Jcb890
Active member
I agree it looks less windy Thursday, just wondering if in your expertise you thought Wednesday's wind and snow would cause issues that would lead to wind holds on Thursday. Thursday itself winds and snow should not be an issue.
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Mount Snow: Inside Track
- Thread starter MountSnow
- Start date
We're not going to make any firm calls, but Wednesday is calling for winds will be in the 25-40knot range coming out of the NE at the summit, which could very well effect main face lifts to the summit. Thursday however does look like it will die off quite a bit, but we'll see how fast this storm leaves us.
Wish we could be more concrete, but it's really an hour by hour thing with these Nor'easters.
Wish we could be more concrete, but it's really an hour by hour thing with these Nor'easters.
ss20
Well-known member
Did this morning's issue with the Bluebird get resolved?
Still working on it. Got a little gremlin in the computer system. May have to call Ghost Busters.
And it's back!
Jcb890
Active member
Will the crew be out grooming tonight or will you guys let this snowfall drop and keep it all natural?
drjeff
Well-known member
The typical plan is if it's a beginner trail or atleast 1/3-1/2 the width of a fan gun lined trail or a Carinthia park trail, it will see some "love" from a Pisten Bully before 1st chair on Thursday.... Other than that, short of a few connector flat sections of certain trails, historically Mount Snow has been fairly conservative with grooming on the morning after a storm....
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Jcb890
Active member
Not sure what you mean there...
Are they going to groom blue main face trails like Cascade, Canyon, Ridge, or the North Face?
Smellytele
Well-known member
You better hope they groom the front face or you won't be able to ski down some of them as you will get stuck on them in the heavy snow.
Jcb890
Active member
This storm isn't going to bring snow nearly as heavy as last Friday's storm, right? Friday the issue was wind slowing you down, snow wasn't as much of an issue.
drjeff
Well-known member
They usually won't full width groom the intermediate fan gun lined trails. You might see 2 or 3 passes along the fan gun side of a trail like Ridge or Lodge or Canyon, and then the remainder of the width ungroomed
Highly doubt, short of maybe the run out on River Run or the immediate base area on the Northface, that the rest of that part of the mountain will get groomed.... Since the apparently winch catted Ripcord yesterday, that should be some sweet, steep powder turns for sure!
Jcb890
Active member
Ah, gotcha. Thank you doctor.
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Oh man that was a good one!
33" and a few more on the way for tomorrow.
33" and a few more on the way for tomorrow.
Edd
Well-known member
Unbelievable! Congrats to Mt Snow!
Sent from my iPhone using AlpineZone
Sent from my iPhone using AlpineZone
sankaty
Member
Mount Snow was phenomenal today. The North Face trails, especially the woods, were as good as they get. A day for the record books.
It wasn't a great day for mountain operations, though. When I arrived just after 9AM, they were still clearing parking lots and didn't seem to have any attendants working, causing a big backup on the access road and making it very difficult to find parking. By the time I got that sorted and was ready to ski, they only had the Bluebird running on the main face and the line was very long. When I finally got up to the summit, I went straight to the North Face, but discovered that only one of those lifts was running and it was malfunctioning. It stopped for about 30 minutes causing a huge crowd at the bottom of the NF. All these events conspired to limit me to only one run by 12PM even though I had arrived almost three hours earlier. They seemed to be caught extremely flat-footed by both the snow and the crowd, which was frustrating when I've taken the day off for a special trip.
They did eventually spin up some other lifts, and things got much better. I usually find Snow to be a well-run mountain in general. I suspect there were some behind-the-scenes problems that prevented the mountain from offering the level of service they usually aim to deliver.
It wasn't a great day for mountain operations, though. When I arrived just after 9AM, they were still clearing parking lots and didn't seem to have any attendants working, causing a big backup on the access road and making it very difficult to find parking. By the time I got that sorted and was ready to ski, they only had the Bluebird running on the main face and the line was very long. When I finally got up to the summit, I went straight to the North Face, but discovered that only one of those lifts was running and it was malfunctioning. It stopped for about 30 minutes causing a huge crowd at the bottom of the NF. All these events conspired to limit me to only one run by 12PM even though I had arrived almost three hours earlier. They seemed to be caught extremely flat-footed by both the snow and the crowd, which was frustrating when I've taken the day off for a special trip.
They did eventually spin up some other lifts, and things got much better. I usually find Snow to be a well-run mountain in general. I suspect there were some behind-the-scenes problems that prevented the mountain from offering the level of service they usually aim to deliver.
Yeah, turns out we're not really set up to get three feet in 36hrs. Our plow teams were actually out all night and they just couldn't keep up with this storm that at one point saw 4.75" fall in ONE HOUR! As for the lifts, The Bluebird was good to go at 9am as planned, but The North Face needed a ton of digging out, which we did as fast as possible, we even had the marketing team and our GM out there shoveling drifts that were 6-7' in and around the lifts. Once they were dug out and open, they were walk-on for the rest of the day.
As for Challenger, it did stop, but it was for less than 15 minutes. We know this, because had it been for more than that, it would have auto-triggered our lift evac readiesness protocalls, and we never got to that point.
All in all, we think we managed to pull things off pretty well with such a massive dumping of snow.
All in the timing, I guess. We arrived to the mountain closer to 10, parking at Carinthia. Got right on Nitro (no wait), took a couple of runs over there, then headed to the front/main base. Singles lined moved very quickly on the Bluebird - took 2 runs on front, then headed for North Face - believe it was just after 11 at that point. With the exception of one run in the afternoon, after the Outpost lift closed down and the crowd swelled, lift was a quick ski on, never more than a couple of minutes wait. As annoyed as I was at my teenager for dragging his feet getting to the mountain and wanting to do Carinthia first, I guess I owe him a world of thanks!
sankaty
Member
Thanks so much for this response. The resources to dig out the lifts is something that I hadn't considered. It obviously is an enormous challenge to keep business going as usual after such an anomalous snowfall.
Looking at my Garmin data, my delay from the Challenger lift issue was 24 minutes (not including the ride up the chair). It's possible, however, that the lift was only down for 15 minutes, and the rest of the delay was due to crowding at the lift. It's not a big deal, and I wouldn't have mentioned any of this if it were not for the combined effect of all the delays, most of which were out of the mountain's control.
I suppose my only suggestion would be to have the Canyon lift running by 10AM? That would have greatly alleviated the crowd at the Bluebird in the morning. Perhaps the same snow-related resource challenges that led to the other delays may have made running the Canyon earlier not feasible.
Either way, I had a phenomenal day of skiing (one of many I've had at Mount Snow over the years). I'll definitely be back. Thanks for keeping us informed!
slatham
Well-known member
Besides getting a very unusual 36", this was basically TWICE as much as expected with most forecasts at 18" maybe 20". And a good 18" fell in only a few overnight hours. Besides Mt Snow having to dig out, all the employees had to dig out to even get there! I think anyone with lifts running at 9 did well.
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