Whaleback Saturday 1/24

Headed up with 2 friends knowing time was limited by an evening event I had down in Mass last night.
Coverage good on open trails, grooming was horrendous. Possibly the worst ive ever seen. So inconsistent....decent tilled pp followed by sheer ice/stones then hardpack. Tough to get into a good rhythm. They had more open than I expected though so a bit of variety was nice.
Decent crowd but all Core kids...hardly anyone just free skiing like us.
Lift kept stopping/running slowly which added a touch of frustration.
Did about a dozen runs then went to the bar.
Bartender says groomer has been broken a lot this season which doesn't help given their late start and weak snowmaking system.
They were blowing on the Face and should have that open soon.
This next storm will be awesome for them and should get them 100% open.
Not a bad day as was nice to hang with some buddies and the beer was cold but conditions pretty rough.

Core kids?

bdfreetuna said:

Core kids?

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http://www.whalebackcoreteam.com/about.html

It's good that Evan is still involved with Whaleback. I hope he has another opportunity coach an Olympian.

I haven't been over since last week and they only had the fans on Lower Face, were they working on Upper with the ground guns?

Too bad about the conditions but Mother Nature has not been very nice to them considering the limited tool bag! Hopefully they will get some love this week!

Newpylong said:

I haven't been over since last week and they only had the fans on Lower Face, were they working on Upper with the ground guns?

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They had 2 ground guns running sort of halfway up...not Upper Face more in the middle. Then they were using that big portable fan gun below those.
Big whales at top that look like they just needed to be groomed out.......this storm should open everything but I wonder if they aren't trying to groom those whales today so its flat for tomorrow's storm.

Skiers right has less coverage as it looked like snowmaking had only occurred on the left side

Last night was epic. Showed up for ~ first chair around 3 PM skied until 4:30.

Blowhole was first run, big mistake. Not in shape for that.

Cardigan Mt. kids were tearing it up. Some good skiers.

Skied pretty much the whole East Side. Nothing on West Side open - Patrol prob didn't want to open anything without lights for one hour.

Face should be open soon once they groom out the mounds. Guns were set up on Scrimshaw.

Whaletail has been widened in anticipation of that becoming another beginner run down from the top.

Newpylong said:

Whaletail has been widened in anticipation of that becoming another beginner run down from the top.

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Good to hear. This was needed. Did they widen the entire trail, or just sections?


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Great to hear they are busy. Nice!

Savemeasammy said:

Good to hear. This was needed. Did they widen the entire trail, or just sections?


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The entire trail from the top right through Scrimshaw to the bottom. It still needs to be stumped and leveled, but the width is there.

I questioned why this move with Iron Run already a beginner route with lights and snowmaking. Apparently there are issues with the pipes, half the lights didn't work when they tried them last year, and there are water runoff problems in two places that cause huge glaciers. The mountain feels short term it would be easier/cheaper to scavenge water pipe to lay on Whaletail and put poles in with lights than to play wack a mole on Ivory.

I hope long term the West side gets some TLC, it is practically abandoned at this point. From a business perspective it is tough to blame them though, they have to spend any available funds at the core issues and core routes first.

100% agree about the west side. Not even a big deal if they have lights over there IMHO but at least open a snowmaking route there.
To me Jonah's Revenge seems like the best approach.

Yep, I need to ask what shape those pipes are in besides lacking hydrants.