This site is useless without pics.

I think this is where I differ with a lot of people...

I mean, I never have qualms about sharing my favorite locations to ski, I love to spread the amazing places I have found with everyone. In all honesty, I have never had a problem with parking or crowds anywhere. I mean if there are people, go farther. I disagree with the fact that things "grow exponentially." Think back to all the amazing places people have showed you over the years. We are fortunate to live in a range with endless mountains and infinite lines.. I don't think word of mouth could possibly change that. I grew up in Utah, a place with a fraction of the skiable area, and I do lot of ski touring in LCC and even with the explosion that place has seen, I rarely had issues about running into other people on tours.

Ever since moving here five years ago I noticed a "don't tell anyone about this" mentality. I guess I feel like a lot of the cryptic text here supports that mentality. I would gladly give gps coordinates and raw data for every single foto I have shot.. and I don't think it would in the least affect my manhood or my daily quality of skiing.

oh, and the title of this thread is based on a commonly said expression that is posted in other forums when no pics are included. I'm not that much of an ass.

Well Powherb, I think the TGR trip report you linked to also had pictures of cars and girls and who knows what else. I think that is what people associate with TGR rather than just a graphical representation.

But there does seem to be a trend toward less pics and even secrecy on location around here that is probably less mystical and more related to not wanting to fight for parking and share a slope with hordes of people. The nice pictures of our favorite lines usually invite groups of people to show up the next day use the skintrack and then its popularity grows exponentially with new readers of the site, word of mouth, people bringing their friends to a new place that someone else brought them. I don't know if it's good or bad but it is a factor.

Well your manhoods your own business, but those are good points about the secrecy thing. Like I said I don't know if they are good or bad just a factor. It's almost legend around here about how the slot gets skied more due to reports here. Also, I think avy conditions this year maybe an influence. People probably don't want to say "Hey look at me on this 40 degree slope" when there are fatalities happening.

Just giving you a hard time, as I'm sure you can tell. You hurt my feelers with your tele remarks.

I've certainly done a fair share of discovering locales on this site and have, in turn, explored other spots just because I saw them on a map, or from a lift, etc. I hear you on the secrecy aspect, though it's the skier's prerogative on how much to share about "their" favorite spot. Personally, I rarely go out and feel like I'm crowded in by other folks, but I'm pretty laid back about how much that really impacts the quality of my day.

That's a whole different kettle of fish though, than your original topic about pictures, except in so much as you can't glean someone's location by their photos. The truly secretive wouldn't post anything but pictures of their boots.

Seriously though, look at the last three TRs by leelau -- they've all got pics in them. Sure, if it were TGR he might have put up a lot more photos, but personally I like the mix. Your shots on TGR are great and I'd love to see them here, distilled to your "top picks" and accompanying your thoughts on the day, however short.

I simply don't understand the "fear" of the TGR scene and all that and how that is connected with photos. I just want a jpeg of some conditions of a route you skied in August. What is with this status-quo of not posting pictures is what I am asking.?

TAY has a different tone than TGR. People who have participated here a long time like this difference, but they aren't sure why it exists. So they are reluctant to change anything. Limitations on photos have been in effect since the beginning of TAY (although the guidelines are so loose now that I can hardly see any reason to loosen them more). This policy has (probably) resulted in TAY being a more literate and less pictorial site. One nice benefit is that there seems to be more discussion on TAY than some other sites. There tends to be a nice back-and-forth between the people who initiate threads and the respondents.

Contrast this with other sites in which trip reports consist of an avalanche of pictures sprinkled with mindless prose (the message being, essentially, "Top this you maggots!") and the responses are equally mindless variants of "Dude, you rock!" or "Dude, you suck!"

My sense is that there is only so much information that people are willing to deal with on a webpage. We have limited time and attention. If you fill that space with pictures, then you're squeezing out words. It causes the discussion to be dumbed down.

Ever since moving here five years ago I noticed a "don't tell anyone about this" mentality. I guess I feel like a lot of the cryptic text here supports that mentality.

That mentality is not exclusive to this site. It may be a pacific northwest thing. I also participate in a pnw motorcycle forum, and the "don't tell anyone" mentality is huge there, as well. People actually get flamed for posting up "secret" twisty roads. As if Delorme or google maps haven't found those roads, yet. :

Being a regular participant at Telemarktips, I got the "joke" in the thread title right away. I respect the civility of TAY and its members; the language and tone at TGR doesn't appeal to an oldie like myself. However, I am a much better photographer than writer. I do feel limited on TAY when I return from great days in the mountains and have to pick 3 shots out of the 100 decent pictures of the day's adventures. I appreciate good prose, but most of us can not write as well as Markharf did when he reported on his trips.

btw what is so hard about hitting the spell check button?It is right there besides the Post button. It really irks me to see two sentence posts with half a dozen spelling mistakes. ???