Making a mogul field. Anybody know how resorts do it?

[Boss_Man]

I'm the general manager of a small resort in North central Pa. called Ski Sawmill. We have never had the skier traffic to build up any good moguls. I've heard some ski areas seed their mogul fields. Has anyone seen this done or been apart of making it happen. I also do most of our grooming and have tried to make them with a groomer with very limited success. Has anyone seen someone make moguls with a groomer, or made them theirselves? What did they do? I as well as many others here at the resort love moguls but never seem to have them here at the resort and I'd like that to change. Any suggestions?

Mike

 

[Greg]

Welcome, Boss! Loon in NH makes some of the best bumps:

Apparently, the have a talented groomer that can pull that off:

http://forums.alpinezone.com/viewtopic.php?p=7262#7262

You may want to try to contact Ralph...

 

[riverc0il]

Cheers Boss_Man! good to see a resort going in this direction. not enough areas up here that have the natural snow to do this easily enough (by doing nothing at all, no less) allow mogul fields to develop. regardless of how you push the snow around with the groomer, you are going to need a good skilled bump team to really work them out.

 

[LVNLARG]

I'm the general manager of a small resort in North central Pa. called Ski Sawmill. We have never had the skier traffic to build up any good moguls. I've heard some ski areas seed their mogul fields. Has anyone seen this done or been apart of making it happen. I also do most of our grooming and have tried to make them with a groomer with very limited success. Has anyone seen someone make moguls with a groomer, or made them theirselves? What did they do? I as well as many others here at the resort love moguls but never seem to have them here at the resort and I'd like that to change. Any suggestions?

Mike

Groomer built mogul fields are normally built by building "shelves" on a trail with a decent pitch (generally a steeper pitch on a blue square). First off...it's fairly impossible to do if you're starting with boiler plate...but... if you've got about 12 inches or more of pliable snow that's not going to break up in 1 foot HARD cubic slabs you're good to go. All you do is start at the top of where you want your field facing uphill with the cat and push in 3 or 4 feet with the blade starting at a depth of 0 and finishing at a depth of around a foot. This builds your "shelf" which runs across the fall line for 3 cat blade widths or however wide you want to make your field. The pile you've created at the top of the shelf is what will become moguls. If you're excessively skilled with the cat you can split the pile up with the wing of the blade every 2 or 3 feet to better form moguls or this can also be done by hand by the hill's freestyle coach type character (preferably while you're doing it before the snow sets up and becomes hard to move). Angling around to wing them also helps to soften up the snow for subsequent shelfs with the cat tracks. You basicly just repeat that over and over and offset where you wing the piles on subsequent rows. Couldn't hurt to have "Freestyle coach type" as a spotter to advise you on dimentions as you're going. Best off to do in the early morning and let skiers on it in the afternoon as the snow will still be soft enough for them to shape them properly but not hard enough to set as built. Depends entirely on temps and snow consistency...I'm sure you know what I mean. Not sure if you were trying to build them with the tiller or what...that has no use for this op other than cleaning up the field edges when you're done. :beer:

 

[thetrailboss]

Ask Sunday River. Seriously. I recall watching them use a regular groomer to build bumps on White Heat a few years ago for a competition. Seemed to involve a combo of talented skiers to lay down good lines in soft snowmaking snow, a groomer to compress the bumps, thus solidifying them, and skiers go at it again.

 

[thetrailboss]

Oh yeah and welcome to the boards! Please feel free to tell us more about your mountain and flattered that you came to us for advice! :beer:

 

[Greg]

BTW, everything accurate here?

http://skiing.alpinezone.com/resorts/detail.htm?resort=sawmill

 

[Boss_Man]

Thanks for all the quick replies. I did a few searches on the internet and came up with nothing earlier. Your help is much appreciated.

Lvnlarg... Let me make sure I'm hearing you correctly. The shelves are built across the falline. Horrizontally on the steep. It would be easier I suppose to have the blade facing down hill to get better traction when digging the foot deep trenches... Would that work? Starting at the bottom and working my way up the hill building foot deep trenches with piles of snow in front of the trench. After building the trench then I should try to angle the blade and cut through the trench with the wing attachments. After all this let skiers try and shape the bumps as they start to set up. Am I understanding you correctly?

Trail boss...I'm the general manager of Ski Sawmill (www.skisawmill.com) and my father runs another mountain called Ski Denton (www.skidenton.com). Anytime you are in the area look me up.

Again thanks all!

Boss_Man

 

[LVNLARG]

Thanks for all the quick replies. I did a few searches on the internet and came up with nothing earlier. Your help is much appreciated.

Lvnlarg... Let me make sure I'm hearing you correctly. The shelves are built across the falline. Horrizontally on the steep. It would be easier I suppose to have the blade facing down hill to get better traction when digging the foot deep trenches... Would that work? Starting at the bottom and working my way up the hill building foot deep trenches with piles of snow in front of the trench. After building the trench then I should try to angle the blade and cut through the trench with the wing attachments. After all this let skiers try and shape the bumps as they start to set up. Am I understanding you correctly?

