Killington skiing into June.!

[drjeff]

Not at all. The snow was nowhere near as high the towers. And should that ever be an issue, you angle the groomer blade and doze it off away from the guns.

Exactly!! And it's not like when they were going for the final push that they were looking for 100% pure quality snow where they'd want to let it drain out a bit before putting a cat on it.

The Snow Logic's that they were using are in essence a game changer gun with how little air they use, so that gives the mountain ops folks a much more cost effective option to make snow, even the massive amount of snow they put on SS!

Kudo's to Mike S and the whole crew at K for really going for it!!

I will be curious to see next season, if they alter their strategy a bit about how much and where they'll make snow, especially given that with some of the modern terrain mapping GPS equipment in the cats they can get a very accurate reading of how much snow was piled where and then correlate that with how the melt out went!

I hope that the weather folks have over shot their temp estimates for the next few days and that Monday happens with more white than mud brown on SS!

 

[steamboat1]

A general Superstar question - is it always moguls top-to-bottom or is it only due to it being spring and not wanting to groom the moguls down?

Generally they groom it regularly during the season. By regularly I mean every few days although they'll sometimes groom it more often.

 

[Jcb890]

Generally they groom it regularly during the season. By regularly I mean every few days although they'll sometimes groom it more often.

Ah. Either way, I thought it was a fun and interesting trail. Had a blast on Friday from 9-1. I was shocked to see how big the moguls had gotten and how deep/chewed up the troughs were by 1 on Friday.

 

[Watatic Skier]

Here's a strange thought - What would happen if K planted a few trees (pines/spruce etc.) around that middle section to buffer sunshine in the spring and maintain the snow depth? It wouldn't be a true "glade", but could add some character to the trail and maintain snow for the spring.

Just a 85 degree May day thought.

unless it was a substantial tree island they would never survive the snow making

 

[ss20]

Here's a strange thought - What would happen if K planted a few trees (pines/spruce etc.) around that middle section to buffer sunshine in the spring and maintain the snow depth? It wouldn't be a true "glade", but could add some character to the trail and maintain snow for the spring.

Just a 85 degree May day thought.

Individual trees wouldn't last a season. I've heard that before the Canyon Quad was put in Big Dipper was a real glade. Then after they added width on Big Dipper the trees started falling one by one to the mess that it is now. Superstar is equally as wide and with snowmaking+grooming nearly everyday in the regular season trees won't stand a chance.

The best trail would be something very narrow, facing north, with a stream nearby. Superstar is triple the width it should be to keep good snow. But come May it needs the width to support all the traffic it receives.

 

[steamboat1]

The best trail would be something very narrow, facing north, with a stream nearby.

Skyelark & Superstar fit that bill before the lift but lacked elevation & snowmaking. Downdraft & Cascade had long proven to be a better alternative for snow preservation. 30 ft. of snow on Cascade or Downdraft with the old mid station would likely have lasted longer. It's all good though, kudo's to Mike & Jeff for making it this far.

 

[shpride]

Since the "S" sticks around so long they should put in a lift that only goes up that section.

 

[dlague]

Even if it is a poma lift.

 

[joshua segal]

Even if it is a poma lift.

What's wrong with a poma?

Seriously though, 2-points:
1. A poma track is almost impossible to maintain late season.
2. Killington is not a charity intent on supporting a few late season skiers, most of whom have season passes and are not generating a lot of cash flow. I doubt any business manager could justify the cost of any lift for such a limited market. That was the beauty of the loading mid-station on the old Killington double. Skiing Cascade from the summit to the mid-station allowed for the following advantages
a. A 3800' base elevation which held snow much better than Superstar.
b. The ability to access the summit as well as skiing with one lift.
c. The ability to run the tourist/gawker/trail-bike trips to the summit concurrently.
---
Unfortunately, there is no configuration on the mountain that currently supports this "perfect spring skiing" setup, so we'll just have to settle for Superstar!

 

[skiadikt]

big time kudos to k for the effort they put in. thought the whole thing has been very well played. hopefully it paid off both in fannies in the seats and marketing and will enable them going forward to continue pushing for june because we know management in park city would as soon see the mtn shut down mid-april.

agree with mr segal that supe isn't the ideal setup. maintaining snow down to a 2500' base elevation is madness and we love k for it's commitment to madness. going forward it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see where the "problems" lay. they need to run that 20-25 snow depth they layed down on the headwall on that flat middle section. i remember in the old daze a snow stake was located near the high road cutover and had base depths reaching that 20-25ft.

 

[rtjcbrown]

I would love to see how Sugarbush would make out if they tried running the Summit lift at North, and ski from the mid station up.

Have to believe that is one of the more ideal setups

 

[xwhaler]

I would love to see how Sugarbush would make out if they tried running the Summit lift at North, and ski from the mid station up.

Have to believe that is one of the more ideal setups

I agree, especially with Food and Beverage for extra $ right there as well.
Saddleback Kennebago quad/Yurt at base would also be a great option if they could bury Tightline/Supervisor as the mtn faces north and holds snow better than anywhere else in New England due to few thaw/freeze events.

The issue would be downloading though so probably a non starter.

And of course Cannon running the upper quad with uploading/downloading on the Tram could be pretty awesome.

 

[deadheadskier]

I would love to see how Sugarbush would make out if they tried running the Summit lift at North, and ski from the mid station up.

Have to believe that is one of the more ideal setups

They've done it in the past. It's probably been 10 years though. Doubt we will ever see it again unfortunately.

 

[Domeskier]

big time kudos to k for the effort they put in. thought the whole thing has been very well played. hopefully it paid off both in fannies in the seats and marketing and will enable them going forward to continue pushing for june because we know management in park city would as soon see the mtn shut down mid-april.

+1. I got in 9 days at K since the second weekend of April (which, by way of comparison, is more than half my days for the entire season) and fully intend to purchase the spring pass next year if it looks like there will be a repeat of this season.

 

[deadheadskier]

http://m.killington.com/site/mountain/webcam/golf.html

Going fast! Bummer

 

[Newpylong]

Yup 6/1 is a bust. Sucks. So close!

 

[Jcb890]

What a bummer. I'm glad I went last Friday!

 

[Puck it]

Toast!!!!!!!!!!! And the snowmaking window does not look promising.

 

[joshua segal]

I would love to see how Sugarbush would make out if they tried running the Summit lift at North, and ski from the mid station up.

Have to believe that is one of the more ideal setups

Deadheadskier suggested that it's probably been 10 years since Sugarbush North made a push for late spring skiing. While he is right, I am unaware of any effort of Sugarbush (or Sugarbush North - aka "Glen Ellen") to compete seriously for "last to close" honors within the last 10 or even 20 years. However, in the late 60's Glen Ellen had a summit chair with a loading mid-station - and they did make a serious effort to compete with Killington for last-to-close.

Spring skiing can often be a last minute call, based on weather and other factors. Hence, day-trippers become a more important market than the vacationers on which destination resorts thrive. The extra 45 minutes to Glen Ellen (over Killington) made Glen Ellen non-competitive in the late-season market. They dropped out of that market and while they still run pretty late (typically first week of May), they are not the last. (Even in the years that Killington dropped out of the last-to-close market, Bretton Woods and Sugarloaf were the winners, not Sugarbush.)

 

[from_the_NEK]

Eye on the Sky weather guy this morning said the May is a top 10 warmest on their record books. Very strong effort by K to make it to June. Alas the hot winds were too much.