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The 2016-17 Ski Season Thread


Skivt2

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9 hours ago, qg_omega said:

snowiest winter in 10 years at Whiteface with 272 inches

homepage_0.jpg?itok=YIEdZeuN 

Yeah so many powder days.  I mean I still can't get over it when I go look through my daily photos...just how many days had significant snow on the hill.  Finally the season we were waiting for.  Every upslope event seemed to work out well and we got the right breaks in synoptic events.  

Had it not been for the 2-week thaw there in late Feb/early March this might have challenged some snow depth records.  We lost four feet of snowpack and then gained it all right back.  Had that thaw not happened we easily would've cleared 10 feet of depth and probably could've gotten to 140" or so.

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6 minutes ago, Albert A Clipper said:

so the weekend of 4/23, you're only running the quad? how many trails do you anticipate?

Very hard to say.  Right now I'd say all of them off the Quad but who knows as a lot can melt in that time.  Even if we torch for a week straight I bet we would have all of the snowmaking trails still open.  We always keep grooming the Gondola trails too and open from Rim Rock down so you still access 1,200 verts of those trails.  

 

 

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In the UP (Marquette) right now, surprisingly no snow on the ground except patches in woods on north facing slopes. I hasn't snowed in this area since March 1 according to a local. I stopped at the US Ski HOF and they informed me that this year's induction ceremony is happening right now at Stowe. 

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37 minutes ago, Angus said:

In the UP (Marquette) right now, surprisingly no snow on the ground except patches in woods on north facing slopes. I hasn't snowed in this area since March 1 according to a local. I stopped at the US Ski HOF and they informed me that this year's induction ceremony is happening right now at Stowe. 

Yeah busy week around here with that.  The induction ceremony is Saturday at the Vermont Ski & Snowboard Museum in Stowe Village but there have been events in town and at the ski area the past few days.  

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On ‎4‎/‎5‎/‎2017 at 11:49 AM, qg_omega said:

snowiest winter in 10 years at Whiteface with 272 inches

homepage_0.jpg?itok=YIEdZeuN 

Nice to see the upper mountain looking good.  That used to be a terror trail way way back, before Lake Placid 2.0.  At one point a writer/reviewer for one of the ski mags made a few turns and was so spooked (mainly by rocks and stumps) that he sidestepped back and rode the chair down.  Of course, that was when NY had no money to spend on maintenance there.

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On 4/7/2017 at 9:23 AM, ORH_wxman said:

Wednesday actually might be kind of cold...Mon/Tues will be the torch days.

Just saw that, wont be refreeze temps though and the precip amounts for Tuesday are looking much lower. Ill take that over t shirt skiing.

The 8-12+ yesterday will help in delaying some melt for the NVT areas. I was amazed a few weeks ago when Magic got 4" on a Sunday that helped preserve most of the base during a week of 50s and 1.5" of rain. When the 3/31-4/1 system put 12" down the whole mountain was open again. Amazing what a little snow can do.

 

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Unlike anywhere in Vermont...there is only one playground like this.

Just buried.  This is so filled in.  A new round of trees disappears with each storm.  Off duty ski patrol was getting consistent 16" readings on top of the freezing rain crust from Thursday.  The upslope on Friday night was huge.

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Just an awesome day at Cannon, the bottom of half of mountain got very soft but I skied the upper half the vast majority of day and the snow stayed nice. Also went over to Mittersill and enjoyed very much. Just a blue bird day with soft snow

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I wonder what percentage of passholders make use of the multi-mountain access that the conglomerates provide?  I would guess it's fairly low.  I could see how a conglomerate might be able to squeeze productivity gains by centralizing operations across resorts, but I don't completely buy the argument that independent ski areas should be tremendously pressured by the consolidation that is occurring.   Note this is yet another cash sale to a Colorado based firm... 

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29 minutes ago, radarman said:

I wonder what percentage of passholders make use of the multi-mountain access that the conglomerates provide?  I would guess it's fairly low.  I could see how a conglomerate might be able to squeeze productivity gains by centralizing operations across resorts, but I don't completely buy the argument that independent ski areas should be tremendously pressured by the consolidation that is occurring.   Note this is yet another cash sale to a Colorado based firm... 

I think multi-mountain options don't get used a whole lot unless there are multiple choices within reasonable driving distance.  In the East, it's more when a family buys a pass they like having a western mountain to go to when they take that February vacation out west.  

However, the multi-mountain passes pray on human instinct that more options is better.  Even if they don't use it, there are a lot of people who just like knowing they can.  That happens in tons of industries where people may not branch out from a product but they enjoy knowing they could if they wanted to.  Almost like behavioral economics says given similar price points, people will default to what they perceive to give them the best value (which is almost always the larger volume option).  Whether they use it or not, they perceive multi-mountain passes as a better deal.  

I think independent ski areas will need to change their playbook as over time they will struggle to compete.  It's happened in every industry pretty much, from grocery stores to even ski manufactorers (like Armada getting purchased recently) to whatever...consolidation is often the next economic step.  

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3 hours ago, powderfreak said:

I think multi-mountain options don't get used a whole lot unless there are multiple choices within reasonable driving distance.  In the East, it's more when a family buys a pass they like having a western mountain to go to when they take that February vacation out west.  

However, the multi-mountain passes pray on human instinct that more options is better.  Even if they don't use it, there are a lot of people who just like knowing they can.  That happens in tons of industries where people may not branch out from a product but they enjoy knowing they could if they wanted to.  Almost like behavioral economics says given similar price points, people will default to what they perceive to give them the best value (which is almost always the larger volume option).  Whether they use it or not, they perceive multi-mountain passes as a better deal.  

I think independent ski areas will need to change their playbook as over time they will struggle to compete.  It's happened in every industry pretty much, from grocery stores to even ski manufactorers (like Armada getting purchased recently) to whatever...consolidation is often the next economic step.  

Fair point about perceived value vs realized value.  I think Vermont skiers might behave somewhat differently than your average consumer... a 'buy local' style campaign might be relatively successful for the Mom and Pop style operations, guess we'll see.

 

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22 hours ago, NECT said:

SL was incredible today. Snow was soft, but never turned to sloppy mush. Don't know why, because it was stupid warm. Waiting to see if tomorrow is too wet to bother buying a ticket. Legs hurt...almost hoping for rain.

Low humidity and pack with some life in it still.

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On 4/10/2017 at 9:12 PM, NECT said:

SL was incredible today. Snow was soft, but never turned to sloppy mush. Don't know why, because it was stupid warm. Waiting to see if tomorrow is too wet to bother buying a ticket. Legs hurt...almost hoping for rain.

Nice man that's an incredible day. Low dews are vastly underrated 

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The partnership of Colorado-based Aspen Skiing Co. and KSL Capital Partners, a private equity firm, is buying Mammoth Resorts, which operates Mammoth Mountain and June Mountain in the Eastern Sierra, and took over Bear Mountain and Snow Summit in the San Bernardino Mountains in 2014.

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1 hour ago, Ginx snewx said:

The partnership of Colorado-based Aspen Skiing Co. and KSL Capital Partners, a private equity firm, is buying Mammoth Resorts, which operates Mammoth Mountain and June Mountain in the Eastern Sierra, and took over Bear Mountain and Snow Summit in the San Bernardino Mountains in 2014.

Vail picks up Whistler-Blackcomb and Stowe. Aspen picks up Squaw/Alpine, Steamboat, Stratton, Winter Park and Mammoth. 

Its like watching the Yankees and Red Sox draft their teams haha.  

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