The NEW Magic Mountain

IceEidolon · Apr 9, 2022

I was a bit curious what had changed 15 years ago at Magic as compared to the last ~6 ish years.

Newpylong · Apr 9, 2022

IceEidolon said:
I was under the impression that the pond feed enters the pumphouse at ~150psi. What wet pit pumps are we talking about?

If they can stop running out of water in the middle of cold snaps they'll probably get Middle Wizard (There's some older HKD towers there and Impulse sleds can cover the bottom half, it just needs two cold days from top of Sorcerer with big air and two more with the Impulse fleet) just from not losing a week plus of prime snowmaking in January.

Do you think Mystery gets brought back before Witch runs? What'd be your strategy to balance between air hogs up near the summit versus low E sleds down low?

In the main pumphouse that is gravity fed from the pond. 150 PSI seems on the high side given how little apparent drop there is but I don't know enough about the setup to say either way. If the drop is 20 feet a 10" pipe would yield enough volume for both pumps. Maybe the drop is less or it's currently only 8"?

I don't know if Middle Wizard would even be on the list if they could do it. Wizard currently seems to just be utilized for access to and out of the West Side. Though IMHO Wizard T2B is a legit fun run I can see the hesitation on putting precious hours on it?

I don't know re: Mystery, but I would say since Witch is supposedly done we may see that first?

slatham · Apr 9, 2022

Some snow was made on middle Wizard this winter. And several winters ago had solid coverage IIRC.

Mystery only has pipe to just short of green lift, so top 1/3 only. It’s also been pilfered over the years for hydrants etc. Not sure if it’s been tested/repaired but I know it is not a priority over Witch/Blackline. That one is top of list to add, and given short windows these past years they need more water to work through to get to it.

Also pretty sure maim pump house is a wet pit given video Do Work sent me once when they started it up on November.

Newpylong · Apr 9, 2022

Really? I did get to Magic on a whim once this season and I noticed no man-made below Sorcerer or above where it came back in. It was after snowmaking ended for the year.

This is what Do Work had to say about Mystery: Mystery has pipes and the air line is live, but the water was disconnected many many years ago, and it has a lot of breaks to repair too. That will also be likely brought back online this summer though, as it's a great trail in a great spot for snowmaking to happen. Having that way down under Green would be great, and having enough snow to tame the waterbars on the runout would be really nice, as they are aggressive.

Sounds like it'll take some repairs and extending it if it deadheads near Green Line.

Yes they are wet pit pumps, they have to be if they aren't boosting (which would be can pumps).

ne_skier · Apr 10, 2022

Does Kinderspiel have snowmaking that simply goes unused, or is it natural only? That could be a good candidate for snowmaking some time down the road. It skis great when groomed, which as of now requires a high-snow winter.

Newpylong · Apr 10, 2022

No snowmaking, but they applied for adding it as part of another ACT 250 permit a while back. Would be a perfect trail for it, but same scenario: something else would need to give without additional water capacity.

IceEidolon · Apr 10, 2022

I know for a fact the main pumps are uphill of the pond pump, and the pressure of the supply line is approximately 150 psi at the pumphouse.

If they have the water supply, Mystery would be prime portable low E terrain where Witch emphatically isn't - but I agree that actually opening that trail without natural would take 3000'+ of new pipe. I also agree that Witch/Black Line ought to be higher priorities than bringing Mystery back.

Newpylong · Apr 10, 2022

Then they have a third pumphouse (at the pond feeding the main house) that I was unaware of. I thought that was just gravity fed.

Witch is going to be interesting. Water pressure aside, without owning Viper tripods that's gonna be Rat territory. If they have enough I'd stage them in the off season as that won't be fun to get equipment down in winter.

I think we need to ask DoWork pretty please for an inside tour this off season so he can show us all the make Magic better stuff we always talk about.

slatham · Apr 10, 2022

Newpylong said:
Then they have a third pumphouse (at the pond feeding the main house) that I was unaware of. I thought that was just gravity fed.

Witch is going to be interesting. Water pressure aside, without owning Viper tripods that's gonna be Rat territory. If they have enough I'd stage them in the off season as that won't be fun to get equipment down in winter.

I think we need to ask DoWork pretty please for an inside tour this off season so he can show us all the make Magic better stuff we always talk about.

Yes there is a pump at the pond. It is downhill of main pump house for certain. They refurbished the pump this past offseason.

SkiingInABlueDream · Apr 10, 2022

I'll be psyched to see Black get finished, but I don't plan to ride it until after it has run safely for a season.

IceEidolon · Apr 11, 2022

Witch/Black is the only place I can think of that has snowmaking, is too steep to easily use portables, and doesn't already have permanent towers. Trick, Talisman, Sorcerer, Medium, and the turns on middle Wizard all have towers.

