Stowe Snowmaking

[thetrailboss]

Gotta admit that these pictures are pretty damn impressive.

That's a lot of firepower working at once.

 

[thetrailboss]

This in from Stratton--also impressive:

 

[mriceyman]

This in from Stratton--also impressive:

Stratton does pump out snow.. Looks like a bunch of routes down for turkey day


Sent from my iPhone using AlpineZone

 

[MadMadWorld]

Looks like Stowe might have Lord Drop In, Lord Headwall, Lord Cutover, Middle Lord, Lower Lord, and Lord Runout ready for Turkey day!

 

[deadheadskier]

You forgot Upper Lord

 

[MadMadWorld]

Dammit!

 

[machski]

Wish I could have captured all of Sunday River's snowmaking today but I did not have a wide enough lens. Guns running on Locke, Barker, South Ridge and Aurora. 300 or so simultaneously

 

[cdskier]

Looks like Stowe might have Lord Drop In, Lord Headwall, Lord Cutover, Middle Lord, Lower Lord, and Lord Runout ready for Turkey day!

I remember when Stowe used to brag about having only 48 trails or whatever it was and how they were the "longest trails in the east"...

 

[deadheadskier]

Great 48 with 39 miles of terrain. They finally threw in the towel and did what everyone else does only worse. Went from 48 to 116 trails overnight. I knew some guys in marketing at the time. They claim they were losing group business because the perception was they weren't a large ski area.

Still wish they kept it at 48

 

[Scruffy]

Great 48 with 39 miles of terrain. They finally threw in the towel and did what everyone else does only worse. Went from 48 to 116 trails overnight. I knew some guys in marketing at the time. They claim they were losing group business because the perception was they weren't a large ski area.

Still wish they kept it at 48

+1 Stupid skiers, can't think for themselves. I hate all these divisions of one trail to boost counts.

 

[steamboat1]

7,000 gallons per minute they claim....oomph fah

Good thing they have 116 million gallons to play with.

 

[steamboat1]

I hate all these divisions of one trail to boost counts.

I like it. Gives you a better idea of what's actually open. I don't agree it's done just to boost trail count.

 

[deadheadskier]

In this case it was 100% done to boost trail count.

 

[steamboat1]

Whatever wing nut.

 

[MadMadWorld]

So angry...did you forget to drink your prune juice this morning?

 

[marcski]

I like it. Gives you a better idea of what's actually open. I don't agree it's done just to boost trail count.

In addition to the obvious trail count fluffing, I was told by a few different sources that ski patrol likes the trails cut into smaller sections in case they need to respond to something on hill it gives them a quicker way to attempt to locate the injured.

 

[drjeff]

7,000 gallons per minute they claim....oomph fah

Good thing they have 116 million gallons to play with.

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!

 

[MadMadWorld]

In addition to the obvious trail count fluffing, I was told by a few different sources that ski patrol likes the trails cut into smaller sections in case they need to respond to something on hill it gives them a quicker way to attempt to locate the injured.

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

 

[drjeff]

In addition to the obvious trail count fluffing, I was told by a few different sources that ski patrol likes the trails cut into smaller sections in case they need to respond to something on hill it gives them a quicker way to attempt to locate the injured.

Yup, this is why Mount Snow added a few trails back into their naming mix after they did the cut down from about 120 to about 80 a few years ago. Much easier for patrol to know where to go QUICKLY on a 1/2 mile or so segment than on a mile long segment. For safety reasons, the whole upper, middle, lower trail X naming scheme does have some validity

 

[da pimp]

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.