 100.
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Wayne, a 1 in 1 slope (1 meter horizontal and meter vertical ratio) would be 100%, and would form an angle of 45 degrees as part of a right angled triangle

edit - a 2 in 1 slope (2 meter horizontal and meter vertical ratio) would be 50 %, and would form an angle of 30 degrees as part of a right angled triangle (I think)
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Road gradients are quoted as rise divided by horizontal distance. 100% is 45 degrees: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gradient . Pointing up is infinity.

degrees = arctan(%/100). So 58% = 30.11 degrees
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Quote:

So 58% = 30.11 degrees



So 29 was a pretty good estimate off the top of my head then Cool Laughing
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Right then wink
This is what I mean (again, I may be wrong and if I am I will change the site)

this is my ideas of degrees

Puzzled



If thats right then that run "is" 60'. I have picked up loads of skis on that run and carried them down to people a few hundred meters down the hill Toofy Grin Toofy Grin , it "is" steep

That run used to be a world cup run and a few years ago the FIS were running race on it.
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I suggest that rather than picking up skis next time you pick up an inclinometer.
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Swirly wrote:
I suggest that rather than picking up skis next time you pick up an inclinometer.


one like this Puzzled

http://etc.Top left: User facilities =>.edu/clipart/42000/42073/supp_120-60_42073_lg.gif
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
something like that, you can get compasses with them on or BCA make one for using directly on the slope. They're a pretty good bit of kit for off piste safety: knowing the exact angle of a slope can help make judgement on its stability.


If there was racing on this piste then I assume it was pisted. Given the Hari-Kiri in Mayerhofen is touted and accepted (many posts on here) to be the steepest in the world as at 38 degrees is the steepest thing a basher can be winched up how does this sit with your piste being 60 degrees?
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I have watched the bashers being winched up it each night. The driver of one jumps out and drags a winch cable down to another one lower down. The top one then drags up the cable from the winch of the lower one. This cable is tied round a tree and the lower basher drags itself up the hill. Then it plays out the winch as it reverses back down again for the next run up.

I have assumed that I'm wrong (Mrs Wayne is nodding her head) and have changed the new website to say
Almost 60%
Toofy Grin
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You can say 60% if you want (as long as it is 60%) but 60% does not equal 60 degrees.
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60 degrees is way steeper than a household staircase, more like a loft stepladder. It's darned nearly two units up for each unit across - so it's a lot! You would not be able to walk down it in ski boots.

Surely a physics professor shouldn't be having this trouble with %, arctan, angles etc..
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Randomly, can someplease tell me what 70% in degrees is?
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clarky999, 35.
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34.992 (approx)
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Cheers.

I skied (what was advertised as) a 70% couloir the other day, it felt VERY steep, and a fall would mean sliding to the bottom. Puts the videos of people skiing 50+ degree stuff into a bit more perspective...


Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Wed 10-03-10 19:38; edited 1 time in total
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Swirly, FWIW I agree with your interpretation - it's immediately what I thought for a 100% gradient
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GrahamN wrote:
Surely a physics professor shouldn't be having this trouble with %, arctan, angles etc..


Never was a proff. Just a plain old boring lecturer (if they had offered me anything more I'd still be there Sad )

Think you missunderstand what I was/am doing.
Am making a ski website for tourists. not snowHead 's who may have slightly more knowledge about skiing than an average client. So Iam trying to write it like that.

To me - from my basi courses I always though that slope angles were messured in degrees of angles (where as here everyone says different). Seem to recall I gave some answer on the written paper on the off-piste course in degrees and got a tick for it.

But I would still say that most people are more likely to understand what 60' means (OK I know this is 175%) rather than 60%

But if ski slopes are done in %'s then it's fine by me - website has been changed.
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Wayne wrote:
To me - from my basi courses I always though that slope angles were messured in degrees of angles (where as here everyone says different). Seem to recall I gave some answer on the written paper on the off-piste course in degrees and got a tick for it.

In England I think we're more used to thinking about slopes in degrees, or even as 1 in x (although this is less appropriate for steeper slopes). On the continent they probably think more about % (their roadsigns have been in % for lots longer than ours), so there may be a cultural difference there. But as this is marketing, 60% probably sounds more impressive than 30 degrees.

Quote:

But I would still say that most people are more likely to understand what 60' means (OK I know this is 175%) rather than 60%

[pedant mode]
60' is 60 minutes of arc = 1 degree, not 60 degrees, so 1.75%
[/pedant mode]
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Wayne wrote:
GrahamN wrote:
Surely a physics professor shouldn't be having this trouble with %, arctan, angles etc..


