Recently I looked at hotels in Breckenridge Colorado for my trip out west this early September (for hiking and acclimatization purposes, not skiing). But now, occasionally when I just surf the web there will be ads for Breckenridge resorts/vacations, mostly obviously centered on skiiing.
But one of the ads shows a skier with the tagline “There’s a new cookie in town”. My first thought of course was that they were displaying a shocking honesty in how they were determining what ads to serve me. Then I thought, perhaps “cookie” is a skiing term. But perhaps they also could still mean “hey, let’s be honest, we know you want to go to Breckenridge because of your browser history, we can’t lie.”
Googling tells me that “cookie” perhaps is a skiing term. If so, what is it and how popular a term is it?
I don’t know about “cookie”, but we do have “death cookie” (got the list below from e-mail some years ago - not my original work):
Skier’s terms for snow:
avalanche - a large mass of snow falling uncontrollably down a mountainside.
black ice - snow so dense, one can see clear through to the ground, or pavement.
blizzard - a fierce snowstorm with high winds and large snow accumulation.
boilerplate - snow packed so densely it resembles ice.
bottomless - fresh powder so deep skiers need a snorkel to breathe.
bulletproof - snow so hard it can withstand a gunshot
champagne - super-light, fresh snow that makes skiers want to pop their corks.
chowder - broken, chunky powder whose lumpy consistency is reminiscent of a bowl of New England clam soup.
corn - loose kernels of snow, usually found during late spring; poor man’s powder.
cornice - an overhanging mass of snow good for jumping off and breaking one’s neck.
corduroy - barrel-groomed snow that creates a feeling reminiscent of skiing across Paul Bunyan’s pant leg.
crud - thick, broken snow especially dreaded by timid, thin-thighed skiers.
crust - a hard, icy layer of snow just brittle enough to give way, cutting skier’s shins as they trip and fall.
death cookies - nasty ice chips frozen to the snow surface, often left behind grooming machines.
duff - loose, light snow, heavier than fluff but lighter than mashed potatoes.
dump - a hefty, fresh snowfall, usually of a foot or more.
dusting - an immeasurable snowfall, resembling powdered sugar sprinkled on a cookie.
drift - a high bank of snow sculptered by the wind, usually with the aid of a tree, boulder, or ledge.
flake - the basis of everything on this list.
fluff - a.k.a. powder; fresh snow with consistency between champagne and chowder.
flurry - an all-too-brief, paltry snowfall; a teaser.
graupel - snow that falls in small, roughly-spherical pellets.
hardpack - resilient, aged snow, may be called packed powder at Eastern ski areas.
kneedeep - fresh fallen, more than 6 inches but less than 2 feet deep; a sound often heard from excited powder toads.
mashed potatoes - wet, heavy snow so thick a shovel will stand up in it.
mogul - snowy bumps; what weak knees are made of.
mush - melting snow wetter and usually found in melting ruts.
packed powder – ski area term for anything but fresh snow.
powder - light, fresh-fallen snow with the fluffy consistency of lemon meringue; the stuff ski dreams are made of.
sastrugi - hard, wavy, wind-blown snow, resembling a whitened version of the Sahara Desert, described by Robert Falcon Scott during his expedition to the South Pole.
Sierra cement – heavy wet dumpage resulting when Pacific storms reach California’s Sierra Nevada, then frozen solid overnight.
sleet - airborne slush.
slop - melting spring snow intermingled with water puddles.
slush - watery snow, more suitable for a 7-Eleven Slurpy than a ski hill.
untracked - virgin snowfall not yet attacked by powderhounds.
white stuff - colloquialism used by inarticulate TV weathermen.
What was the ad for? The only thing I got is that Frontier Airlines is based in Denver (fly to Denver to reach ski destinations) and they took over Midwest Airlines, known for serving chocolate chip cookies on its flights. If Frontier started flying between your city and Denver recently, I could see that ad making sense. Otherwise, when I googled “new cookie in town” all I got were things related to girl scout cookies.
Been skiing for 35 years and never heard of it. However, at Breckenridge it’s not uncommon to be waiting in the lift line at the base of the mountain and have folks from the lodge come out to serve the skiiers piping warm chocolate chip cookies while they wait. Maybe that’s what the ad was referring to.
I’ve also heard the term “dead cookies” for little biscuits of ice that form on the surface in freeze-thaw conditions. The only place I’ve heard it was in Canada, though.
Oh, man…that reminds me of Riccochet Trail (Chair 9) at Mammoth…except I never fell…instead, I had 2 miles of this condition to ski through where the icy crust was consistently hitting me 6 inches above the top of my boots and I only had on a pair of levis between my shins and the crust. Couldn’t walk in the stuff, so I just gritted my teeth and took it like a man…a sobbing little bitch of a man.
::::Hijack:::: last time I was in the Rockies, in Rocky Mountain National Park, I was walking on your average wilderness trail and these two completely insane trail runners come barreling down the trail around me. I say insane not because they were at a full on run at 9000+ feet several miles into a trail but because they were running around a curve full of fist-sized rocks wearing just sneakers and they didn’t even break stride.
Update: It turns out that it was the chocolate chip cookie thing, since DoubleTree is known for giving out excellent chocolate chip cookies when you check in. They don’t always do that anymore but when they do they are still excellent. If you are offered one, take it and eat it as soon as possible since they are best when warm.
I didn’t know that at least way back in 2012, people were already sometimes offering cookies to people at Breckenridge during ski season, so if the people who made the ad knew that, then maybe they were referencing that as well.
At 3:00 in the afternoon at Beaver Creek resort, a little further West from Breckenridge, they serve free warm chocolate chip cookies everday during ski season at the base.
That’s the only reference to cookies and skiing that I’m aware of.
