Big Burke announcement

[fbrissette]

As usual, you guys have these topics pretty well wrestled. I'll just add that, and Steve is right, we don't look to the ice sheet to be successful in and of itself. I set the pricing as a lost leader (and thus the tournaments are a hell of a lot more affordable than many places) to help fill rooms. Rink's been open 3 full years and, this coming year, we'll have 40 weekends of 12-16 teams booking a total of between 250-300 total rooms--much of this during shoulder seasons. The per-caps on these folks, alone, tell a good story. Add in two weeks worth of Planet Hockey camps, Pro Ambitions Camps and figure skating marginalia and while possibly not a home run, a stand-up triple certainly can be argued. Certainly more successful than even the most optimistic among us forecasted. And Francois is right (and I have the hatemail that bears it out)--weekends we have no avail stick and puck/free skate times--it was he main reason ice-access is no longer included in packages; weekends have no space. I'll give you a shout when I get my head around diving. Still waiting for the divine on that front.

Forecast is improving too.

Thanks Steve. Now can you shed some light on the mystery of the new Jay Peak run ? (see Crashed groomer/new jay peak run thread)

 

[AdironRider]

I must admit, Steve at JPR is a standup dude for wading into the waters here and bringing clear concise and accurate info. Definitely a solid asset for the boards.

 

[BenedictGomez]

Thanks Steve. Now can you shed some light on the mystery of the new Jay Peak run ? (see Crashed groomer/new jay peak run thread)

I'm going with my "Brigadoon Hypothesis", it's a magical trail.

 

[BeefyBoy50]

So you are telling me you are going to travel from Philly, to use a ten meter board near the Canadian border?

Nevermind that diving (at least in the Northeast) is primarily a winter sport due to the way high school and college schedule them. There is not a ton of overlap between divers and skiers. Same for swimmers, I didnt really take up snowboarding to the extent that I do now until I stopped training and started coaching.

Doesnt LaSalle have a diving facility? Im thinking back to my high school days on that one though when I was traveling round the country for meets.

Do you know what it costs to build a facility like this? Its in the millions for a decent setup. Do you know what a swim meet pulls in in revenue? Do you know the labor and liability insurance costs associated with a pool like this? How much would you pay for the priviledge of using their setup? Not many people are going to choose to pay to jump off a ten meter, when they can do it for free at any of the million cliff jumping spots in VT. Its like mecca for that. Red Rocks at tiered levels up to 76 feet is free, closer to civilization so to speak, and yeah free. Same with Buckets down near Bolton/Richmond, etc. Plus they have a water park with all sorts of fun things for the non-divers. Your telling me a non-diver is going to get his thrills on a ten meter and not a water slide? Highly doubt it.

I'm not saying I'll travel from Philly, I'm saying people from the area might travel 30 minutes, maybe even an hour, to use a top notch diving facility. I had no idea the price could be as expensive as you mentioned, however. That puts things in a whole different light. Besides, I don't know what the area around is like in terms of diving facilities but if the area is anything like philly than I doubt there is a diving area with platforms for hours around. I could be wrong though, maybe some college has a great diving center.
La Salle has 2 1meter and 2 3 meter platforms which is good but its nothing like the facilities I saw at Penn State- 2 indoor 1m boards, 2 outdoor 1m boards, 2 indoor 3m boards, 2 outdoor 3m boards, and an outdoor diving tower.
I see this diving facility thing as an interesting concept but if it really is as expensive as you say to build than it would be more of a money pit.

 

[Steve@jpr]

I like the Brigadoon summary. Looked back as far as I could and that cut in the map has always been there--far back as I can see at least. Cosmic.

Thanks Steve. Now can you shed some light on the mystery of the new Jay Peak run ? (see Crashed groomer/new jay peak run thread)

 

[from_the_NEK]

I'm not saying I'll travel from Philly, I'm saying people from the area might travel 30 minutes, maybe even an hour, to use a top notch diving facility. I had no idea the price could be as expensive as you mentioned, however. That puts things in a whole different light. Besides, I don't know what the area around is like in terms of diving facilities but if the area is anything like philly than I doubt there is a diving area with platforms for hours around. I could be wrong though, maybe some college has a great diving center.

I'm not aware of any type of diving scene (other than cliff/swimming hole jumpers) in the greater VT, NH, ME region.

There are really no pure diving facilities in VT or NH that I can find. UVM, UNH, and Dartmouth all have a 3 meter board. Hell, the Kiwanis pool in St Johnsbury has a 3 meter board.
I'm still not sure what demand there would be for a "diving facility. Or what mix of boards/platforms you would need to be considered a "diving facility". Maybe they are just planning on throwing up 1 and 3 meter boards at the end of the pool along with a 10 meter platform from a catwalk in the rafters? How deep does the water have to be for one of those? I would suppose it would be too deep to be very good for lane swimming?

 

[AdironRider]

A deep pool does not necessarily equate poor lap swimming.

A decent pool for swimming is one that manages all waves and such. Lane lines do this to some extent, but next time your in a big time swimming arena, check out the gutters along the edge. Often they will be huge compared to the local Y or a backyard pool (often the backyard pools dont even have a drainage system outside of an overflow hole). Good drainage almost always equals a fast pool.

Having a deep pool can work in the same sense, the shock waves as the swimmer passes through the water travel a ways downwards, bounce off the bottom, then head back up towards the swimmer. A deeper pool increases the time this whole process takes, usually to the point where the swimmer has already passed back over the point on his way back.

