The "Sugarbush Thread"

cdskier · Nov 21, 2017

In better news...Sugarbush plans to open the top tomorrow (if the winds cooperate):

If the winds hold off, we plan to expand our offerings to include Organgrinder, Jester, Allyn's Traverse, Valley House Traverse, and Downspout with Super Bravo and Heaven's Gate running 9:00 AM - 3:45 PM. Valley House will run 9:00 - 3:45 PM. Note there will be no route to the base from Heaven's Gate. The route to the bottom is Jester, Allyn's Traverse, Valley House Traverse, Snowball, Spring Fling.

Hawk · Nov 21, 2017

So a couple of things here. The new guns that Sugarbush bought(All Low-e) use more water and less air than the old ones they had before. If you look at them as they work they certain blow out a lot of water. I can also state with all certainty that the snow that come out of them is much wetter than before. This is a fact. I am not going to debate this.
Also Sunday River does not pile the snow up and let it dry. They have multiple crews of snow makers on staff and continuously move the guns and hoses so that they get even distribution. There are no mounds of drying snow there. They also have a huge compressor plant and use a ton of air when they make snow. This is why they have dryer snow. I know this as fact as I worked there once and have friends that still do. When I told them about the drying snow mounds and asked why sugarbush would do this. They laughed and said "They don't know how to make snow, that is why" LOL

slatham · Nov 21, 2017

Hawk said:
So a couple of things here. The new guns that Sugarbush bought(All Low-e) use more water and less air than the old ones they had before. If you look at them as they work they certain blow out a lot of water. I can also state with all certainty that the snow that come out of them is much wetter than before. This is a fact. I am not going to debate this.
Also Sunday River does not pile the snow up and let it dry. They have multiple crews of snow makers on staff and continuously move the guns and hoses so that they get even distribution. There are no mounds of drying snow there. They also have a huge compressor plant and use a ton of air when they make snow. This is why they have dryer snow. I know this as fact as I worked there once and have friends that still do. When I told them about the drying snow mounds and asked why sugarbush would do this. They laughed and said "They don't know how to make snow, that is why" LOL

Hawk I have observed and wondered why the art of an even resurfacing of the trail is no longer done by many areas, preferring instead to let the gun run on one spot, let it dry, then groom it out (Mt Snow is an exception with all the fan guns, which are the ultimate resurfacing machine if the trail is wide enough). I have to think the physical requirements and costs must play some role, but I have not heard the justification from someone who knows. Maybe Shady has a thought.

Regarding the "wetness" of the snow coming out of the gun, I can't argue with you on the experience at Sugarbush, but I know first hand those low-e guns can make dry snow if you want them too.

thetrailboss · Nov 21, 2017

CoolMike said:
For the Bush it's more than just the snow making that is the problem. Sugarbush is weirdly bad at grooming. The trails they do groom are often icy and chunky. There is almost never decent corduroy even if you are in line for first chair. The grooming problems extend out to snow resurfacing and preservation after bad weather or rain as well.

Sugarbush does weird stuff that no other mountain does with their snow making as well. For example, they let the snow "cure" for days and days - sometimes a week. At this point is a huge frozen mound of ice that needs to be tilled and groomed repeatedly and will never be as good as a freshly blown and groomed trail. Some people say the idea is to let the moisture drain out. Think about this logically...its winter (or nearly winter), the ground is frozen (or nearly frozen), do we really expect the moisture to drain in any meaningful way?

Imagine how amazing Sugarbush would be if they were able to create and maintain snow as well as Sunday River. Keep in mind that they get double the snow on average at the bush!

I love Sugarbush and have skied there more than 60 times in the last 3 years but variable conditions on snow making trails is something that frequent skiers there simply need to get used to. Some days at the Bush you just gotta game plan your day - ie: hit Downspout early to get to HG then a handful of laps and then jump over to North Lynx once the sun warms up the south face slopes a little to hit the some bumps, and so on.

Full disclosure: my last time skiing at Sugarbush was 2011, so my observations and intel are quite dated.

