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The 2013-2014 Ski Season Thread


Skivt2

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SR's commitment to snow is unparalleled at this point.  That is why almost every other mountain in NE is reporting half or less of their trails open and SR is close to 70%.

When American Ski was in their heyday and owned Killington, Snow, S'loaf and SR, then CEO Les Otten committed to making SR the flagship resort  and their reputation has held serve through the years even though ownership has changed. Back in the day I vaguely recall talk of American Ski offering to financially split the infrastructure improvements needed to blow out Route 27 and expand the Carrabbassett airport to make Sugarloaf the jewel of the east but the state of Maine vetoed that proposal. (Thankfully b/c SL is just fine the way it is)

Ironic b/c when SL was founded in the 60's the original plan had been to blow out the Bigelow range across the valley from SL and make it the "Aspen of the East".   Again, thankfully did not happen, (although it would have been epic) because imo Bigelow range is one of the best ovenight hikes E of the Rockies.

http://www.newenglandskihistory.com/cancelledskiareas/Maine/bigelowmtn.php

 

 

bigelow_range.png

 

 

Their is an Alpine pond that sits between "The Horns".   Gorgeous, with campsites a few hundred feet away.  They actually back pack in trout to stock the pond in the summer!

 

Bigelow_Range.jpg

Love how when you turn a corner and boom there it is
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Wait mtns are gonna stop making snow in late January, that is normal behavior

They rent the majority of the compressors they use. The lease is up by February vacation week. After that there is very little snowmaking. People in the flatlands think ski season is over once the fen vacation week is over. People in the know at Killington say half the compressors go back at the end of January. After that they can run 120 guns or make snow on two trails at a time. Two weeks after that snowmaking is essentially done. Not to say they couldn't make some here or there. The scary thing is how much "fixing" they have had to do vs building up a glacier on superstar. Everyone's hoping they start cranking up the guns night and day on that trail but they need to try to keep recovering and making trails safe. Things need to turn around with natural snow soon. We have no snow at all in the woods and natural trails. A whole lot of people are going to be crammed onto the snowmaking trails this weekend. Usually by this weekend the hard core skiers can avoid the main snowmaking trails by skiing the woods/natural trails but this weekend everyone will be on the limited terrain. White ribbon of death still in mid January. Sad

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They rent the majority of the compressors they use. The lease is up by February vacation week. After that there is very little snowmaking. People in the flatlands think ski season is over once the fen vacation week is over. People in the know at Killington say half the compressors go back at the end of January. After that they can run 120 guns or make snow on two trails at a time. Two weeks after that snowmaking is essentially done. Not to say they couldn't make some here or there. The scary thing is how much "fixing" they have had to do vs building up a glacier on superstar. Everyone's hoping they start cranking up the guns night and day on that trail but they need to try to keep recovering and making trails safe. Things need to turn around with natural snow soon. We have no snow at all in the woods and natural trails. A whole lot of people are going to be crammed onto the snowmaking trails this weekend. Usually by this weekend the hard core skiers can avoid the main snowmaking trails by skiing the woods/natural trails but this weekend everyone will be on the limited terrain. White ribbon of death still in mid January. Sad

This is what people don't realize, great post,

Part of the reason everything is skiing off so fast is that expert terrain/natural is still roped off. Magnifies the problems on other trails.

All that snow making that's been aimed at a core group of trails just to keep that status quo is normally being turned way down by now. Come mid February when even places like sR normally back down on snowmaking.... It could get tough if we continue to have mild intrusions and rainers

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This is what people don't realize, great post,

Part of the reason everything is skiing off so fast is that expert terrain/natural is still roped off. Magnifies the problems on other trails.

All that snow making that's been aimed at a core group of trails just to keep that status quo is normally being turned way down by now. Come mid February when even places like sR normally back down on snowmaking.... It could get tough if we continue to have mild intrusions and rainers

Back up to 87 trails fYI

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those who dont ski and arent on the snow shouldnt post too confidently about future ski conditions

Sunday river in maine is probably doing best thanks to snowmaking abilities

Interesting insight wrt resorts and snow making times, instead of base building they are repairing, and yes trails over crowded on snow making trails only. Ya resorts "are fine"

Also as adk mentioned , nice that the Quality of the snowpack is fill'd w a sheet of solid ice. Too those who dont ski, maybe good for "snow pack fetish", awful for skiing.