Never was a proff. Just a plain old boring lecturer (if they had offered me anything more I'd still be there Sad )

Think you missunderstand what I was/am doing.
Am making a ski website for tourists. not snowHead 's who may have slightly more knowledge about skiing than an average client. So Iam trying to write it like that.

To me - from my


why not say "a steep black that has hosted world cup races...."
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What's a "high millage skier"? Is it 1 who skis over the top of the water-wheel?
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Quote:

slope angles were messured in degrees


When they have the degree sign afterwards they are lol, but when they have the % after then then they're not! Laughing
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Butterfly, NO NO NO seperate coners for the the lot of you Evil or Very Mad
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Travelled up in the ancient and tiny 4 person gondola from La Praz with some very superior Brits. One of them said "This gondola has all the structural integrity of a fairground ride; any moment now I expect some Romany will come and start spinning us round." Nuff said, about the gondola, and him!
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Slope angles are normally measured in degrees, Wayne, it was you who introduced a figure in % by introducing that sign and talking about 60º instead of %. Change it back to degrees, which people understand. Percentage slopes just get used so it sounds more impressive. The 38º run mentioned would be its steepest part, not an average.

There are very few black pistes over 30º, in fact many, perhaps most, European resorts don't have anything that steep. If you are an expert off piste skier you may ski 40 or 45º slopes. Anything over 45º is for extreme skiers only. You couldn't walk on slopes like that and snow won't stick on slopes over 60º, it just falls off. If you think any slope you walked on was over 45º you are just wrong (it is extremely scary to be on a slope that steep with skis off - even with your hands on the snow and boot tips dug in). If you ever ski a 45º-50º slope with a guide he will tighten your bindings so the release cannot work, because losing a ski could be fatal.

I reckon this couloir might be as much as 40º (notice how we are looking down on the guy, out of the 3, who is skiing)
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A six person carriage attached to wires that the Americans like to use to demonstrate their flying skills.
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Frosty the Snowman wrote:
Wayne, A cable car - Like the big thing that they jumped from in Where Eagles Dare



There is one just like it at Macugnaga,Italy.

Was checking it out for Ice axe marks on the way up. Madeye-Smiley
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snowball, the Fly Paper at Glencoe was inclinometer measured at 48 degrees during an avalanche stability pack test a couple of weeks ago.
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I guess this is what they call thread drift, or going off at a tangent!!
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Christ that's awful Megamum, lol
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Megamum, you worked a nice angle there wink perhaps a bit obtuse though
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Quote:

60 degrees is way steeper than a household staircase, more like a loft stepladder. It's darned nearly two units up for each unit across - so it's a lot! You would not be able to walk down it in ski boots.

GrahamN I can walk down my loft ladder when I'm in my skiboots. Easy! Laughing
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Quote:

I reckon this couloir might be as much as 40º (notice how we are looking down on the guy, out of the 3, who is skiing)


Although when you point the camera up or down a slope you mess with the perspective, so it looks either steeper or less steep. You can only get a true perspective of it when the camera lens pointing straight (and level) at the slope.
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clarky999, True, that slope looked a lot steeper in life than it does in the photo, but if there are elements which are vertical or horizontal (rock strata, people etc) it can give a bit of an idea. However, having the camera level isn't enough.

This couloir was about the same steepness but it looks almost vertical here.

moffatross, yes, I've skied it a few times and I'd have guessed it could be 45º but luckily it is extremely short, so falling all the way down (as you do if you fall) isn't too catastrophic.

Tiger2, Ho, ho. Try walking up a really hard, wind-scoured Scottish 45º slope, though. I only had to go up about 5 feet and it took me about 5 minutes


Last edited by You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net. on Thu 11-03-10 15:53; edited 1 time in total
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clarky999 wrote:
Quote:

I reckon this couloir might be as much as 40º (notice how we are looking down on the guy, out of the 3, who is skiing)


Although when you point the camera up or down a slope you mess with the perspective, so it looks either steeper or less steep. You can only get a true perspective of it when the camera lens pointing straight (and level) at the slope.


Well what about this one, then? This is from the same holiday as the pic posted above by snowball:



Here's what it looked like when actually skiing it, half-hour after the pic above. It's probably c. 40 degrees, maybe with a 45 degree section towards the exit.

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