The NEW Magic Mountain

NY DirtBag said:

nice day here today. red started a bit late but has run fine all day. firm snow. cold start.

wand to showoff not open yet but for sure tommorow. they need the second route down the lower half.

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Is it crowded today?

With everybody coming down Lower Carpet? Wouldn't be hard to get a traffic jam in the runout. At least they should be able to keep the guns on pretty much every day next week - that ought to get Upper Carpet and Trick squared away for MLK. Maybe even finish off Wand down to Carumba or Hocus Pocus?

ThatGuy said:

Is it crowded today?

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no lift lines but magic carpet from green lift down *felt* a bit crowded today.

the afternoon ended up being gorgeous. Light wind, sunshine, mid 20s at base.

IceEidolon said:

With everybody coming down Lower Carpet? Wouldn't be hard to get a traffic jam in the runout. At least they should be able to keep the guns on pretty much every day next week - that ought to get Upper Carpet and Trick squared away for MLK. Maybe even finish off Wand down to Carumba or Hocus Pocus?

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I would think with the temps they could get lower trick, carumba/lower red line and hocus pocus.

I'm sure they want to get a little park going for mlk too.

Hopefully some of the fan guns can move over to the park area even if Wand to Hocus Pocus proper isn't a priority. Per Instagram story they're running the top of Trick, which takes the vast majority of compressed air (if it's warm and the four Rats at the top are hungry) or all the summit water (if it's cold and they can turn up the HKDs). I'd figure on at least two days on Trick before they can look at lower Wand, longer if they aren't happy with Upper Magic Carpet or other open trails for MLK weekend and focus on that first. Still, (probably) having the park plus Magic Carpet ttb, Trick ->Showoff TTB, plus a half route with the other blues and the beginner carpet open? With the December we had? Hell of a nice job.

If we have near-zero snow coming in the near future which is what it looks like as of now, perhaps we could see them blowing snow on Wizard and Talisman once the east side is all taken care of

That's what the typical rollout is. Except last year where they did Sorcerer first since that pipe was repaired.

Could see Witch > Black as well instead this year for the same reason. Not sure what the requirements are to get Talisman open by x date for racing if there are indeed any requirements.

Can they groom Witch-Black somehow or would that just be skiing on whales? I believe they have to get snow on Black Line below the ledges section for next weekend if they want to do Tuck It there. They would obviously need a way to get there as well.

If it's just for the event, I bet they could take a side by side or a snowmobile up an access road to the middle of Black Line.

As for grooming out the piles, if you're careful I think you could push Witch to Black Line with a free cat. There'd be some pucker factor involved for sure and it'd take extra snow since you'd really want to push downhill, but it should be possible. There is a winch cat on premises, but I don't know if that's available for this project. Or, they could make snow carefully, minimize the whales, and open it ungroomed.

There's less area to cover for Witch to Black to Hocus Pocus than Wizard to Talisman, it looks nice from the road, and it might be easier to only patrol one side of the mountain. I don't know if that outweighs the grooming and snowmaking access challenges for working on a steeper trail with no permanent tower guns.

As I understand it they still have to hit Lower Trick. They also need Wand to Hocus Pocus and Terrain Park. With Tuck It next weekend they will hit the lower, below the ledges, section of Black Line, which feeds into Hocus Pocus (unless they move it to another slope). They can groom that section of BL via crossover from Wand, or just go up it (I do not think the winch cat in maintenance area is operable).

Good chance they also do upper beginner area for MLK.

In my opinion this will take all week, so they wouldn’t start Talisman until at least the weekend. For a variety of reasons I am sure Talisman is priority over Witch/Blackline. That said, they may go for BL just because they can, for the first time, in forever. But to me Talisman makes way more sense.

Carumba typically is later. Last year it was first because it’s on 400 line and they had issues with 300 line so Showoff and Hocus Pocus never done. So this year I think we’re back to Wand to Showoff, and then Wand to Hocus Pocus, as early priorities.

Grooming Witch/Blackline is an interesting question. Personally I would not. The middle section has been groomed in past via Broomstick and using crossover to HOM before ledges section. But top of Witch has double fall line, there are some ledges at top of second section of Witch ( maybe can cover with snowmaking), and of course you have the ledges section (again maybe you can cover with snowmaking, at least skiers left). But it would be a challenge. And not every snowmaking trail needs to be groomed. IMHO BL should not be groomed. This is Magic after all.

Would be nice if it would snow and we could just ski everything.

