mount snow

[skiing is life]

:blink:not making snow this week? you have a perfect window until friday night and you tell us go buy some beanies!? hell, you even going to get 1-2 inches tonight to top it off! why?! you let me down big time:angry:. im sure im not the only one. thoughts? comments?

 

[thetrailboss]

I understand the frustration, but none of us can control the weather. Ra*( in the forecast for Thursday, Friday, and maybe Saturday up in Northern Vermont.

 

[Euler]

I'm as bummed about the delayed opening as anyone, but with this forecast for later this week I can't blame Mt. Snow for choosing not to blow snow this week:

Thursday: A chance of freezing rain and sleet before 10am, then a chance of rain. Cloudy, with a high near 39. Chance of precipitation is 50%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible.

Thursday Night: Rain likely. Cloudy, with a low around 34. Chance of precipitation is 70%.

Friday: A chance of showers. Cloudy, with a high near 50. Chance of precipitation is 50%.

Friday Night: A chance of showers. Cloudy, with a low around 35. Chance of precipitation is 50%.

Saturday: A chance of showers. Cloudy, with a high near 48. Chance of precipitation is 40%.

Saturday Night: A chance of rain and snow showers. Cloudy, with a low around 30. Chance of precipitation is 40%.

Sunday: A chance of rain and snow showers. Cloudy, with a high near 39. Chance of precipitation is 40%.

 

[deadheadskier]

I'm not surprised at all. I'm surprised Sunday River and Killington have invested as much as they have so far in opening for short stints. Given the current economic climate, who knows what the money season from Christmas to Presidents week will bring.

Let's all hope for a final dive into colder temps next week and several areas open up for the 22nd. Perhaps it's the River and K again this weekend. Last year was the exception, not the norm. I'll gladly wait a couple of extra weeks now if it means skiing to May.

 

[TheBEast]

Given the current economic conditions patience will pay dividends. I'd rather wait to ski than have them make snow, watch it wash away and then have to skimp at some other point in the season because money is tight. Just good financial discipline. That Halloween snow was such a tease!!

 

[drjeff]

:blink:not making snow this week? you have a perfect window until friday night and you tell us go buy some beanies!? hell, you even going to get 1-2 inches tonight to top it off! why?! you let me down big time:angry:. im sure im not the only one. thoughts? comments?

It's all about the humidity and the temps. While they will have windows of solid below freezing temps the next few nights, the air's got some moisture in it too, which will greatly hurt production. Combine that with the start/stop that would happen do to daytime temps AND the liquid precip forcasted from probably Thursday afternoon through mid/late weekend, and it's not going to happen for this weekend.

While the good cold air is close, the jetstream is basically going to be right over VT in close to a South to North orientation for most of the next week or so based on projected models, which unfortunately will have just enough of a moderation effect on temps AND increasing the humidity that Mount Snow's latitiude disadvantage will come into play.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

I guess I'll be driving to Killington..

 

[BigK]

Killington is a hour away from having a solid 24hrs of snowmaking in. Guns went on at midnight last night.

 

[deadheadskier]

Killington is a hour away from having a solid 24hrs of snowmaking in. Guns went on at midnight last night.

Hope they have a great weekend

 

[jerryg]

Guns are back on at Sunday River and while they lost a ton of snow over the 6 days they have been open this year, it won't have a negative impact on their spring operations. Boyne doesn't operate that way.

As for Mount Snow, I don't think it's a bad move. Presumably they figured they couldn't get enough of a window to get open and stay open and therefore it would be a poor investment. Both SR and K thought they'd opened for the season during their last attempts, but K couldn't control the warms temps and SR couldn't control the NCP downpours that just so happened to NOT be in the forecast. We all want to be on the hill, but Peaks seems to have made some really great moves up to now. I think they are most likely playing this one correctly as well.

 

[deadheadskier]

Guns are back on at Sunday River and while they lost a ton of snow over the 6 days they have been open this year, it won't have a negative impact on their spring operations. Boyne doesn't operate that way.

I certainly hope so, but in these uncertain times, I'd be hesitant to make that bold of a statement regarding anyone's business operations. If billion dollar banks can go belly up in six months time, it's kind of difficult to state what spring operations might be like for a relatively tiny business like Boyne. Not saying this to be a Debbie Downer because I truly love what Boyne is doing for New England skiing and I wish them all the best. I guess I just feel the horizon for all business predictability has shrunk such that it can only be looked at or measured in terms of weeks, not five/six months out.

