Holy Snow Guns

[deadheadskier]

Well good for them. Doesn't change the fact that Loon is one of the lamest ski areas in the northeast.

Real mountains need real snowguns. These are not real snowguns.

answer me this (and I don't care what your mountain preference is)

Who had the better snowmaking effort last season; Killington or Loon?

I'd imagine Boyne went with those guns for two reasons.

1. They have been proven effective at their other resorts.

2. They received free money for installing energy efficient guns. They may not have had a choice in what types of guns they purchased based upon the language of the grant.

So far, I haven't heard any of the Loaf skiers bitching in this thread about 300 new guns

 

[Highway Star]

So far, I haven't heard any of the Loaf skiers bitching in this thread about 300 new guns

Give it about 7 months. :flame:

 

[Watatic Skier]

They are great for the resorts, they cost way less to operate, however from what I saw last fall at SR they seemed to create much wetter snow then the regular guns around them. They are probably better suited for just being rolled around wherever they are needed to create some cheap snow at night, or being used to create piles for a snowcat to push around.

 

[bigbob]

I was at Killington when these guns were first fired up. The wind was from the south, sending most of the snow into the woods on OL.
At the end of the season the ticket checker at the Bear Quad was either a snowmaker or and electrical. He had a HKD hat on. He was very knowledgeable, had wired the system that brings water down from the reservoir, and was a long time employee. He made the simple comment of" look how much snow is left on OL". This was after they had reopened Bear with the bus shuttle service, and after the early heat wave.. Do not underestimate these guns, with the price of energy rising you will be seeing more of these around.

 

[Highway Star]

"........look how much snow is left on OL".

LOL. What about the right side???

 

[bigbob]

Right side has not seen dedicated snowmaking since ASC went belly up, you know that and are just a troll since I disagreed with you. Grow up, or pack up and go back to Stowe and whine about something there you don't like.

 

[millerm277]

I don't think they're necessarily BAD, just inappropriate for where they were used (OL), where you need something with a lot of throw on it, like some big fan guns.

Where I saw them used at Gore (which has much narrower trails), they performed excellently.

 

[deadheadskier]

LOL. What about the right side???

The pics I saw of Outer Limits were certainly depressing this season. I get where you are coming from. That said, couldn't the short throw deficiencies be counteracted with groomers moving the snow piles across the trail.

 

[drjeff]

The pics I saw of Outer Limits were certainly depressing this season. I get where you are coming from. That said, couldn't the short throw deficiencies be counteracted with groomers moving the snow piles across the trail.

If you need to burn a bunch of extra diesel in the snowcats to save some diesel in the compressors is it really that much more efficient?

 

[jimmywilson69]

If you need to burn a bunch of extra diesel in the snowcats to save some diesel in the compressors is it really that much more efficient?

Exactly. That is where tower mounted low e guns clearly fall short. In the case of OL, if they were "portable" they couldve ran them from both sides of the trail and had decent coverage. Although it sounds like the pipes on skiers right haven't been used in years.

 

[snowmonster]

Judging from where the guns will be placed, I can see that Sugarloaf will be stockpiling snow in the places they need to keep open to stretch the season, Candyside in particular. It must have really stung for them that they were pipped by Jay Peak two seasons in a row. This will make for a very interesting King of Spring debate next year.

Regardless of the merits of the technology, thumbs up on this. As a passholder, this is great news. It shows me that management cares and wants to make sure that we have a long ski season. I'm optimistic that my late season lift-served turns next year will be in Maine and not Vermont.

 

[Highway Star]

That said, couldn't the short throw deficiencies be counteracted with groomers moving the snow piles across the trail.

....of course, this is exactly what they did, and it was an epic fail. After several cycles of thaw/freeze followed by snowmaking, they had a 15+ foot tall ridge on lookers right of the trail. They wench catted it, knocking off the top 5 feet and pushing it over, adding maybe 30-40ft of width to the snowmaking area, so roughly 50% of the trail was covered. Now think about for a minute what this does. They just took the top 5 ft of the freshest snow off, and pushed over, compressing it in the process, and leaving the remaining 10 ft of old snow, aka ICE.

