Stowe Snowmaking

drjeff · Nov 24, 2015

da pimp said:
The Vermont Ski Area Association was struggling with trail count validity, since there were so many different ways of naming trails or sections thereof. Many areas complained of unfair practices. So they researched a little bit and decided that the typical trail or section of trail with a name was comprised of about 5.6 acres. Then they took the total skiable acreage divided by 5.6 and that was the new trail count, overnight. It was an attempt to level the field and give the public a slightly fairer approximation of size and availability of terrain. I do not know if the 5.6 acres is still the standard today, probably is since the VT areas I ski have had stable trail counts over time. If you had a lot of skinny trails like Sugarbush you did not fare as well with the new math as Mt. Snow with many wider trails. Although the savvy skier/rider will point to the many tasty slender trails at the bush as an example of how the new count system missed the mark. Someone like Killington came out well, since they had a combination of wide highways and narrower winding trails. Their count went up from 108 to over 200 overnight.

This happened around the mid-90's, not sure the exact year. Someone with a pile of old trail maps can figure it out.

The simple, honest answer is to report # of trails open, miles those trails cover and acres that make up the trails.

80 trails could be a whole variety of things from ski area to ski area. 25 miles of terrain or 300 acres of terrain should be fairly similar from resort to resort, especially mid season when some wide trails should be skiable full width (which can effect the skiable acreage of a trail if it's in WROD mode as opposed to mid season coverage

tumbler · Nov 24, 2015

MadMadWorld said:
I don't know how much it helps them. If someone falls on the lower part of Goat, you still have to get a sled down National. Pick your poison I guess

They also use the snowmaking hydrant numbers for specific location on trail.

jimmywilson69 · Nov 24, 2015

Patrol may use the hydrant numbers, but the large majority of skiers aren't looking at and reporting that the hydrant number when there is an accident. Lift tower numbers are likely more widely used on slopes with lifts.

Smellytele · Nov 24, 2015

jimmywilson69 said:
Patrol may use the hydrant numbers, but the large majority of skiers aren't looking at and reporting that the hydrant number when there is an accident. Lift tower numbers are likely more widely used on slopes with lifts.

Never really have noticed hydrant numbers before.

rocks860 · Nov 24, 2015

thetrailboss said:
This in from Stratton--also impressive:

This is crazy, I drove by Stratton on Sunday and didn't see any snow at all on the mountain

Tin · Nov 24, 2015

drjeff said:
I can't wait until next year when Mount Snow comes fully online with their West Lake snowmaking project. They'll go from the current 6,000 gallons a minute pumping capacity to almost 12,000 gallons a minute pumping capacity and from roughly 20 million gallons of water storage capacity to 120 million gallons of water storage capacity!!! It's going to take what is already a very solid snowmaking system and really make it one of the "big boys" in New England!

That is pretty amazing. In a rough fall such as this or to get back open after a melt down they could have a quarter-third of the mountain open in what? 48 hours?

da pimp said:
The Vermont Ski Area Association was struggling with trail count validity, since there were so many different ways of naming trails or sections thereof. Many areas complained of unfair practices. So they researched a little bit and decided that the typical trail or section of trail with a name was comprised of about 5.6 acres. Then they took the total skiable acreage divided by 5.6 and that was the new trail count, overnight. It was an attempt to level the field and give the public a slightly fairer approximation of size and availability of terrain. I do not know if the 5.6 acres is still the standard today, probably is since the VT areas I ski have had stable trail counts over time. If you had a lot of skinny trails like Sugarbush you did not fare as well with the new math as Mt. Snow with many wider trails. Although the savvy skier/rider will point to the many tasty slender trails at the bush as an example of how the new count system missed the mark. Someone like Killington came out well, since they had a combination of wide highways and narrower winding trails. Their count went up from 108 to over 200 overnight.

This happened around the mid-90's, not sure the exact year. Someone with a pile of old trail maps can figure it out.

I do think it is helpful for ski patrol and in early season conditions. It can be used for good and for marketing. If a person is actually willing to read the trail report by trail it helps, places like Killington can say "Downdraft Headwall" is open but not all of Downdraft. If you look at K's interactive map (which I believe most do), it just shows all of Downdraft open which is BS. The same goes for when Superstar Headwall is open, people look at the map, see SS open, and think "Oh yea! Superstar is open! I heading up!". All in how it is used.

slatham · Nov 24, 2015

If different sections of trails are operated differently - groomed vs ungroomed, or snowmaking vs not, or expert vs intermediate etc then it makes perfect sense to have different names. While there are some abusers of this, most areas do a pretty good job.

Also, except for the very uninitiated, who looks at just trail count vs acreage, miles of trails, vertical and just plan reading a trail map!

WWF-VT · Nov 24, 2015

da pimp said:
The Vermont Ski Area Association was struggling with trail count validity, since there were so many different ways of naming trails or sections thereof. Many areas complained of unfair practices. So they researched a little bit and decided that the typical trail or section of trail with a name was comprised of about 5.6 acres. Then they took the total skiable acreage divided by 5.6 and that was the new trail count, overnight. It was an attempt to level the field and give the public a slightly fairer approximation of size and availability of terrain. I do not know if the 5.6 acres is still the standard today, probably is since the VT areas I ski have had stable trail counts over time. If you had a lot of skinny trails like Sugarbush you did not fare as well with the new math as Mt. Snow with many wider trails. Although the savvy skier/rider will point to the many tasty slender trails at the bush as an example of how the new count system missed the mark. Someone like Killington came out well, since they had a combination of wide highways and narrower winding trails. Their count went up from 108 to over 200 overnight.

This happened around the mid-90's, not sure the exact year. Someone with a pile of old trail maps can figure it out.

I never heard of this as a way that VT areas determined trails counts, but I do know that Stowe went from the orginal 48 to 100+ trails strictly based on marketing.

RISkier · Nov 24, 2015

The whole trail count thing is just so much fluff. Stowe has seriously upped snowmaking over the last few years, however. Ten, 12 years ago they were really lagging. Now, they can lay down a lot of snow and recover from bad weather events pretty dang quickly.

Stowe Snowmaking

drjeff

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tumbler

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jimmywilson69

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Smellytele

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rocks860

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Tin

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slatham

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WWF-VT

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RISkier

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