Mount Snow 12/13/08 (Session 2)

[drjeff]

Date: 12/13/08

Resort: Mount Snow

Conditions: Same as my session 1 report, except that Canyon quad and tumbleweed triple started running, and Lower Exhibition has the fan guns running

Report: Whats open and groomed is skiing GREAT, very smooth carving surface, and given the low volume of folks here today, it's holding up GREAT! I did venture for a little bit over onto skiers/riders right of Snowdance where the cats didn't hit, and while solid, if you know how to roll your knee and use an edge, it's definately a skiable surface not requiring ice skates.

TONS of mountain ops work going on on the upper mountain and over towards Carinthia. If nothing else, this storm will give the parks crew plenty of "natural features" to use in their building of parks at carinthia The skiing quite good, my guess though is that some patience will be needed to give the clean up/electrical workers the time they are going to need to get things going back upto the top and over to the North Face.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Was it really cold???

 

[drjeff]

Was it really cold???

15 tops with a nice 10 to 15mph wind and as the day went on, LOTS of fangun snow in your face. Just your routine mid-winter VT weather.

 

[Newpylong]

Any snowmaking expansion underway? They have been really slow this year.... too much snow being piled up on Carinthia too early if you ask me...

 

[Glenn]

Any snowmaking expansion underway? They have been really slow this year.... too much snow being piled up on Carinthia too early if you ask me...

We were up there Monday and they had the guns ripping! They lost some snow due to the rain later in the week. But it sounds like they're making more snow now.

 

[drjeff]

Any snowmaking expansion underway? They have been really slow this year.... too much snow being piled up on Carinthia too early if you ask me...

Right now, they're a bit limited by the LACK of power in the area and the EXTENSIVE amount of debris clearing that's needed on many trails and snowmaking pipe areas.

As for the amount of snow being made at Carinthia so far, and granted this is coming from someone who is a NON park user. They need to make the snow over there as much as they can right now. Frankly, the Dew Tour that they have over there in about a month is such a HUGE PR event for not just Mount Snow, but the entire Deerfield Valley. LIVE national TV coverage, a 6 figure Network based publicity campaign, estimates of 20,000+ in the Valley that weekend. This event had HUGE $$ implications for Mount Snow + the Valley not just for this season, but also for future ones. And frankly, the complete success of this event NEEDS to be the top priority of the mountain right now. So having a HUGE pipe, traditionally a few weeks before they normally have a pipe, and having a HUGE park, once again earlier than normal NEEDS to happen, so the mountain can look as good as possible on TV.

 

[Euler]

Ice Storm Skiing

I live in Jacksonville ...here's my report of the storm and the skiing Saturday:

Schools were closed here Thursday at noon as it became clear that the roads were becoming a mess as he freezing rain began. Our power at our home went off around midnight Thursday and was off until Sunday afternoon. Here's some photos around my house Friday morning:

We stayed as warm as we could from our woodstove fireplace insert, but without the electric blower running most of its heat goes up the chimney. On Saturday, hearing reports that power might be off until the middle of the week, we drained the pipes and went to the Crafts Inn in Wilmington, where the power had been restored. We are timeshare owners there and could get a good deal on a room for a few nights.

Saturday morning my daughter had her Devo program so I went to the mountain at 8:30 not expecting much. The Devo program was happening, my daughters coach was there, and my daughter was the only kid in her group who showed up so she got a private lesson for the morning!

As the good Dr reported the day started out with only the learning area lift open, followed by the Canyon Express at about 10:30. I had a ball doing laps with my son on the bunny hill for an hour and then moving up to Snowdance and Standard for another couple hours. There were so few skiers, that having such limited terrain wasn't an issue. The snow surface was nothing short of amazing given the fact that the rest of the area was glazed in up to an inch of ice. Snowdance was beautiful machine groomed hard pack. FAST! Standard was the same on the upper half, and about an inch of fan gun powder on the lower half.

Some views from the lift:

​

As for snowmaking, the guns were running on the bottom half of Standard and that was it. I was frankly amazed anything was running Saturday. A major power feed to the upper mountain was taken out, and since those fan guns all run on electricity, they'll be ot of business until that issue is taken care of.

We tried to go up again on Sunday, but turned around in the parking lot when we saw it was a good sized crowd with really only two lower mountain lifts spinning (Canyon and Tumbleweed) I think if they'd have been running Ego Alley like I thought they might we would have skied, but it wasn't worth dealing with lines and crowds to ski off those two lifts again on Sunday.

School's closed again for Monday and it's not supposed to rain until the afternoon, so I think it'll be a good chance to take the kids up...they want to mess around in Grommet, the beginners terrain park.:roll:

 

[Glenn]

We always drive through your town on the way there and back Euler. I'll be sure to wave!

The only place that had power in Jacksonville Friday was that gas station a few doors down from the North River Winery. The guy had a generator running, and ran the cord right across the street to power the pumps. There was a guy there filling up some jerry cans when we drove by.