Trail boss...I'm the general manager of Ski Sawmill (www.skisawmill.com) and my father runs another mountain called Ski Denton (www.skidenton.com). Anytime you are in the area look me up.

Again thanks all!

Boss_Man

Right....I think you follow. Another way to describe it would be as "building huge stairs". I've never seen it done working up as you suggest. I have seen the stairs cut running the cat across the fall line "on top" of the step cutting deeper with harsh blade angulation and depositing the excess snow out on the part you're going to leave groomed to be groomed out when you're done. Down (backing down the terrain) is the way to go because creates angles more condusive to properly shaped moguls and less cat time than the side to side option. The push is so short/shallow that traction shouldn't be an issue unless you have a really weak/light cat or are trying to do this on a really steep grade? I wouldn't even try doing it on a grade that you can't groom fairly easily going up. Our local hill has 400+'s and you can cut/push a cat sized pile of snow up the hill with that...never mind mogul sized...without breaking traction. Aggitating the snow with your tracks on one push losens it up for the next as well. If I was nearby I'd come do it for ya.....It's been a while since I last got to play with a cat 8)

 

[LVNLARG]

On your website....the top two thirds of the trail you can see behind the group in the pic on your business specials page looks fairly ideal pitch wise for manmade moguls. If you've got boilerplate you might have to blow it for a night before building your field.

 

[Boss_Man]

I'd love to see ya in action. I've been building parks for 6+ years now and shouldn't have a problem doing this but it's always easier to see it done and learn from someone who knows more. I suppose I will just have to get out and play someday this next week. I will let you know how it goes.

I was watching the girls olympic mogul competition last night and was getting excited to ski them myself. I figured if you can't go to the moguls, you might as well make the moguls come to you. Wish me luck!

 

[LVNLARG]

I'd love to see ya in action. I've been building parks for 6+ years now and shouldn't have a problem doing this but it's always easier to see it done and learn from someone who knows more. I suppose I will just have to get out and play someday this next week. I will let you know how it goes.

I was watching the girls olympic mogul competition last night and was getting excited to ski them myself. I figured if you can't go to the moguls, you might as well make the moguls come to you. Wish me luck!

Oh...you mean the one were the CANADIAN won the gold medal and the ONLY alpine medal for the US/Canada so far? (Just still rubbin that in the faces of the folks here who were saying the US was gonna sweep the DH to which I countered "not a chance" hee hee) Good luck! With that experience you should make out more than ok. I think you were maybe just pointed in the wrong direction in the past!

 

[NYDrew]

I havent read to many of the posts so forgive me if I repeat anyone.

I believe some mountains have mogul machines. Never seen one, but I've seen fresh feilds that are to perfect to be skiier made.

The otherday at work, I was bitching to the owners son (general manager) about the lack of bumps and any freshly forming ones getting torn down to save base coverage. Of course he smiled and told me a story from when his father just build the place and how they never groomed my favorite trail for bumps:

I decided to take it on myself to seed the feild. I strapped on my slalom skiis (my bump skiis) and skiied the same line over and over again pretanding I was in a bump feild. By the time my next lesson came up, I had some visible start to the bump feild. By the end of the day, other skiiers turned my seeds into bumps. By the next morning, the groomer tore them down.

Moral of the story, perhaps get some of your better instructors who can ski bumps well to do what I did. I say better instructors because from experience I know many new guys can't ski bumps and your lines will be all awkward if they don't seed them just right. Turn it into a challenge...maybe bet them a round of drinks at the mountain bar if they pull it off. We usually do anything for a beer.

 

[trackbiker]

Blue Mountain and Camelback both build bump runs. You may want to check with them if you have any contacts there through the PSAA.

 

[BeanoNYC]

An all expense paid AZ trip to your mountain so we can seed your mogul field with turns may be an option?

 

[ctenidae]

Hey Boss_Man- ask your dad about the 66 degree slope at Denton. We've discussed it ad nauseum, but no one has been there or has pictures. How long is it that steep, and is it really 66 degrees?

Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[Greg]

An all expense paid AZ trip to your mountain so we can seed your mogul field with turns may be an option?

I'd be up for that! Could make for some great press too!

Hey Boss_Man- ask your dad about the 66 degree slope at Denton. We've discussed it ad nauseum, but no one has been there or has pictures. How long is it that steep, and is it really 66 degrees?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Oh boy. Home of the Steepest in the East and the Triple Fall Line? Yeah Boss - do a search on Denton - just don't kill us after you read those threads... :lol:

 

[ctenidae]

I wasn't going to bring up the 4th Dimension Triple Fall Line until we got to know Boss_Man better. Didn't want to scare him off, or get him sucked into the tear in teh space-time continuum.

 

[Greg]

I wasn't going to bring up the 4th Dimension Triple Fall Line until we got to know Boss_Man better. Didn't want to scare him off, or get him sucked into the tear in teh space-time continuum.

Yeah - Boss_Man - it's great to have you here, but you will get pretty up front criticisms. Please don't take offense to some of the Denton comments. Perhaps they can be used in a constructive way...

 

[BeanoNYC]

Did we ever get them to agree to the AZ challenge?