Big Burke announcement

MEtoVTSkier said:

Can they not run the new fan guns and the air/water at the same time? Wasn't that the point of adding a new booster water pump for the upper mountain?

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It appears that what they have done so far has been confined to the top part of the mtn, above the training hill. This would be where they probably felt they could blow snow early and have it last long enough that they wouldn't have to blow a lot more there after the most recent warmup. No point in firing up the fan guns if they don't think the snow they are making will stick around. However, as we have all been pointing out, it is moot unless the system has a reliable water source.

It looks like the days of the iPhone videos may be coming to an end:
https://recruiting.myapps.paychex.c...&SearchScreenID=2770&CountryID=3&LanguageID=2

VTKilarney said:

It looks like the days of the iPhone videos may be coming to an end:
https://recruiting.myapps.paychex.c...&SearchScreenID=2770&CountryID=3&LanguageID=2

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....and judging by the sidebar they have almost every job available.

from_the_NEK said:

It appears that what they have done so far has been confined to the top part of the mtn, above the training hill. This would be where they probably felt they could blow snow early and have it last long enough that they wouldn't have to blow a lot more there after the most recent warmup. No point in firing up the fan guns if they don't think the snow they are making will stick around. However, as we have all been pointing out, it is moot unless the system has a reliable water source.

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The problem they are having with making snow with only 25 guns has nothing to do with water, it is the compressed air where they are falling short. Burke used to rent 4 + diesel compressors in the past, which provided the air capacity to run well over 60 guns depending on ambient temps. When they built the hotel they got rid of their compressor parking area as well as diesel storage tank. They can no longer rent compressors and therefore have to rely on the one electric compressor that was installed several years ago. Unfortunately this does not have the capacity of the diesels it replaced. The former operators where aware of this and always intended to continue to rent additional diesel, capacity if only for a month early season. None of the new operators seem to understand this simple fact. With all the new fan guns running, today's capacity may be equal to that of five years ago, unfortunately those fans can only produce on one trail, so their effective snowmaking power is much less than it was several years ago.

The Burke Mountain Facebook page says that they are drawing up water from the river to replenish the holding pond.
Judging from these numbers, that would appear to be true. Since it's still raining in Burke and has been since late this afternoon I would expect the gauge station #'s to be rising but instead they are falling. I'm assuming this is because of the Mountain.

burski said:

The problem they are having with making snow with only 25 guns has nothing to do with water, it is the compressed air where they are falling short. Burke used to rent 4 + diesel compressors in the past, which provided the air capacity to run well over 60 guns depending on ambient temps. When they built the hotel they got rid of their compressor parking area as well as diesel storage tank. They can no longer rent compressors and therefore have to rely on the one electric compressor that was installed several years ago. Unfortunately this does not have the capacity of the diesels it replaced.

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Good point. The electric compressor has only 40% of the capacity of the rented diesel compressors. And this is a problem they were well aware of last year. Under Ary, the ability to make snow has been significantly reduced. But this is a guy who claims to know how to run a northeastern ski area.


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burski said:

The problem they are having with making snow with only 25 guns has nothing to do with water, it is the compressed air where they are falling short. Burke used to rent 4 + diesel compressors in the past, which provided the air capacity to run well over 60 guns depending on ambient temps. When they built the hotel they got rid of their compressor parking area as well as diesel storage tank. They can no longer rent compressors and therefore have to rely on the one electric compressor that was installed several years ago. Unfortunately this does not have the capacity of the diesels it replaced. The former operators where aware of this and always intended to continue to rent additional diesel, capacity if only for a month early season. None of the new operators seem to understand this simple fact. With all the new fan guns running, today's capacity may be equal to that of five years ago, unfortunately those fans can only produce on one trail, so their effective snowmaking power is much less than it was several years ago.

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They'd probably only need 2 or 3 now with the low e-guns. I know K significantly lowered the number of diesel compressors they leased last year.

burski said:

The problem they are having with making snow with only 25 guns has nothing to do with water, it is the compressed air where they are falling short. Burke used to rent 4 + diesel compressors in the past, which provided the air capacity to run well over 60 guns depending on ambient temps. When they built the hotel they got rid of their compressor parking area as well as diesel storage tank. They can no longer rent compressors and therefore have to rely on the one electric compressor that was installed several years ago. Unfortunately this does not have the capacity of the diesels it replaced. The former operators where aware of this and always intended to continue to rent additional diesel, capacity if only for a month early season. None of the new operators seem to understand this simple fact. With all the new fan guns running, today's capacity may be equal to that of five years ago, unfortunately those fans can only produce on one trail, so their effective snowmaking power is much less than it was several years ago.

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A number of us (probably you too) pointed this out last season. I love how they crowed about the new pumping capacity....which is not doing anything to fix their problem. If I had to bet the consultants told them that they need more air but because Q is omniscient omnipotent he ignored them and did what he wanted (and what was cheaper).

There is an article in today's Caledonian Record about the delayed opening.

Here is a gem of a quote:
"Stenger reported Tuesday the additional guns and system are working great and the resort is excited about the added snowmaking capacity."

Apparently it doesn't take much to excite them.

Here is the snowmaking plan:
"After we finish the summit trails (Upper/Lower Willoughby and Upper Bear Den) we do have to move to the Warren’s Way training hill to get BMA online before we move to lower bear den and then midway connector for public access.”

It appears that the hotel opening has been delayed as well.

So who took the over on the over/under on the 12/11 date?

