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Sugarloaf Expansion

BLESS

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Wide trails: that is what happened to many places in the 1980's because of the increased crowds, the demand and need for more snowmaking (which doesn't work well on narrow trails), and the use of more groomers. You see that many places were "modernized" through widening including Sugarloaf, Killington, Mount Ellen, and parts of Jay (the 'Can-Am Supertrail' was haled as a superwide run). The downside of course is the wind issue. Also some of Sugarloaf's terrain is used for racing and in order to be FIS/NCAA certified, the terrain must be a certain width, etc. Dartmouth and Middlebury just had to widen their race trails...Dartmouth I believe did it under protest.

just curious, why doesnt snowmaking work well on narrow trails?
 

deadheadskier

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just curious, why doesnt snowmaking work well on narrow trails?

most snowguns throw snow pretty far. On a narrow trail, you can blow up hill or down, not across as much of the snow will end up in the woods on the opposite side of the trail. When blowing up trail or down, if there's a cross wind, that will also blow the snow off into the woods instead of onto the trail.

On a wider trail you can make adjustments for wind and the money you're investing in making snow is more likely to result in snow ending up on the trail where you desire it as opposed to in the woods.
 

billski

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Cannon is another mountain that falls into this category. Most consider Cannon a classic old school skiers mountain with a lot of narrow character trails. Fact is, most of Cannon's trails are pretty darn wide and not all that turny. But a couple of classics enable Cannon to retain that mystique. The same may hold true for the Loaf. Sometimes certain elements of a mountain are so good that they over come its down falls.

Trolling the old threads, missed this one - River makes a great point.

I've never thought of cannon's trails, as they stand today as old-school. They used to be old school and the mt. has a lot of history behind it which may lead to the misperception.
 

Tin Woodsman

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most snowguns throw snow pretty far. On a narrow trail, you can blow up hill or down, not across as much of the snow will end up in the woods on the opposite side of the trail. When blowing up trail or down, if there's a cross wind, that will also blow the snow off into the woods instead of onto the trail.

On a wider trail you can make adjustments for wind and the money you're investing in making snow is more likely to result in snow ending up on the trail where you desire it as opposed to in the woods.

Exactly. And as a corollary to that, with all the snow ending up in the woods, much of it ends up hanging on tree branches and trunks as heavy ice. This kills them pretty quickly, rendering what was once a narrow trail increasingly wide.
 

threecy

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just curious, why doesnt snowmaking work well on narrow trails?

most snowguns throw snow pretty far. On a narrow trail, you can blow up hill or down, not across as much of the snow will end up in the woods on the opposite side of the trail. When blowing up trail or down, if there's a cross wind, that will also blow the snow off into the woods instead of onto the trail.

On a wider trail you can make adjustments for wind and the money you're investing in making snow is more likely to result in snow ending up on the trail where you desire it as opposed to in the woods.

There are fan guns (such as the SMI WizzKid) built especially for these reasons which allow ski areas to make snow on narrow trails, low pressure areas, and/or higher wind situations. If you look at the narrow chutes many ski areas still have in places, you'll see that not all snowmaking-covered areas are wide - one can indeed make snow on narrow trails (albeit not with a massive old Hedco machine).
 

Tin Woodsman

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There are fan guns (such as the SMI WizzKid) built especially for these reasons which allow ski areas to make snow on narrow trails, low pressure areas, and/or higher wind situations. If you look at the narrow chutes many ski areas still have in places, you'll see that not all snowmaking-covered areas are wide - one can indeed make snow on narrow trails (albeit not with a massive old Hedco machine).

I've skied for over 30 years, most of this in the Northeast. Never (and I mean not even once) have I seen snowmaking on a narrow trail without significant collateral damage to the trees lining the trail. So, sure, you CAN make snow on narrower trails but that doesn't mean you SHOULD. Those trails won't remain narrow for long if you make snow on them consistently.

It should also be noted that narrower trails tend not to be straight shots. There are some exceptions (UN at Jay, Black Diamond at Mt. Ellen, Redline at Magic) but narrow trails are generally born of a philosophy from the original NE trail designers: keep them narrow and follow the terrain. When you add twists and turns to a trail, this makes running snowmaking pipes up that trail more difficult and expensive.

Also, since snowmaking costs a lot of money, you generally want more bang for the buck, and you're not going to get that with narrow trails. You're going to get more downhill capacity on wider, straighter trails that can be handled by a larger % of the skiing public.
 

threecy

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I've skied for over 30 years, most of this in the Northeast. Never (and I mean not even once) have I seen snowmaking on a narrow trail without significant collateral damage to the trees lining the trail. So, sure, you CAN make snow on narrower trails but that doesn't mean you SHOULD. Those trails won't remain narrow for long if you make snow on them consistently.

How many nights (or days) have you worked on a snowmaking crew?

It's absolutely possible.
 

millerm277

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How many nights (or days) have you worked on a snowmaking crew?

It's absolutely possible.

I agree, and I've seen it done, but I've also seen far more trails with giant amounts of ice caking and killing the trees. To my observations, it appears that making snow on a narrow trail requires much more in adjustments, careful placement of the guns, and (obviously) smaller snowguns, that also tend to put out less snow overall in addition to the smaller throw.
 

Tin Woodsman

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How many nights (or days) have you worked on a snowmaking crew?

It's absolutely possible.

I'm sure it's possible. I've never seen it done. Also, we should define what we mean by "narrow". To me, that's 20-30' wide, and no more.
 

threecy

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I'm sure it's possible. I've never seen it done. Also, we should define what we mean by "narrow". To me, that's 20-30' wide, and no more.

Totally doable. If snowmakers are proactive and choose the right conditions, one can make snow on a trail only two passes wide with a WizzKid. Of course, if you do so on a windy day, or on a trail with a low overhead canopy, you may run into issues. There are still proactive ways to remedy that, though, whether it be actively bumping guns, or even building a pile uptrail from a particular area, then pushing.

The reason one rarely (or never) sees this done is that such areas are often worked on when the ski area is closed. Many crossover trails, for instance, are rather narrow and are often covered at night (and then the guns are bumped).
 
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