The "Sugarbush Thread"

I skied all those trails first thing and found the guns running well. A tip is to ski under the towers rather than the middle of trail when the towers are blowing snow. It is often the best snow. Looking at mountain late afternoon from home it seems GMP may have called a full curtailment, meaning snowmaking has to be shut off for three hours. But more than three hours are lost due to shutting down and starting up. GMP is likely projecting this as the coldest night on the foreseeable future. Shady can tell you how much we hated curtailments. Losing hours of snowmaking in these ideal conditions ( cold and calm) is very frustrating. As said slatham said, I would guess the plan would be to finish GH trail including Sunrise and then move to Birdland, Murphy’s. Lower Snowball and Racer’s Edge would be important for MLK. Stein‘s (while a favorite of mine) is likely the last priority.

WinS said:

I skied all those trails first thing and found the guns running well. A tip is to ski under the towers rather than the middle of trail when the towers are blowing snow. It is often the best snow. Looking at mountain late afternoon from home it seems GMP may have called a full curtailment, meaning snowmaking has to be shut off for three hours. But more than three hours are lost due to shutting down and starting up. GMP is likely projecting this as the coldest night on the foreseeable future. Shady can tell you how much we hated curtailments. Losing hours of snowmaking in these ideal conditions ( cold and calm) is very frustrating. As said slatham said, I would guess the plan would be to finish GH trail including Sunrise and then move to Birdland, Murphy’s. Lower Snowball and Racer’s Edge would be important for MLK. Stein‘s (while a favorite of mine) is likely the last priority.

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Agree on skiing close to the towers usually. At the split they were crossing and both were wet but there was a space in the middle to sneak through. Those were the only 2. This was around 11:30 and again around 1.

shadyjay said:

Your best bet to rectify this problem (for yourself and for others) is to tell someone... a lift operator or patrol or anyone with a radio. Then they can radio to snowmaking control and then forward that info to the guys on the hill.

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Wow, in all my years of skiing Sugarbush, this is the first I have ever heard that it would be helpful to actually report snow making issues. I don't mean this in a wise or snark way,...

What would be awesome is for them to incorporated something in the app for people to report issues. Think of WAZE for the mountain. You get enough reports of wet snow being blown and that would set off alerts to the snowmaking team.

I'm sure the whole snow making operation is extremely difficult to monitor and adjust if you are blowing a big area - why not use the guest data to help out the team?

djd66 said:

Wow, in all my years of skiing Sugarbush, this is the first I have ever heard that it would be helpful to actually report snow making issues. I don't mean this in a wise or snark way,...

What would be awesome is for them to incorporated something in the app for people to report issues. Think of WAZE for the mountain. You get enough reports of wet snow being blown and that would set off alerts to the snowmaking team.

I'm sure the whole snow making operation is extremely difficult to monitor and adjust if you are blowing a big area - why not use the guest data to help out the team?

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The app doesn’t even tell you where snow is being made now you want to do this? 1 step at a time.

At least snow is being blown...

Shame on GMP.
It was getting so nice.
We miss birch
Steins can always be had at pub later.

Smellytele said:

The app doesn’t even tell you where snow is being made now you want to do this? 1 step at a time.

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Yeah, there’s that issue too.

WinS said:

I skied all those trails first thing and found the guns running well. A tip is to ski under the towers rather than the middle of trail when the towers are blowing snow. It is often the best snow. Looking at mountain late afternoon from home it seems GMP may have called a full curtailment, meaning snowmaking has to be shut off for three hours. But more than three hours are lost due to shutting down and starting up. GMP is likely projecting this as the coldest night on the foreseeable future. Shady can tell you how much we hated curtailments. Losing hours of snowmaking in these ideal conditions ( cold and calm) is very frustrating. As said slatham said, I would guess the plan would be to finish GH trail including Sunrise and then move to Birdland, Murphy’s. Lower Snowball and Racer’s Edge would be important for MLK. Stein‘s (while a favorite of mine) is likely the last priority.

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These curtailments are certainly a problem. Is there any way they can source the power from elsewhere? I assume whatever is coming out of the solar arrays is insufficient.

Back when air was the limiting factor they could run the diesel compressors for air and a couple water pumps on electricity to keep going at reduced capacity. The water pumps are 3 phase electricity so that would take some sizable generators and the transfer panel to switch off the grid. I think someone back in the day, maybe Killington had a very powerful generator that could power them through curtailments.

They could make a huge pond and collect water for snowmaking. Durring curtailments, they could release the water through a turbine to produce power. They are already planning to build a new pond so kill two birds with one stone.

Its the 21st century and we are low on available power. . . .that amazes me.
We have ability to develop hydro, nuclear, nat. gas ( at less than half the carbon issue as other fossil fuels), as well as coal and oil for back up ( like what was used at COP21 when the wind farms failed)
If its price, one can understand not paying the price, but when its limited by the power company because they can't generate enough - that just seems like we are in a time warp.
Wonder what the kilowatt usage is compared to last 5-7 years for the state of Vermont.

We had an old village colonial in Quechee in the 80's - a red light would come on around 4:30 PM to 7 - if you used power then, it was gonna cost you more.

