Saturday, November 8, 2003

Completed my reservations for NIPS this afternoon. Besides the great program, and the workshop where we are giving a talk, there might be a bit of skiing. I'm staying an extra two days in Whistler hoping for a repeat of last year, when an unpromising warm spell gave way to major storms, cold and outstanding powder turns at the season opening of Harmony bowl. If I am really lucky, I might be able to get my first Whistler backcountry tour this time. Last year it had been too warm and the new snow was too unstable. 9:51:44 PM

Excellent NY Times article about Web sites with information about ski trips. [Scripting News] I don't know about excellent. It's not bad, but the sites mentioned are for the most part pretty thin. I do like Orbitz for last-minute travel. But for detailed lodging, guiding, equipment, and conditions info, search is essential as most hub sites are so shallow. An exceptional hub site is snow-forecast.com, which gives much more detailed weather info than is available from the main weather sites (although some more specialized sites are also very useful for local conditions; even if you don't go into the backcountry, their information is more specific and accurate than that put out by resorts and local boosters). 10:35:14 AM