Killington - Expert trails CLOSED, with NO Snowmaking....

[Highway Star]

Yes, I started a new thread. Here is part of todays report:

Killington has seen low temperatures sticking around, which means the snowmakers plan to be out and about on Friday. Keep an eye out for snow guns on Outer Limits and Snowshed Slope, in addition to spot guns on Great Northern and throughout our 400+ open acres.

They've got Double Dipper, Downdraft, Devil's Fiddle, Vertigo, Upper Dreamaker and Ovation that haven't seen any snowmaking this year. Clearly because of the dew tour taking away snowmaking resources.

In 8 years being a regular at Killington, I have never seen Dipper and Downdraft not get snowmaking.

If anyone cares and want these trails open this year, you need make your voice heard. Feel free to complain to Killington via FB, email, etc.

 

[Nick]

I think I have deja vu on this thread, but the warm weather has been crazy this year, which I'm sure makes it tough for any mountain.

 

[Highway Star]

I think I have deja vu. But yes I'm surprised as well. At this rate the closing day will be Mar 15th.

Thank you for your leeway on this.

I'm not willing to let them slide on not making snow in the canyon (dipper/downdraft).

 

[thetrailboss]

They would say that Outer Limits is the "expert trail" with snowmaking. Your response?

 

[Highway Star]

They would say that Outer Limits is the "expert trail" with snowmaking. Your response?

OL is half open. Really. I didn't say every expert trail was closed.

 

[drjeff]

Yes, I started a new thread. Here is part of todays report:



They've got Double Dipper, Downdraft, Devil's Fiddle, Vertigo, and Ovation that haven't seen any snowmaking this year. Clearly because of the dew tour taking away snowmaking resources.

In 8 years being a regular at Killington, I have never seen Dipper and Downdraft not get snowmaking.

Just for a moment to play "arm chair mountain ops manager" for a second. Has there ever been a year in your 8 years of being a K regular that has seen the need for as many, almost weekly resurfacing events as this year??

You can easily argue that Fiddle, and possibly Vertigo would be affected by the snowmaking effort for the Dew Tour courses, but DD, Downdraft and Ovation based on my knowledge of K's snowmaking system layout I believe are on a seperate "air loop" than the Bear side. So for those trails it then gets down to an issue of either they've had to divert their resources for opening and maintaining other terrain or just the descision to not use a decent amount of resources to produce the amount of snow needed to get those trails open. This season in particular has presented repeated challenges not often seen, and as such makes one have to ask the question of should peoples expectations be as they would be in a "normal" season this year?? Especially tough considering how last year was which is still fresh in so many peoples memories

 

[Nick]

I was just about to write a similar thing to DrJeff. If you have to concentrate your snowmaking efforts somewhere, you have to work with what you got. I mean the winter is terrible. I don't know a whole ton about snowmaking but I'm guessing if it's a choice between a a lot of trails with thin cover or a couple trails that are very ski-able they will cater to the trails that have the most snow.

It's a tough winter either way. it has to be hell to be a mountain ops person this year.

 

[SkiingInABlueDream]

I was at Kton sunday last weekend. Spent part of the day lapping the Bear Mt quad. Pretty much every ride up I saw someone sliding (off their feet) down OL. Given the weather recently I don't see how a better surface could have been made on the steeper canyon runs.

Didn't someone die sliding down Dipper a few years ago?

edit: My point is, I thought they made good choices with where they were focussing their snowmaking effort.

 

[skiur]

They have had opportunites to blow snow in cold temps recently and did not. Even before the rental compressors went back. They chose not too. Their actions speak for themselves.

 

[thetrailboss]

OL is half open. Really. I didn't say every expert trail was closed.

Right, but I am playing devil's advocate and taking their side. I do agree that not snowmaking on those expert runs is not good, but I see them saying, "gee, the winter weather sucks and hell, we at least have some of OL open."

 

[Highway Star]

I'm tired of the sympathy for the budget, resurfacing, etc. This is Killington. They need to make snow on their premier expert trails, PERIOD.

 

[Nick]

Well we could always go throw water in the air and hope it freezes on the way down.

I get it's frustrating, but there must be some operational decision behind it. These things aren't just by accident, I'm assuming.

 

[Highway Star]

They have had opportunites to blow snow in cold temps recently and did not. Even before the rental compressors went back. They chose not too. Their actions speak for themselves.

Agreed, we got hosed this year and it wasn't by the weather.

 

[Ski the Moguls]

I'm tired of the sympathy for the budget, resurfacing, etc. This is Killington. They need to make snow on their premier expert trails, PERIOD.

I hate to actually agree with HS about something, but he is right. This is skiing. It is not a consistent business. Some years you lose money. K needs to accept that fact. Blow #$@% the trails already!

 

[drjeff]

I'm tired of the sympathy for the budget, resurfacing, etc. This is Killington. They need to make snow on their premier expert trails, PERIOD.

Emotion vs. Reality sometimes is a real B$tch

 

[Glenn]

Roadtrip time! I'll bring some full rockered 120mm powder boards and lay down some carving trenches in the Dew Tour pipe.

 

[gmcunni]

K needs to accept that fact.

this might be backwards. perhaps the customers need to accept the facts.

 

[thetrailboss]

Do you think that this is a continuation of their shift in focus away from expert skiers to the mediocre/ski a few times a year crowd that frequent places like Okemo and have more disposable income?

 

[kingslug]

This reminds me of how some restaurants deal with a bad economy. They cut and cut, food quality goes down, they cut prices..right up until they go out of business....

 

[drjeff]

I hate to actually agree with HS about something, but he is right. This is skiing. It is not a consistent business. Some years you lose money. K needs to accept that fact. Blow #$@% the trails already!

The reality is though about the "modern" snowmaking process at just about any ski area these days vs. what the snowmaking process of the past USED to be, is that from an operations standpoint, ski area managers have so much more data available to them today than in years past AND for a hard cap on the annual snowmaking budget. Combined with the fact that the energy costs today vs. what they were 10+ years ago makes snowmaking much more expensive per hour than it used to me (using K as an example, I don't think that anyone would dispute that the cost of a gallon of diesel to power the air compressors, or the cost of a Kw hour to run an fixed electric compressors is much greater than it was 10+ years ago), so as a result, many ski areas are far more aware of how efficiently they can make snow vs. just "can they make snow" at any given moment.

I'm guessing that the great effort, with much credit given to them that K put in back in October and November to get open and then stay open caused them to go through a greater percentage of their annual snowmaking budget than they anticipated. Then the number of resurfacing events they have had to go through this year didn't help either. So now they've probably had to make the tough choice of looking at the weather and the resources (read as $$ left in the snowmaking budget) and make choices based on logic, not emotion (i.e. an 18 hour window or so ahead of a 2 day warm up to start making snow on a new double diamond trail probably isn't as high a priority as using those same snowmaking budget dollars on the backside of that warm up when resurfacing is needed of existing terrain). I'm guessing that K, just like most Eastern Ski areas this year because of the weather, will end up seeing a decrease in skier/rider visits. The choice then to go beyond a likely budgeted amount of snowmaking funds at the expense of an already likely decrease in seasonal revenues will be tough, especially given the capital expense that K is looking at this summer with the completion of the summit lodge.

The business choices that have to be made sometimes aren't easy by any means, and until someone has been in the situation where they've had to make a tough business descision, almost having the only choice being one of "which is the lesser of two evils?" it's really tough to grasp this concept. Since as much as "the customer is always right" applies, there's also a time when the expectations of a customer can't bet achieved in the current circumstance presented to the business