Thats different than limiting power usage.

I skied all those trails first thing and found the guns running well. A tip is to ski under the towers rather than the middle of trail when the towers are blowing snow. It is often the best snow. Looking at mountain late afternoon from home it seems GMP may have called a full curtailment, meaning snowmaking has to be shut off for three hours. But more than three hours are lost due to shutting down and starting up. GMP is likely projecting this as the coldest night on the foreseeable future. Shady can tell you how much we hated curtailments. Losing hours of snowmaking in these ideal conditions ( cold and calm) is very frustrating.

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Oh ain't that the truth! For example, if a curtailment runs from 6-9, you have to make sure you have the guns all off line before 6. Depending on how many guns are running, what trail, and how many guys, and when your last gun run was, you may have to start this procedure at 3pm, or earlier. Birch is mostly land guns so those take longer. Its not a matter of shutting the hydrants and going to the next one... you also have to blow out the hoses before they freeze, and make sure the gun is drained properly (and some guns on Birch are double-hosed (or triple hosed, 75 feet x 3) to get through the "islands". Then when everything's offline, you have to blow down the hill so the pipes don't freeze (above ground lines up there). And you have to have that all done before curtailment starts. If you don't, IIRC there are some pretty hefty fines.

The really fun part is firing back up.... You now have to re-charge the area where you were making snow (with Birch, again, that involves some valving and time to get the water "up and over". Check your overflows, call control, then its time to go up. Don't forget the torch and some extra hoses - you're gonna need them! You pray that day crew blew out everything properly. You fire up the first gun... not too bad. The next gun... frozen air hydrant. Get the torch! The next... frozen water. You finally make it through all 35 guns and are at the bottom of North Lynx. By this time, if you're lucky, its midnight or later and nearly zero deg. So that's nearly 8 hours of lost production due to a curtailment... roughly... for a trail like Birch. The thing you have going for you on a night like that, is if its calm, you don't have to worry too much about the guns burying themselves. Drag it to the top of a pile and aim it down. Fill in the gaps. Make it easier for the groomers. Pray you did it right, since a change in wind direction will make your last run of the night downright miserable. Don't worry, though... you'll see a nice sunrise!

Ahhh.... good times!

Thanks Shady, I've always heard what a PIA it is but nobody ever gave the whole, sad story. It amazing that in this day and age, with skiing such an important economic driver in VT, and global warming and fickle weather, that at peak snowmaking times you....shut down?

One question I've always wondered was, can you run the system at 50% (or some level) of power so the system doesn't have to be fully shut off? If so I would hazard to guess that 50% for 6 hours would be better than full-off for 3, given no breakdown needed at 50%?

Assuming we're all on board with diesel compressors not being the answer, maybe battery technology will help fill the void. Though thats a lot of battery storage to run a snowmaking system. Elon, you out there??

1) there are half curtailments where you just need to be below a certain level, generally half your peak usage over the past year. Those are much easier to deal with.

2) the curtailable program is not due to lack of power. It’s an economic “thing”. Gmp trys to shave their peak usage where they would be buying the excess capacity at a premium. I assume from hydro quebec or something. Gmp passes some of those cost savings on to those who are in the curtailable program. It’s a significant savings over the course of a year for ski areas. An area can choose not to be in the curtailable program but it will cost $$ to do so. Question is does the lost snowmaking time outweigh the $$ savings. For most, it doesn’t.

Why don't ski areas build water storage at elevation? Fill the reservoir when electricity is cheap, gravity feed the system when electricity is expensive. Same concept as pumped storage.

Good luck getting something like that built in the middle of the national forest... or anywhere in VT for that matter!

Just follow Vails plan...dont blow anything...
Problem solved...

Building a second power source just to fight through power curtailments isn't likely good ROI, even with how inconvenient they are. If someplace had a very large summit pond, maybe being a gravity storage system would make sense - but you need an empty pond or river at the bottom of the hill and a huge reservoir - the 50 million gallon ponds at Holiday Valley and Seven Springs are probably too small to be viable as grid scale pumped storage. Building new ponds at the top of mountains requires removing the pointy bit so the water stays put, which upsets some people who like steep mountains and not flat, damp plateaus.

This is a fun read on Mass's hydro-battery: https://www.wbur.org/news/2016/12/02/northfield-mountain-hydroelectric-station

Obviously it is at a much larger scale than a ski area would need, but still fun to dream about.

mtl1076 said:

2) the curtailable program is not due to lack of power. It’s an economic “thing”. Gmp trys to shave their peak usage where they would be buying the excess capacity at a premium. I assume from hydro quebec or something. Gmp passes some of those cost savings on to those who are in the curtailable program. It’s a significant savings over the course of a year for ski areas. An area can choose not to be in the curtailable program but it will cost $$ to do so. Question is does the lost snowmaking time outweigh the $$ savings. For most, it doesn’t.

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I believe this is the correct interpretation. Based on shadyjay's procedural outline, and multiplied by perhaps more than 1 line, and 1 curtailment, the question raised is appropriate. Perhaps GMP can make it more interesting by factoring in (lack of) natural snowfall and give Sugarbush a break!!!!!!