blow torch

drjeff · Feb 26, 2017

snoseek said:
Yes, keep us updated. I was thinking they might wait till after Wednesday.

Anyone ski Wildcat, Attitash or mt Snow today? How bad? Where should I go tomorrow?

Mount Snow was a mixture of bulletproof to death cookies to piles of deep loose granular depending on if it wasn't groomed after the freeze up, groomed once after the freeze up or groomed multiple times after the freeze up - Spent most of my day doing course maintenance work for my son's race on South Bowl, so I was just lapping that and various sections of Ego Alley, Exhibition, Drop and Cooper's Junction below South Bowl.

From what I saw the woods and naturals are done until a good foot plus falls.

From using the drill for setting gates, netting, etc., many times today as we had to reset over 250 yards of B-netting on the side of the race course that blew over in the winds Sat night when the front went through, I can personally attest that on South Bowl atleast there were some areas where the base was down to 6-8" whereas others where the 18" long drill bit I was using never found the ground under the snow!

Sent from my XT1254 using AlpineZone mobile app

joshua segal · Feb 26, 2017

dlague said:
Maybe because they are waiting it out past the rain on Tuesday and Wednesday. Making snow now is possibly a waste of money since about an inch of rain is expected.

...

You might be right, but I would think that this would an opportunity to build some large self-insulating whales near some strategic thin spots where there are no apparent nearby piles of snow to push (such as: Blast Off - i.e. the extension of Pluto's above Moonwalk, the crossover between Magnitude and the runout from Meteor, the top of Super Nova and Comet Drop, etc.) and to push the whales out after the Wednesday rain storm.

The next windows of opportunity to make snow will be Thursday and Friday night; and the 84 hour stretches of snowmaking weather are in the rear view mirror. Hard to imagine passing up a 12 hour window.

Bostonian · Feb 27, 2017

Looking at the weather for Wildcat, it should snow in fits and stops... Plus with their snowmaking, hopefully they will be fine for the remainder of the season. I want to make May turns there for sure.

deadheadskier · Feb 27, 2017

I would be surprised with May turns at Cat. 4/30 is a Sunday. I'm hoping for that, but depending on what the competition does I wouldn't be surprised if they pulled the plug 4/23. Last year was obviously challenging financially, but they did close at least a week prior to the snow running out on Lynx.

Sent from my XT1565 using AlpineZone mobile app

fbrissette · Feb 27, 2017

Jay Peak report for Sunday:

- very icy and bare in windy areas
- icy groomers
- 8 inches of new snow in the glades near the summit, 6 at the bottom. Only the 1st inch was sticky, the rest was awesome

Nice powder lines all day long with the Bonnie being the only lift for most of the day. The woods were excellent if you knew where to go (e.g. NOT canyonland), some of the connecting lines not so much.

All in all, a surprising most excellent day. We won't be that lucky Tuesday/Wednesday I'm afraid.

bdfreetuna · Feb 27, 2017

fbrissette said:
The woods were excellent if you knew where to go (e.g. NOT canyonland)

Haha... I don't know why those woods are always so beat compared to the rest of the mountain

BenedictGomez · Feb 27, 2017

bdfreetuna said:
Haha... I don't know why those woods are always so beat compared to the rest of the mountain

I think it's because Northway is heavily traveled, and it's the first non-difficult glade you come to.

fbrissette · Feb 27, 2017

BenedictGomez said:
I think it's because Northway is heavily traveled, and it's the first non-difficult glade you come to.

Correct. Especially so when the Bonnie is the only lift open. You could skate 45 seconds to gain access to the Ullr pod which was barely skied all day. You were stuck with the unbearably slow metro quad to get back, but that was a small compromise to access untracked snow all day. When you have 6-8 inches of light snow on frozen crust, it does not stay good for long if ti is heavily skied out.

Mostly tourists on Sunday. I lapped Beaver 5 times in a row and had first tracks top to bottom all five times. Very unusual.

snoseek · Feb 27, 2017

At attitash today. Somehow there's still decent base

WWF-VT · Feb 27, 2017

Chase Brook, Fayston, VT on February 18th:

Same location on February 25th....

tnt1234 · Feb 27, 2017

fbrissette said:
Jay Peak report for Sunday:

- very icy and bare in windy areas
- icy groomers
- 8 inches of new snow in the glades near the summit, 6 at the bottom. Only the 1st inch was sticky, the rest was awesome

Nice powder lines all day long with the Bonnie being the only lift for most of the day. The woods were excellent if you knew where to go (e.g. NOT canyonland), some of the connecting lines not so much.

All in all, a surprising most excellent day. We won't be that lucky Tuesday/Wednesday I'm afraid.

Praying for a Jay Cloud miracle for Saturday!

Maybe a little snow following the rain? Or a surprise few inches Thursday night? Come on! One time!

Sunday and monday seem to be tracking more toward spring skiing, which will be fun, and probably will ski Stowe those days - just need some help with Saturday...

oldtimer · Feb 27, 2017

Next Saturday at Jay-- May I recommend a good hand tune?

dlague · Feb 27, 2017

snoseek said:
At attitash today. Somehow there's still decent base

That is because Attitash makes wet snow that firms up real good and as a result melts slower and soaks up less water.

dlague · Feb 27, 2017

Bostonian said:
Looking at the weather for Wildcat, it should snow in fits and stops... Plus with their snowmaking, hopefully they will be fine for the remainder of the season. I want to make May turns there for sure.

I do not recall Wildcat being a regular in the May skiing scene.

Newpylong · Feb 27, 2017

dlague said:
That is because Attitash makes wet snow that firms up real good and as a result melts slower and soaks up less water.

Whenever snow is compacted and compacted again it all becomes the same density. This late in the year it doesn't matter if they laid down base or resurface quality snow a month ago. If they still have a decent depth they either haven't gotten sapped as bad as their neighbors or they had a deeper base to begin with.

cdskier · Feb 27, 2017

Simply unbelievable that the Mt Mansfield snow stake depth has dropped nearly 3 feet in the last 10 days from a high of 102 down to the current value of 68. Doesn't look like the next couple days will do anything to reverse that trend either. I really hope March turns back to winter before it is too late.

Bostonian · Feb 27, 2017

dlague said:
I do not recall Wildcat being a regular in the May skiing scene.

I could have sworn that I skied there in May (like may 3rd or so)... Either way, I am hoping for something...

jimmywilson69 · Feb 27, 2017

Well the Blow Torch killed Ski Liberty in South Central PA. Ski Round Top and Ski Whitetail survived, but It'll be a miracle if they make it to the second week in March.

I'm not starting the Ski Area closing thread yet. It's only February!!!!

fbrissette · Feb 27, 2017

cdskier said:
Simply unbelievable that the Mt Mansfield snow stake depth has dropped nearly 3 feet in the last 10 days from a high of 102 down to the current value of 68. Doesn't look like the next couple days will do anything to reverse that trend either. I really hope March turns back to winter before it is too late.

The mount Mansfield snow stake measures snow height. While a 3 feet drops is of the same magnitude to what I have observed at Jay Peak over natural ground, this is not a net loss of snow. Some of the loss is transfered to a higher density snowpack as snow melts at the top and refreezes further down in the snow column. While this is not good, it is likely not as bad as it may seem.

tnt1234 · Feb 27, 2017

oldtimer said:
Next Saturday at Jay-- May I recommend a good hand tune?

I'm just gonna wear my ice skates.

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