The "Burke Mountain Real Estate Marketing Team" has been quiet this week.

If Burski is right (and I have no reason to believe he is incorrect) that is pathetic, and that quote in the Caledonian Record is at best totally clueless and at worst disingenuous. "Excited"? For shit that isn't working since you did nothing to increase the holding pond capacity? And at best you have roughly the same amount of snow making capacity as 5 years ago? If that is "Progress", then I stepped in a pile of progress this morning with the dogs.....

River19 said:

So who took the over on the over/under on the 12/11 date?

The "Burke Mountain Real Estate Marketing Team" has been quiet this week.

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Yes where is Masskier?

River19 said:

So who took the over on the over/under on the 12/11 date?

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Huh? Ary said that they would open on Thanksgiving weekend this year! If all goes as planned he will only miss the mark by three or four weeks.

Burke does not have a pod that they can get open. They have a top-to-bottom lift, so they need a top-to-bottom trail in order to open. The way I see it, they can only blow snow on about 25% (or at best 33%) of a top-to-bottom run at any given time. This means that while other areas are blowing snow on an entire top-to-bottom run, Burke needs three or four times longer to get the same thing done. Nobody can take such an inadequate system seriously, especially since we know that Ary actually cut snowmaking capacity. He chose to go from marginal to downright pathetic.

But this is nothing new. We've been having this same discussion for at least three years in a row. But Ary knows best...

For some good news, I just checked the river level. Thanks to the recent rainfall it has swollen almost as much as Ary's ego.

VTK, on 12/11 over/under I was talking Hotel Opening....sorry I should have been more specific....

River19 said:

VTK, on 12/11 over/under I was talking Hotel Opening....sorry I should have been more specific....

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Ah... good point. I would have bet a lot of money on the over, that's for sure.

But look at the bright side. Construction at AnC Bio is coming along nicely. QAviation is pumping out airplanes at a fast pace. And Newport has a beautiful new building downtown. All is good!

VTKilarney said:

Ah... good point. I would have bet a lot of money on the over, that's for sure.

But look at the bright side. Construction at AnC Bio is coming along nicely. QAviation is pumping out airplanes at a fast pace. And Newport has a beautiful new building downtown. All is good!

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An that is some funny sarcasm for this morning.....I like it.

And everyone wants to buy a condo on a mountain which is fully "skiable" from Mid January through March right? Never mind that it is like 40 miles from Canada, no way to get those trails open earlier each year.

I have some good news. Now that the river levels are back up, I took a trip up to the mountain and saw the snowmaking crew blowing some mice out of the system. The improvements to the snowmaking system are looking great! Stenger is not the only one who is excited. Add me to the list!

The third one is hilarious!


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thetrailboss said:

The third one is hilarious!

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I was a little embarrassed taking photos, so I didn't ask who it was. I think it's Ary and their marketing director Jessica.

The thing I'm looking forward to the most this year is the new "Learn to ski with Ary Sr.!" promotion that is taking place on Wednesday afternoons. They managed to sneak in a lesson on the upper mountain last week even though the mountain was not fully open. Ary Sr. is just so excited that he made it happen. My kids had a blast. Here is a photo from their lesson:

The last photo I was able to snap was a test of a new groomer that was designed by Q Jr. himself. He is truly a visionary.

burski said:

The problem they are having with making snow with only 25 guns has nothing to do with water, it is the compressed air where they are falling short. Burke used to rent 4 + diesel compressors in the past, which provided the air capacity to run well over 60 guns depending on ambient temps. When they built the hotel they got rid of their compressor parking area as well as diesel storage tank. They can no longer rent compressors and therefore have to rely on the one electric compressor that was installed several years ago. Unfortunately this does not have the capacity of the diesels it replaced. The former operators where aware of this and always intended to continue to rent additional diesel, capacity if only for a month early season. None of the new operators seem to understand this simple fact. With all the new fan guns running, today's capacity may be equal to that of five years ago, unfortunately those fans can only produce on one trail, so their effective snowmaking power is much less than it was several years ago.

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What good is a whole bunch more compressed air if you have no water?
I know that there are shortcomings in the capacity of the system for being able to run a lot of guns at the same time (we've all been over this ad nauseam for a couple of years now :roll.

Guess what. Those new fan guns don't need compressed air, yet they have barely been turned on. Why? Probably because they knew they were going to be short on water and by turning on the fan guns they would have sucked the pond dry even quicker leaving only a thin blanket spread out across a large elevation range that would have all melted by now.

Below is the East Branch discharge graph for the last month. I'd be willing to bet the cut off for pumping is somewhere around the 50-60cfs line. The river has been hovering around that level almost all month other than a few windows during rain events.

Let me use some numbers to explain why they need a MUCH larger water storage capacity:

1 acre ft of water = 325,851 gallons
Burke's pond = roughly 1 acre at the surface. With and AVERAGE depth of 3.5 feet (I think it is 5 feet deep at the deepest spot.
3.5' x 325851 = 1,140,478 gallons
Say we pick a nice round number like 1000gal/minute that can be pumped up the mountain and turned into snow. That gives the system 1140 minutes or 19 hours of snow making capability using water from the pond alone. Even if you cut the gal/minute being turned into snow in half, you still drain the pond in less than two days.

I figure they need to be able to have at least a 5 day water reserve that can be replenished during the spikes in river discharge.

Note: The downward spike in discharge on Sunday-Monday (Nov 29-30th) was caused by surface water freezing up in the cold temps.