If the weather holds okay, I may be up on Sunday to buck down some money, support Boyne and enjoy the River

 

[Vortex]

DHS, its about the attititude with Boyne. 1st resort to open and last to close with the family of resorts. The weather shows some NCP, but not like last weekend. The pass and realestate base sees what is taking place. Fuel cost have dropped as well. Takes a bit of the bite out. You should come up Sunday. C 4 yourself.

I think Mt snow is doing the correct thing. They don't have a snow base to build from and its further south. Sometimes no matter how much work you do, you have to play the hand your dealt with. K had a 16 hour start on Snowmaking yesterday over the River. Sr would have started earlier if they could. Do what you can when you can.

 

[Glenn]

Given the current economic conditions patience will pay dividends. I'd rather wait to ski than have them make snow, watch it wash away and then have to skimp at some other point in the season because money is tight. Just good financial discipline. That Halloween snow was such a tease!!

x2.

I'd rather see them wait. Yeah, I'd love to be up there this weekend. But holding off now, means they'll be able to make more snow later. Like if there's a bit of a dry spell mid winter...at a time when the temps are consistantly cooler.

 

[skiing is life]

i never thought id say this but...looks like im going to killington this weekend:sad:

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

i never thought id say this but...looks like im going to killington this weekend:sad:

Nothing to be sad about..they could have a decent amount of open terrain with all the great round the clock snowmaking..

 

[deadheadskier]

DHS, its about the attititude with Boyne. 1st resort to open and last to close with the family of resorts. The weather shows some NCP, but not like last weekend. The pass and realestate base sees what is taking place. Fuel cost have dropped as well. Takes a bit of the bite out. You should come up Sunday. C 4 yourself.

I think Mt snow is doing the correct thing. They don't have a snow base to build from and its further south. Sometimes no matter how much work you do, you have to play the hand your dealt with. K had a 16 hour start on Snowmaking yesterday over the River. Sr would have started earlier if they could. Do what you can when you can.

oh, definitely understand the attitude, it was quite apparent the times I was at the river early season and late April.

 

[vcunning]

:blink:not making snow this week? you have a perfect window until friday night and you tell us go buy some beanies!? hell, you even going to get 1-2 inches tonight to top it off! why?! you let me down big time:angry:. im sure im not the only one. thoughts? comments?

We got spoiled by some very good early season weather patterns last year.

My wife and I usually start our Vermont ski season around Thanksgiving. We've been doing this for the last 25 years (it also avoids the politics of which side of the family we have to visit):-D.

Last year, we started skiing on November 10th Out of our 25 years, 3 of them, we got rained out (the worst one was when we were living in NYC and drove to Sugarloaf. It was raining in Sugarloaf and we're watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on TV where it's sunny).

And on one of those years, there was so much snow, there were power outage problems (and thus lift problems) and we ended up playing cards in the base lodge for most of the day (I believe that was at Stowe). We've skied Killington on Columbus day (there was hiking and mud involved if I remember correctly) and gave up after 4 runs.

My expectations are a little lower (although all our equipment was ready to go on November 1st). If I get decent runs in December, I'm very happy.

 

[drjeff]

We got spoiled by some very good early season weather patterns last year.

My wife and I usually start our Vermont ski season around Thanksgiving. We've been doing this for the last 25 years (it also avoids the politics of which side of the family we have to visit):-D.

Last year, we started skiing on November 10th Out of our 25 years, 3 of them, we got rained out (the worst one was when we were living in NYC and drove to Sugarloaf. It was raining in Sugarloaf and we're watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on TV where it's sunny).

And on one of those years, there was so much snow, there were power outage problems (and thus lift problems) and we ended up playing cards in the base lodge for most of the day (I believe that was at Stowe). We've skied Killington on Columbus day (there was hiking and mud involved if I remember correctly) and gave up after 4 runs.

My expectations are a little lower (although all our equipment was ready to go on November 1st). If I get decent runs in December, I'm very happy.

Bingo!

Last year, Mount Snow opened after basically a 60 HOUR window of straight snowmaking. While there's no doubt they could have made snow last night, tonight and tommorrow night, the daytime temps these couple of days + lower elevation just wouldn't let them put down enough product to open, and even if they made some snow now, what didn't suffer a demise to the forcasted "immature snow" later this week would end up being incorporated into the surface for when they do open as some big 'ol death cookies

I'm cool with holding off now and having a better, more consistent surface on opening day hopefully later next week

 

[Greg]

i never thought id say this but...looks like im going to killington this weekend:sad:

Just be happy you're skiing...

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Just be happy you're skiing...

times two..It would be nice to drive 17 miles this weekend and ski Blue mountain but instead I'll most likely be driving 330 miles to the Big K..which is once again becoming the beast of the east with their agressive snowmaking firepower..