"Beastly" groomer porn

[drjeff]

The NSAA East Region trade show is at Mount Snow this coming week, and Prinoth has brought a couple of there HUGE, sharp looking Beast groomers that are at Mount Snow now. While I'm normally a big fan of Pisten Bulley Red, these are some sharp looking machines, and from the trade specs, they can handle a ton of snow surface!

 

[RootDKJ]

Nice! I'd like to be the guy who QC's the cord for the show.

 

[Glenn]

Jeff, Jeff Jr. (female edition), my wife and myself all rode up the lift together at first tracks on Saturday. We saw a few of those silver machines heading back to the maint. ops. building. My wife noticed how quiet they were. They were really interesting looking machines. Jeff and I were laughing that they probably hired a coachbuilder/designer from Ferrari so they could charge an extra $20k-$30k on to the price. Seriously though...very nice looking machines. It was interesting to see something that had a more aesthetic quality...vs straight utility.

 

[BushMogulMaster]

Jeff, Jeff Jr. (female edition), my wife and myself all rode up the lift together at first tracks on Saturday. We saw a few of those silver machines heading back to the maint. ops. building. My wife noticed how quiet they were. They were really interesting looking machines. Jeff and I were laughing that they probably hired a coachbuilder/designer from Ferrari so they could charge an extra $20k-$30k on to the price. Seriously though...very nice looking machines. It was interesting to see something that had a more aesthetic quality...vs straight utility.

You have no idea how close to the truth that is, Glenn. The new cab was designed by Pininfarina, the same group who designed the Ferrari Enzo:

Read more here http://www.dexigner.com/product/news-g17703.html

 

[Glenn]

You have no idea how close to the truth that is, Glenn. The new cab was designed by Pininfarina, the same group who designed the Ferrari Enzo:

Read more here http://www.dexigner.com/product/news-g17703.html

I gotta give Jeff the credit for that one! He had all the info on the groomer as the two rolled by.

That's a cool article! It sounds like it's a really nice machine.

 

[Grassi21]

I want to slash the tires on those groomers.... ;-)

 

[BushMogulMaster]

It's too big for many ski areas. In fact, most ski area shop doors are not wide enough to accommodate the vehicle track-to-track, let alone with the tiller.

In fact, I was just thinking about what it would be like if we had them here at Sugarbush. At Mt. Ellen alone, there are several trails it wouldn't fit on. Northway, Northridge Expressway, Wayback, The Alley (Lower FIS Runout), all of the narrow cutovers between the Sunny D trails, Upper Crackerjack where it goes around the Slidebrook load area, the little road around the bottom of GMX. Heck, it wouldn't even fit up the cat road from the shop to the mountain.

This machine is good for the Okemos of the world. Wide open cruisers. Anywhere else it's a pain in the butt. The Bison looks like a nicer machine for normal grooming operations:

 

[Glenn]

Now that's really interesting. Kind of a "Panama Canal" type of problem. You can build em' really really big, the problem is the smaller trails. That's something I didn't even think of.

 

[bvibert]

It's too big for many ski areas. In fact, most ski area shop doors are not wide enough to accommodate the vehicle track-to-track, let alone with the tiller.

I was wondering how useful the huge size was. Those tracks look wiiiiiiide!!

 

[wa-loaf]

Now that's really interesting. Kind of a "Panama Canal" type of problem. You can build em' really really big, the problem is the smaller trails. That's something I didn't even think of.

The smaller trails are not the problem!

 

[threecy]

It was interesting to see something that had a more aesthetic quality...vs straight utility.

This actually isn't anything particularly new. The LMC CF, for instance, was a nice looking, seemingly easier to use tractor, as compared to the then-popular 3700. As comfy and flashy as the cab was, the tractor itself was flawed and led in part to the end of LMC's alpine ski area snowcat business.

Nonetheless, a powerful, wide tiller cat certainly can have a place in the industry. While it may be useless on narrow trails, it may help hasten the grooming of wide boulevards.

 

[Marc]

From a non New England ski centric point of view, they're probably useful where there aren't trails so much as slopes and pistes:

 

[deadheadskier]

How wide is this machine's tiller?

 

[BushMogulMaster]

How wide is this machine's tiller?

Tiller is 20' wide. 24' with the elephant ears down.

 

[deadheadskier]

What's standard? or maybe average is a better term?

 

[BushMogulMaster]

14'

 

[deadheadskier]

So, for a trail like Inverness, this type of machine would cut down grooming time significantly.

 

[drjeff]

It's too big for many ski areas. In fact, most ski area shop doors are not wide enough to accommodate the vehicle track-to-track, let alone with the tiller.

In fact, I was just thinking about what it would be like if we had them here at Sugarbush. At Mt. Ellen alone, there are several trails it wouldn't fit on. Northway, Northridge Expressway, Wayback, The Alley (Lower FIS Runout), all of the narrow cutovers between the Sunny D trails, Upper Crackerjack where it goes around the Slidebrook load area, the little road around the bottom of GMX. Heck, it wouldn't even fit up the cat road from the shop to the mountain.

This machine is good for the Okemos of the world. Wide open cruisers. Anywhere else it's a pain in the butt. The Bison looks like a nicer machine for normal grooming operations:

The Bison X arrived this AM on a flatbed. Hadn't made it past the parking lot next to Mount Snow's Mountain Ops building when I left. They had actually brought BOTH of the Beast's over there when I was leaving with the Bison X parked infront of them, and the Bison X looked real small next to the Beast's (a bunch of guys in Prinoth jackets were working on all 3). Also as I was leaving, a nice shiny red Pisten Bulley 400winch had just been offloaded from the flat bad and was about to get it's tracks hooked up. Lots of "toys" at Mount Snow right now, and this is before many of them likely show up again in early April for the Ski Area Management Magazine 2nd annual East Coast Cutter's camp.

 

[drjeff]

So, for a trail like Inverness, this type of machine would cut down grooming time significantly.

Less passes, less time, less fuel, etc. Plus, many of these machines are starting to have a GPS system that allows one to see how efficiently the machines are working, on hill snow depths, engine idle time, etc, etc, etc.

 

[tjf67]

Those gps are going to steer the machines. The operators will turn them around get them close and hit the button. Supposed to make them ten percent more efficient.