I'm sure you're aware that the guns would be cheap relative to planting even Ratnik's small 2.5" posts for new Baby SG2 towers, even though those towers are basically the perfect gun for that trail (unless it gets water pressure for Vipers).

Newpylong · Apr 11, 2022

Sadly despite working with closely with Ratnik on both engineering and other procurements, I never got the chance to use one of their guns. Our air hogs were K2000s, K3000, SR7s and Omichrons. The Baby SG2s look pretty sweet though.

Pat's Peak has these movable booms with 10 foot Impulses on them which I think would be great on steeper and narrow runs like Witch, on top of any clearance restricted run like a liftline for that matter. You can see them here below the lift:

Never seen them anywhere else.

machski · Apr 11, 2022

^^^^I wonder if those swing arms are custom designed at Pat's by Pat's. Looks like the Impulses are just the usual sized sled towers without the sled attached to the boom arms.

jimmywilson69 · Apr 11, 2022

Roundtop has a few of those arms shown above. I think you can buy those from HKD.

Newpylong · Apr 11, 2022

It would seem you are correct: https://www.hkdsnowmakers.com/add-ons/

Under "Boom".

All the more weird you don't see more of them, they are super convenient looking.

IceEidolon · Apr 12, 2022

I demoed one with a Viper setup and shared some frank opinions with our HKD rep. They're incredibly niche - in very nearly all circumstances you can do 95% of the work with less equipment and less hassle with an equally tall tower, and with a normal jack you can still reach the controls when it's swung downhill. You can swing it uphill out of the way without hitting snow. You don't need a 10' radius arc of trees cleared to swing the gun off the trail. Your existing posts won't suddenly move further away from your hydrants so you need double hoses. There are a couple places where the arms do make sense, but they have some real tradeoffs if you don't absolutely have to point a gun straight down/straight up a trail.

There's another version with a Viper head that has an adjustable height boom and is rigged for Klik hoses, where the only controls you can't reach are the swivel and elevation of the Viper head. I'd like to try one of those sometime, but it's still a lot of extra complexity to be able to shift a gun 10' into a trail.

The Ratnik medium sled is my favorite sled design, and the Baby SG2 with the 260 tip is as good as anything I've tried in terms of efficient air hog - but it's still going to drink ~300 CFM in marginal where an Impulse only needs 100. But for Magic, short of some kind of booster pump or running another 200 psi + from the main pumphouse, the top stretch has to be Rats.

Newpylong · Apr 12, 2022

Perhaps that is why there aren't many deployment, due to the limitations you've encountered. Sometimes looks can be deceiving? lol

I loved our 10' Impulse sleds and half of our Omichron fleet was also on sleds. After I sold all but a couple of those, I mounted a couple K2000 heads to the sleds because the sleds themselves were really cool. You can barely see one in the second picture.

IceEidolon · Apr 12, 2022

Those are nice too, I've used them, but I prefer the bigger brakes and the longer lever arm on the rat sleds.

For low E portables the Impulse is a really slick setup - just don't let them bury themselves. Given what Magic has, how many Impulse sleds would you want on that system?

Newpylong · Apr 12, 2022

Always buried our Vipers. With the amount of snow they put out and lack of height/throw off the tripod it doesnt take long in a good wet bulb! I do love how you can break them down so easily. We could easily take up the 10 or so we used early season up top in the back of a Ranger in two trips, or in the utility basket on the cat.

I think they have about 15 sleds? That sounds like a good number given what that system pumps adding in the other gear they use? I do value having portability but if money is no object I would continue the fixed equipment build out. We had next to nothing fixed and it was downright awful. No comparison on the labor line. Not my money though

IceEidolon · Apr 13, 2022

Interesting. I'd have said push towards loading one compressor with the 10' sleds, about 10 more than they have - if they're running in super cold weather some will be idle for lack of water, but if it's Valve 1 or Valve 2 weather you can start one compressor and cover a whole lot of Green Lift terrain and use half (Valve 1) or nearly all (Valve 2) of your water. Fixed towers are going to cover one spot - maybe one trail - and be better at it, but ~22 sleds cover Wand, Carpet, Vertigo, Lower Wizard, Carumba, backup on the 300 line and the Carpet/Handle Tow, and more.

Of course once you have those then start putting Impulse towers up as you're able - maybe some SV14 sticks on the bunny hill - but 10 sleds IMO move far more water over a season than 10 more fixed towers would. Swapping one air hog for 4 low E towers on LMC + Wand is huge if there's limited cold before Christmas. Frankly I'm only worried about snowmaking above ~17 degrees anyway since the existing towers plus Rats on Valve 3 would flow more water than the pumps can deliver.

Unless you were thinking to put those towers on Black Line below Witch, that could make a big difference once they get there.

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