That said, I noticed my last few seasons there that the grooming and snow on Lincoln Peak was not as good as ME. One explanation I got from a mountain ops guy was that LP used more water in their snow to make it last longer.

As to snowmaking being like Sunday River, that is not going to happen anytime soon. Sunday River has, pretty much forever, accepted that their product is snowmaking because they just don't get as much consistent natural snow. Sunday River for decades has invested tons of money and time into making good snow. That has continued.

Sugarbush, under LBO, did expand their snowmaking quite a bit. But under the current regime the response has been to rely more on natural snow in order to maintain expenses. Sugarbush, from what I observed and now hear about, makes snow to open a run and then maybe again to refresh if needed. This is different from SR who relies on snowmaking to refresh because they just don't get as much snow. That at least was the MO when I was there my last few years.

It is what it is. I know that we have had many debates about their philosophy and how it differs from SR and other places.

From my remote vantage, I am happy to see that they were aggressive to open this season. I have seen grumbling about them not opening to the top and I understand the frustration. To put it in perspective, Alta threw in the towel as to opening on 11.22 a whole week ago before the recent snow and cold snap. But Snowbird is opening tomorrow. Some of you have multiple days now ahead of me.

tumbler · Nov 21, 2017

Same debate, different year.
They make wet snow on one trail for days in big piles then groom it out.
There is no resurfacing or jumping around to fire up a trail at 4pm and shut down at 7am and put down a nice dry product.
With the SR7 guns we made dry snow and were not allowed to make whales. Move the guns every run for even spread.
We had guns and hoses all over the hill so no stripping the trail and setting up a new one. One for one shut down and fire up.
They will resurface key trails after rain but a lot of the rain events are followed by snow on the backside so they get help.
They now make snow for depth, not for quality. It has worked for them and have had some luck with weather.
It's early season, we need something to talk about. Pray for snow.

Hawk · Nov 22, 2017

Yes, Pray for snow. Amen.

nhskier1969 · Nov 22, 2017

Skied Sugarbush today. Top of the mtn skied great. about 3-4 inches of new snow. real dense. Top skied great. Bottom was wet. It's interesting set up they have with Snowball/Spring Fling and the upper mtn. Though I like their aggressiveness, it doesn't make sense to me for early season. Really need to Run three lifts to use current open terrain unless you want to do Valley house traverse all the time. But I do understand taking pressure off death spout. With the amount of snow they needed to blow on snowball/spring fling to get them covered they could have probably concentrated on domino shoot, lower organgrinder and lower jester and taken the stress of death spout that way. But anyway The upper mtn skied really good today, Sugarbush is off to great start.

cdskier · Nov 22, 2017

According to Win's latest blog post, they caught someone trying to use someone else's pass already...I guess I'm a bit naive in thinking people wouldn't even try that...

Our new AXXESS gates are working well. That is, IF one places the card correctly. Please remember it needs to be in a pocket on your left side and be there by itself. Nothing else should be in that pocket next to your SugarXpress Card. Sadly it worked well in another way as one of our lift operators caught someone trying to use another’s SugarXpress Card. The picture of the passholder came up on the tablet and the operator recognized it as a different individual. The lift operator received a cash reward, and we have now confiscated that pass.

shadyjay · Nov 24, 2017

So looks like a couple cold nights of snowmaking this week was all it took to open up Lower DS/Lower Jester/Coffee Run AND Stein's. I'd say this is the most trails we've had open for Thanksgiving weekend in years. Be aware that despite what the app's trail map says, the only part of Lower Jester that's open is from the Castlerock Cutoff, down to the base. The mid section (what we call "Middle Jester", the switchbacks across Lower OG) is not yet open.

Looks like we're offline til sometime on Sunday. Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

nhskier1969 · Nov 24, 2017

shadyjay said:
So looks like a couple cold nights of snowmaking this week was all it took to open up Lower DS/Lower Jester/Coffee Run AND Stein's. I'd say this is the most trails we've had open for Thanksgiving weekend in years. Be aware that despite what the app's trail map says, the only part of Lower Jester that's open is from the Castlerock Cutoff, down to the base. The mid section (what we call "Middle Jester", the switchbacks across Lower OG) is not yet open.