OL was a vertical skating rink for most of the season, to the point where they had to close it due to fall-slide injuries where at least one person went to the hospital. There was even one day where I found ski patrol and asked them to close it before someone got hurt. I saw a small pack of gapers take an hour plus to sideslip/walk down the trail. It was the worst I had ever seen it. In 05'-06' under ASC, which was also a difficult year, it was not nearly as bad on OL. I have seen time and time again that Killington's current management just doesn't know how to handle the steep supertrails.

I'm no pro, but here is what I would do on OL. I would remove every other sv10 and reinstall them somewhere else (islands on snowshed). It would use the empty towers to mount man-detachable ground/tripod guns such as k3000's or ratnicks (think tripod with a short tube on the bottom for the post, or heck, just stick one leg in a post), such that they could set up with a long hose and either be fixed to a tower or dragged out onto the trail as needed. This would greatly increase coverage width of the trail due to the longer throw and portability of the ground guns.

I would also install 5 to 8 platforms, electrical and control lines under the lift for carriage mounted fan guns. Guns would be moved there after they were used for early season expansion elsewhere. These would be run as much as possible, semi-automated, for constant refresh.

 

[Method9455]

FYI - These are the snowguns installed on Outer Limits at Killington last year. You know, the ones that have exceptionally poor performance in wind, and no throw.


Good luck with that, these things are basicly complete garbage.

You're an idiot.

Killington cheaped out and bought the wrong guns for that job. They should have gotten fan guns for a trail that wide.

That doesn't mean these guns are crap. They do exactly what they're designed for - making snow cheaply. The fact that Killington valued being cheap over covering the whole trail speaks to their priorities, not the quality of these guns.

On most trails, too much throw is a waste. How often do you see 1/3 of the snow the're making plastered against the trees on the other side? That isn't helpful at all.

Outer Limits is not representative of the average east coast ski trail.

 

[Highway Star]

You're an idiot.

Well, that's just uncalled for.

 

[steamboat1]

The pics I saw of Outer Limits were certainly depressing this season. I get where you are coming from. That said, couldn't the short throw deficiencies be counteracted with groomers moving the snow piles across the trail.

They did spread it out with snow cats. It still only covered 1/3 of the trail.

 

[Newpylong]

Something Ratnik, old school HKD Genesis or SMI Pole cats is what a trail like OL needs. Low E ie no throw Definitely not the right tool for the job.

 

[steamboat1]

You're an idiot.

Killington cheaped out and bought the wrong guns for that job. They should have gotten fan guns for a trail that wide.

That doesn't mean these guns are crap. They do exactly what they're designed for - making snow cheaply. The fact that Killington valued being cheap over covering the whole trail speaks to their priorities, not the quality of these guns.

On most trails, too much throw is a waste. How often do you see 1/3 of the snow the're making plastered against the trees on the other side? That isn't helpful at all.

Outer Limits is not representative of the average east coast ski trail.

Devils Fiddle, Cruise Control, Needles Eye, Superstar, Ovation, Double Dipper, Snowshed Slope are trails at K that are just as wide as Outer Limits & this is just at K. I wouldn't exactly call most of the trails at Sugarloaf narrow either. In fact I would say that wide boulevard trails are more the norm today in the east than the traditional narrow windy trails of yesteryear.

 

[skiadikt]

You're an idiot.

Killington cheaped out and bought the wrong guns for that job. They should have gotten fan guns for a trail that wide.

That doesn't mean these guns are crap. They do exactly what they're designed for - making snow cheaply. The fact that Killington valued being cheap over covering the whole trail speaks to their priorities, not the quality of these guns.

On most trails, too much throw is a waste. How often do you see 1/3 of the snow the're making plastered against the trees on the other side? That isn't helpful at all.

Outer Limits is not representative of the average east coast ski trail.

yup clearly the wrong tool for the job unless the new plan is to cover about 40% the width of ol which is too little for a trail of that width, steepness and traffic. that should be a showcase trail (or at least used to be) and last season was a joke. someone in mtn opps got sold. certainly the energy efficiency was the overriding factor. ultimately they did blow a ton of snow. think there was one stretch where the guns ran for something like 9 straight days.

 

[snowmonster]

Funny how a Sugarloaf thread morphs into a Killington thread.

Yup, summer's here!

 

[skiadikt]

Funny how a Sugarloaf thread morphs into a Killington thread.

Yup, summer's here!

oops you're right ... hopefully they're the right gun for wherever sugarloaf is gonna install them. 300 snow guns is a lot of firepower.