I would never put a cat on Witch personally. Gonna have to moves the guns around a lot...

slatham said:

Would be nice if it would snow and we could just ski everything.

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Amen…weather channel showing 2 snow “events” between now and the 23rd with 3-5 inches of accumulation each, hopefully one of those grows larger than currently expected as we get closer to the fact. Still, put them together and you could probably get something like Twilight Zone open. Temps mostly in the 20s.

ne_skier said:

Can they groom Witch-Black somehow or would that just be skiing on whales? I believe they have to get snow on Black Line below the ledges section for next weekend if they want to do Tuck It there. They would obviously need a way to get there as well.

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I believe they announced that Tuck It has been moved to Showoff

It looks like they will blow in the rest of trick and then carumba/RL. DW was dragging the guns up lower redline this morning

They moved guns to Carumba today. I spoke with Management and it seemed like they were thinking once they finished off Trick Carumba they would go Wizard to Sorcerer (Sorcerer is narrower so could get it down quicker). I didn’t press them on timing given so many things can change based on weather and hiccups etc. sounded like they were not super eager on Hocus Pocus in the near term given the width of the trail (I did not ask about the terrain park).

If they do get the above done, it would be a high water mark in terms of snowmaking at Magic. I know it doesn’t feel that way, but it is true. Trick
Medium, and through the woods will give 3 distinct east side options. Wand/Showoff and Lower Carpet providing two totally different options off green (each with an additional halfway option (Carumba/Vertigo) and when they get Wizard Sorcer open two distinct red chair options. As an added bonus there will be three distinct top to bottom runs eliminating the traditional pinch point on Wand and the current one on Lower Magic Carpet.

I know there is more to do, and everyone wishes snowmaking could get done more quickly. but given everything they have dealt with on the chairs, I do think they should get credit for delivering/being on track to deliver on snowmaking.

Interesting. Did not know about Tuck It move. And of course the history of Wand-Hocus Pocus being "early" was prior to making snow on LMC, and prior to beginner area moving. So it makes sense to hit Carumba - decent trail, less linear feet, very visible under chair, etc.

Have to say I am not in favor of Sorcerer vs Talisman. In fact, I am not a fan of having full on snowmaking on Sorcerer at all - deep and groomed all the time. In fact last year IMHO they didn't do a very good job on that trail (but I am sure Do Work learned from that). Just think it skis much better as a natural trail, or maybe with some snowmaking to augment the natural, but not groomed, unless necessary.

But my point really is Talisman is much much more "valuable" to have open. IMHO.

In terms of which trail would be better to have open on MLK weekend, I agree that Talisman would be better, and that Sorcerer skis better ungroomed, but with everything else they want to get open for MLK (Wand, Carumba, Lower Red, rest of Wizard, Terrain Park?) Sorcerer is a safer bet. Hopefully if we get some actual snow this season they’ll let it bump up.

Personally I'm not expecting any West Side terrain open without more natural snow to help for MLK Friday. Sorcerer takes less to open than Talisman but there's a lot of trail on Upper Wizard that needs air hogs, and there's just a lot of trail period on lower Wizard to tie into the base area. If the inrun or Runout can open on natural then it looks a lot more practical.

Edit: If they can get Carumba wrapped up quickly and move firepower over to Sorcerer, they may make a liar out of me. It's only 7 or 8 acres, and a lot of that is runout that can open thin. They'll have the weather to make the most of the HKD towers for sure. Change my prediction from "not happening" to "everyone who skis Sorcerer on MLK owes the team that makes it happen a burger and a beer."

I agree, expectations need to be realistic. Magic has limited pumping capacity per acre and plenty of runs without fixed gear. It all takes time... some of these evenings this week are trending borderline dangerous to make snow in too. Temping to keep turning gear on and drop the hammer but important to keep a lot of flow going in those temps and sometimes that means bleeding off a lot of water.

The good thing is unlike most areas that are done by the end of January Magic has shown they'll keep opening terrain right to the middle of February sometimes later. If the temps keep up I'm sure plenty will get covered in due time.

The only reason it feels like they haven’t done a great job with snowmaking (and I agree that they have made a nice effort) is that wand to anything isn’t open. (Aware they were trying to keep the work road open)

The weather has been brutal.

put me in the camp of no west side for milk weekend unless it snows big. I can’t imagine they aren’t going to have to resurface some open terrain after the hard freeze coming. That would be groomer magic. It rained a bunch today.

Brutal timing on those private mountain rentals. Get that bar open early!