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Killington Trail Expansion

Newpylong

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Do they cut their losses and bag Bear and/or Stage I this year? Open Bear but only the Skye Peak side? Open every mountain but only core trails? None of the above and blow their snowmaking budget out the window if weather cooperates? Discuss.
 

drjeff

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Too early to be thinking that way IMHO. If the weather pattern stays crappy for a good part of Jan, then maybe. If the weather pattern shifts favorably cold and snowy, then there's going to be some penned up demand that could make those areas of K an added marketing advantage. Plus if K didn't at least make an attempt to open OL, they'd likely have a mutiny on their hands with the core season pass holders that they want nothing to do with

I'm starting to doubt that we'll see a 1/2 pipe in the East this season.... Not necessarily a bad thing in my book ;-)
 
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chuckstah

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The first trails at K to not see snowmaking in poor early seasons such as this are usually the double blacks: Conclusion, Ovation, Double Dipper, Vertigo, Fiddle. I would think the one main route to route 4 will be blown to stop a mutiny from homeowners. Hopefully the half pipe is omitted, but i'm sure there will be at least a couple in the east. Probably Stratton, Sun River, Okemo, and Loon anyway. I would think Mt Snow also but Dr Jeff probably knows better about that one. Hopefully Superstar gets its glacier this year.
 

mriceyman

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A couple decent storms opens up plenty of terrain by itself


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ss20

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A minute from the Alta exit off the I-15!
No halfpipe for sure this year. Bear and Skye will be open before MLK weekend.

With a foot of wet base-building snow on the ground and a long-range that shows seasonable temperatures for the forseeable future I feel that this "December to Remember" will fall out of memory quickly...




...of course the ski resort accountants may disagree with me :razz:
 

skiadikt

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The first trails at K to not see snowmaking in poor early seasons such as this are usually the double blacks: Conclusion, Ovation, Double Dipper, Vertigo, Fiddle. I would think the one main route to route 4 will be blown to stop a mutiny from homeowners. Hopefully the half pipe is omitted, but i'm sure there will be at least a couple in the east. Probably Stratton, Sun River, Okemo, and Loon anyway. I would think Mt Snow also but Dr Jeff probably knows better about that one. Hopefully Superstar gets its glacier this year.

that's pretty much it. i'm thinking the dreammaker park is also a casualty. late season on supe is also in jeopardy. but yeah there's lot of season left and they've got a lot of terrain they will open. they've had to do 4 or 5 total rebuilds and what do they have - 19 trails to show for it when at this time they'd normally have 70-80 trails open.

and yeah all across the east we're gonna see both top line and bottom line numbers take a huge hit.
 

Highway Star

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Do they cut their losses and bag Bear and/or Stage I this year? Open Bear but only the Skye Peak side? Open every mountain but only core trails? None of the above and blow their snowmaking budget out the window if weather cooperates? Discuss.

You're an idiot.
 

WoodCore

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With super cold weather headed in our direction, it will be interesting to see how Killington's snowmaking system compares to the other major players in terms of trail/acreage expansion.
 

mriceyman

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2 decent storms make up for missed snowmaking oppurtunities of the past.. It wont build a glacier but can open kost of the mountain in a hurry


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skiur

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Posted by Jeff Temple on Kzone:

Terrain Plan Update 1-6-16 - from Jeff Temple / Director Mountain Operations
I want to update you on changes to the terrain expansion plan as communicated in Mike Solimano’s recent blog; http://www.killington.com/site/culture/blog. The volatility of each new weather forecast requires us to tweak and adapt our plan accordingly, so that we get the absolute most out of our snowmaking system. The great news is that we have had a couple of days of arctic like temperatures and have taken well advantage of every second of that time.

Due to the forecast changes we both increased expansion rate and moved to some different terrain than communicated previously. We will be opening up terrain at all ability levels in the Needles Eye, Snowshed and Canyon areas as follows:
• Snowshed trail, as planned opens up Wednesday the 6th along with the ALA learning area and accessed by the Snowshed 3 Express Quad. K1 Lodge, Snowshed and Ramshead lodges will now all be connected within a few minutes of skiing from each other.
• In the Canyon area, Lower East Fall and the Cascade Run-out should be ready for Thursday the 7th with the Canyon Quad chairlift operating on Friday the 8th.
• Highline trail has dual snowmaking pipelines running on it today, with an expected opening later in the week.
• Upper Mouse Terrain Park is packed with snow, soon with features opening on Friday the 8th.
• The most significant change from the terrain plan communicated earlier, is snowmaking production on Panic Button / Needles Eye trail top to bottom, along with Middle and Lower High Road accessed by the Needles Eye Express Quad on Friday and the Northbrook Quad chairlift on Saturday.
• Although moderating, we will have temperatures throughout the week for snowmaking and plan to work on Upper Vertigo to the Snowshed Crossover. In addition we will be on Upper and Lower Cruise Control, middle Cascade as well as beginning the migration into the Bear Mountain area.

With this years continued weather volatility, I will follow this up with timely terrain updates as well as take some time to answer many of the "why did we go here" and "why haven't we gone there" questions.
JT
 

dlague

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I was looking at Killington's Interactive Trail Map and it tells quite a story - trail expansion is going slow. Okemo, Sugarbush, Stowe, Sugarloaf, Sunday River, Loon, Stratton and Mount Snow have surpassed Killington. They always jump ahead and then fall behind. Same thing last year. They eventually catch up but ....
 
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