Looks like we're offline til sometime on Sunday. Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

Thanks Shadyjay. Glad to see such a good start from previous years. What's amazing about the start is the amount of terrain Sugarbush has blown at Mt Ellen also. Why again do they wait so late to open Ellen each year? Is it Lack of People? A state forest agreement? just curious.

benski · Nov 24, 2017

nhskier1969 said:
Thanks Shadyjay. Glad to see such a good start from previous years. What's amazing about the start is the amount of terrain Sugarbush has blown at Mt Ellen also. Why again do they wait so late to open Ellen each year? Is it Lack of People? A state forest agreement? just curious.

Not exactly sure but i know it opens to racers as much earlier and they start making snow early on. It takes them a while to get top to bottom, but thats likely due to lack of aggression. I believe, 33% or more of there snowmaking capacity is there.

slatham · Nov 24, 2017

nhskier1969 said:
Thanks Shadyjay. Glad to see such a good start from previous years. What's amazing about the start is the amount of terrain Sugarbush has blown at Mt Ellen also. Why again do they wait so late to open Ellen each year? Is it Lack of People? A state forest agreement? just curious.

This is demand based, not permits etc. Majority of skiers from the metropolitan areas don't ski much pre-Christmas.

WWF-VT · Nov 24, 2017

I skied the afternoon shift today. Seems like everyone was on Steins, best run for me was top half of Organgrinder. Freeze/thaw over the past week has left a firm base and skied of trails by 3 PM. Pleased to see multiple top to bottom skiing options. I can't recall Steins being open this early for as long as I have been skiing at Sugarbush.

shadyjay · Nov 25, 2017

slatham said:
This is demand based, not permits etc. Majority of skiers from the metropolitan areas don't ski much pre-Christmas.

Pretty much, from what I gather. GMVS will train on Inverness before the mountain opens to the public, but the demand isn't there for two separate (but connected) ski areas to be open before the holidays.

WinS · Nov 25, 2017

Just realized that SkiMRV is done and this is where people are posting. My New Year's resolution is not to debate those who think they know a lot about snowmaking. I have confidence in my mountain team and what they are doing so we will stay to the facts and not get into subjective debating on this subject.

Ever since we put in the new Valley House chair we always wanted to try to open Snowball and Spring Fling first as we think this is a much better opening than on Downspout and Jester. We had nearly 72 hour of sufficiently cold temperatures to do this. We had also earlier been making snow up on Jester, Downspout and Organgrinder but chose to move all the capacity to Snowball/Spring Fling and Stein's rather than to connect down from Heaven's Gate. Once we had them in and got the temps down low again moved to Lower Downspout, Jester and Coffee Run and got those open on Friday. This is the most early terrain we have had in my memory by Thanksgiving. The new Low E guns (SnoLogic and HKD) are allowing us to max out at 3,800 GPM at LP and another 2,000 + at ME.

Over at ME we have essentially completed snowmaking on Rim Run, Elbow and Inverness and were making on Which Way and Straight Shot. Inverness in 26 acres so it take over 10 million gallons of water to get in open for race training. GMVS will begin there next week. And we will continue moving down the mountain.

Shady Jay is correct. The demand does not justify opening ME until Christmas week and we use it until then for the GMVS academy, weekend programs and some of our own Ski & Ride training and that keeps those groups off the trails at ME.

Warm today but getting cooler tonight through Monday night, so we will be staying down low and refreshing and adding depth to a number of the LP trails already open. It looks like later in the week we will only be able to make snow higher on the mountain. We have set up Ripcord for that and we have foot packed Spillsville so that when some natural snow comes in we will be ready to get that Open too.

Yesterday, Stein's was a real treat. It set up over night and hopefully the sun that is shining will soften it us again as the day goes on.

One final fact on snowmaking. We have already put out 28%-30% of the total gallons we normally do in an entire season and have opened around 85 acres for skiing and riding - including Inverness but not the other trails that are covered at ME. That is way more that in any previous year.