On a side note, recent rule changes within the past ten years or so now allow swimmers to dolphin kick after their turns in pretty much every stroke. Remember in the Olympics when swimmers would dolphin kick like 20 yards before surfacing? Same premise. The dolphin kick (besides being the second fastest stroke per se in the sport), allows the swimmer to stay below the waves and chop so to speak on top for longer, resulting in lower times.

That being said, I think the pure lack of diving facilities, even at all the local big name colleges (Dartmouth with only up to 3 meters (although I love their pool even though its actually kinda slow) shows just how little interest there is in the sport of diving in the Northeast. Frankly, nationwide the amount of serious divers is so small they could all exclusively train at the proposed Burke facility and I would wager they would still lose money.

 

[from_the_NEK]

I'm familiar with the way a lap pool and the wide gutters in combination with the lane dividers work to reduce waves in the pool. I was just thinking that the depth of water 15-20 ft under a 10 meter platform would make it more difficult to look down and follow the lane line on the bottom of the pool.

 

[thetrailboss]

Pool smool.

I want to know what is going to happen with the ski terrain.

 

[Smellytele]

Pool smool.

I want to know what is going to happen with the ski terrain.

Bingo bango bongo!

 

[from_the_NEK]

Indeed. What does exactly does "Significantly expand the area of the East Bowl" mean?

 

[from_the_NEK]

Are we going to get something like this (from the original Ginn Masterplan)?:

Or this (brought to you by F.T.N Trail Planners LLP)?:
White areas are exisitng cut trails.
Green are exisitng on map glades.
Purple would be future cut trails
Yellow would be future gladed chutes throughout the East Bowl.

 

[gregnye]

Are we going to get something like this (from the original Ginn Masterplan)?:

Or this (brought to you by F.T.N Trail Planners LLP)?:
White areas are exisitng cut trails.
Green are exisitng on map glades.
Purple would be future cut trails
Yellow would be future gladed shoots throughout the East Bowl.

This lift looks as long as the Mid-burke express. Would the old willougby quad really serve it? It looks like it could be high-speed (its long enough. (Never been to burke though--sorry. Although I may go on sunday if its too windy at Jay)

 

[from_the_NEK]

It isn't quite as long as the Mid-Burke Express which is about 5,600' long.
As I have the East Bowl lift drawn here it is about 4,866'
The Willughby Quad is 4,731'

I took a little time and reworked my East Bowl trail/glade design. Most notably, I moved the summit of the lift to the east side of the powerline. This both avoids trying to cross the powerline (an expensive thing to do) and moves the lift a little farther away from the summit wind turbine. I'm not sure how far up toward the communications tower on the summit they can go with the lift. In both of my versions, I have the summit terminal within 100 feet of the tower. Having the terminal this high would allow people to easily access Upper Willloughby from the lift as well as have a downhill traverse to East Bowl.
Additionally, I reworked the trail that comes off Powderhorn down across the Lift line and Caveman. In my revision, I eliminated the lower section and sort of combined it with the lift line.

 

[AdironRider]

I sense 9 trails leading to one chokepoint on a traverse never happening, otherwise that looks pretty sweet.

 

[from_the_NEK]

Keep in mind that those are all glades and the final layout in there would likely be much different. The bowl naturally funnels into that spot. I suppose I should add some sort of connector between the outlet of the bowl and the East Bowl extension trail that returns to the lift.

 

[Masskier]

[FONT=Verdana, Times New Roman, Times, Serif]nice article in today Cal rec.

Burke Mountain Resort: Stenger Wants To Open Biking Center Next Year

http://caledonianrecord.com/main.asp?SectionID=180&SubSectionID=778&ArticleID=89610


[/FONT]

 

[deadheadskier]

It isn't quite as long as the Mid-Burke Express which is about 5,600' long.
As I have the East Bowl lift drawn here it is about 4,866'
The Willughby Quad is 4,731'

I took a little time and reworked my East Bowl trail/glade design. Most notably, I moved the summit of the lift to the east side of the powerline. This both avoids trying to cross the powerline (an expensive thing to do) and moves the lift a little farther away from the summit wind turbine. I'm not sure how far up toward the communications tower on the summit they can go with the lift. In both of my versions, I have the summit terminal within 100 feet of the tower. Having the terminal this high would allow people to easily access Upper Willloughby from the lift as well as have a downhill traverse to East Bowl.
Additionally, I reworked the trail that comes off Powderhorn down across the Lift line and Caveman. In my revision, I eliminated the lower section and sort of combined it with the lift line.

Love the idea of having all that gladed terrain in there, but I'd have to expect they'd want to add at least a couple of trails in there to make the pod more viable when natural conditions aren't that great.

Is the idea being kicked around to move the Willoughby Quad over to the bowl? Will people still bitch about how long and slow the lift is when it's moved over there? :lol:

 

[Masskier]

Love the idea of having all that gladed terrain in there, but I'd have to expect they'd want to add at least a couple of trails in there to make the pod more viable when natural conditions aren't that great.

Is the idea being kicked around to move the Willoughby Quad over to the bowl? Will people still bitch about how long and slow the lift is when it's moved over there? :lol:

The East Bowl should have a new lift in time for next winter. Most likely it will be a HSQ.

 

[deadheadskier]

That's seriously going for it. 2 HSQs at a mountain that does less than 100K skier visits in unheard of. That really speaks to the faith Stenger has in growing the business at Burke. For current frequent Burke skiers, the next few years are going to be pretty fantastic; major on mountain improvements to enjoy prior to real estate development and increased crowding. I really need to find a way to get to Burke for a day this season.