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those who dont ski and arent on the snow shouldnt post too confidently about future ski conditions

Sunday river in maine is probably doing best thanks to snowmaking abilities

Interesting insight wrt resorts and snow making times, instead of base building they are repairing, and yes trails over crowded on snow making trails only. Ya resorts "are fine"

Also as adk mentioned , nice that the Quality of the snowpack is fill'd w a sheet of solid ice. Too those who dont ski, maybe good for "snow pack fetish", awful for skiing.

watch the video, you should go up, its only an hour from Conway, screw Attitash

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Also Messenger look at the video here, Tin Woodsman is all natural , its open, they retained a lot of snow, one or two good storms and the woods will be back open. Its not VT

http://www.sundayriver.com/winter/mountain-report

 

I think the “All Natural Skiing” on Tin Woodsman is a bit misleading – presumably it’s referring to the type of terrain vs. the type of snow, because you can see the fairly dense array of tower guns along the left side of the trail right there in the photo.  I guess it depends on what aspects of skiing the “All” encompasses, maybe all aspects of the terrain and surroundings (actually not even the surroundings with all those tower guns dotting the landscape) but the snow really shouldn’t be considered natural if it’s coming from guns.

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How is the snow making ability at Smuggs, and how are the conditions for this weekend?

 

Smuggs snowmaking is OK.  They definitely rely on natural snow more than Stowe nearby, and  they definitely don't have capacity like Stowe- and the main runs off Sterling have not been getting resurfaced as they're working on the Madonna side.  Yesterday skied better than a few days ago (which was atrocious before the 3-4" we picked up).  Hopefully this weekend can deliver some snow and improve conditions.  In any event, get out early before the snow gets pushed around into snow islands in the frozen granular sea.  

 

If you want to ski for nothing, I'm staying at the Smuggs village right now, and have extra tickets that are gonna go to waste.  PM me if interested.

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I think the “All Natural Skiing” on Tin Woodsman is a bit misleading – presumably it’s referring to the type of terrain vs. the type of snow, because you can see the fairly dense array of tower guns along the left side of the trail right there in the photo. I guess it depends on what aspects of skiing the “All” encompasses, maybe all aspects of the terrain and surroundings (actually not even the surroundings with all those tower guns dotting the landscape) but the snow really shouldn’t be considered natural if it’s coming from guns.

They were blowing snow on TW two weeks ago when I was there. Hardly natural. There are few fully natural trails open.

Dump a foot or two on the mountain and I will be right back up there. Until then will be doing other things or day trips.

I will be happy when the mess of the last three weeks is deep under natty cover

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I was talking with a guy at the local bump last night.  He thought the operators of the mountain had to pay a fee based on the amount of water they used for snowmaking...they have a pond at the base of the mountain that they draw at least some of their water from, and they lease the land from Massachusetts.  Is it normal for the state to charge for snowmaking?

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I was talking with a guy at the local bump last night. He thought the operators of the mountain had to pay a fee based on the amount of water they used for snowmaking...they have a pond at the base of the mountain that they draw at least some of their water from, and they lease the land from Massachusetts. Is it normal for the state to charge for snowmaking?

Depends on their agreement. Sr I think has to watch water levels in the river. They take 10 million gallons to make the snow they make during the core of the season.

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Depends on their agreement. Sr I think has to watch water levels in the river. They take 10 million gallons to make the snow they make during the core of the season.

I just found this:

Snowmaking on the Mountain
Snowmaking guns along the ski trails pump 100 million gallons
of water in a typical ski season. About 40 million gallons of this
total came out of Wachusett Lake in the first year of operation.
And this amount barely taps the limits set by the water-use
contract. This water is said to be actually “rented” by the ski
area, since the majority of it ultimately returns to Wachusett Lake
– slowly melting and percolating downhill through most of
springtime. The entire ski trail network is engineered to detain
water and allow it to soak into the surface as much as possible –

to recharge the groundwater supply

 

100 million gallons???   I guess there is a water use contract...

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Also Messenger look at the video here, Tin Woodsman is all natural , its open, they retained a lot of snow, one or two good storms and the woods will be back open. Its not VT

http://www.sundayriver.com/winter/mountain-report

Do you know how much natural they have on the ground? And that Tin Woodsman trail looks lined with HKD Tower guns...I have a hard time believing they didn't turn those on and that's au natural.

We still have natural snow trails open and have had 100% of our snowmaking terrain open for like weeks now. There comes a point when you can't open more until it snows. We've been back to each trail like three times. Problem is Mansfield has a lot of good "real" expert terrain that requires the natural snow stuff... but like you said in your post, one or two good storms and a lot of places will open the woods up. It's not like it's bare ground in VT. There's still 1-2 feet on the ground depending on elevation. It's just not our usual 3-5 feet haha.

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Like when Sunday River did that bit for the folks from the UK

Yep that was a perfect example. I bet you anything they would not have made snow if it wasn't for that piece of business they collected from other ski areas who though the costs out-out weighted the revenue. But it was a genius marketing move because now people bit it that they'll make snow in April if they need to, nevertheless forgetting they made snow on beginner and low end intermediate terrain (which is not the market that time of year, except for the British kids).

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