Nice to be back and have 10 days of skiing in already.

cdskier · Nov 25, 2017

Welcome back Win. Shame the SkiMRV forum is down, but glad you found your way over here. Thanks for the update! I can't wait to get up there in another week or so.

slatham · Nov 25, 2017

WinS said:
Just realized that SkiMRV is done and this is where people are posting. My New Year's resolution is not to debate those who think they know a lot about snowmaking. I have confidence in my mountain team and what they are doing so we will stay to the facts and not get into subjective debating on this subject.

Ever since we put in the new Valley House chair we always wanted to try to open Snowball and Spring Fling first as we think this is a much better opening than on Downspout and Jester. We had nearly 72 hour of sufficiently cold temperatures to do this. We had also earlier been making snow up on Jester, Downspout and Organgrinder but chose to move all the capacity to Snowball/Spring Fling and Stein's rather than to connect down from Heaven's Gate. Once we had them in and got the temps down low again moved to Lower Downspout, Jester and Coffee Run and got those open on Friday. This is the most early terrain we have had in my memory by Thanksgiving. The new Low E guns (SnoLogic and HKD) are allowing us to max out at 3,800 GPM at LP and another 2,000 + at ME.

Over at ME we have essentially completed snowmaking on Rim Run, Elbow and Inverness and were making on Which Way and Straight Shot. Inverness in 26 acres so it take over 10 million gallons of water to get in open for race training. GMVS will begin there next week. And we will continue moving down the mountain.

Shady Jay is correct. The demand does not justify opening ME until Christmas week and we use it until then for the GMVS academy, weekend programs and some of our own Ski & Ride training and that keeps those groups off the trails at ME.

Warm today but getting cooler tonight through Monday night, so we will be staying down low and refreshing and adding depth to a number of the LP trails already open. It looks like later in the week we will only be able to make snow higher on the mountain. We have set up Ripcord for that and we have foot packed Spillsville so that when some natural snow comes in we will be ready to get that Open too.

Yesterday, Stein's was a real treat. It set up over night and hopefully the sun that is shining will soften it us again as the day goes on.

One final fact on snowmaking. We have already put out 28%-30% of the total gallons we normally do in an entire season and have opened around 85 acres for skiing and riding - including Inverness but not the other trails that are covered at ME. That is way more that in any previous year.

Nice to be back and have 10 days of skiing in already.

Thanks Win, always good to hear from you. It was frustrating with Skimrv being down as you have been an active and open participant in that forum. I happen to agree with you - if there is only time/tempt for one route down, I would prefer SB to SF vs. Jester to DS. It's just a little unusual to have the benefit of good temps down low before the summit area can be completed. But that is a good thing!

benski · Nov 26, 2017

Win now that you are posting here I will bring up a topic from a couple weeks ago. We were concerned the snowmaking pond is not big enough and a lot of us think the water pumping capacity could use to be increased. Any thoughts on these two ideas?

WinS · Nov 26, 2017

benski said:
Win now that you are posting here I will bring up a topic from a couple weeks ago. We were concerned the snowmaking pond is not big enough and a lot of us think the water pumping capacity could use to be increased. Any thoughts on these two ideas?

The pond is not the issue relating to capacity. It is the size of the snowmaking pipe around the mountain. To increase what we have now we would have to increase the diameter of the snowmaking pipe and then install some more pumping capacity. That is a major undertaking and very expensive but something we have in mind do do over time. At some point we would also like to have another pond as insurance in case we have a serious drought and can not refill from the river for awhile or if we have a devasting flood like Irene which takes out the pond.

Our Pond old approximately 25 million gallons and we refill it from the Mad River. There is not limit on what we can withdraw from November 1st until Match 31st, but the river has to be flowing at the February mean level which is approximately 41 CFS (cubic feet per second). At Mount Ellen we draw from two sources. The draw from the stream across from the Fayston School and the pond next to the Inverness lift.

cdskier · Nov 26, 2017

Good to know replacing the on-mountain pipe to support increased capacity as well as having an "insurance" pond are both at least on the long range radar.

Is the USGS discharge data at the Mooretown Mad River data station a good source of flow info for the Mad River? If so, looks like CFS has been pretty much over 100 since late October this year (most of the time well over 100CFS).

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