Mt Snow Thread

[sull1102]

This decision gets wise the more I think about it. That mountain is perfect for late season low employee headcount weekends, run one lift (bluebird) and you’ve got 80% of the place running, add in one triple in North Face and now we’re talking 90%. It’s unreal. You could even close the main lodge and run everything out of the ticket/rental building or get real creative pull a Sunday River and run out of Grand Summit and the like gear shop right there.

I wish Stratton would push to Easter just to make this look even worse than it will next weekend.

 

[SLyardsale]

skied northface on Friday and it was still loaded up (and really good) on free fall, plummet, ripcord, fallen timbers. chute was thin in spots. agree that the leak has nothing to do with this - probably just warning club members that their feet might get muddy getting their stuff out of the club to head over to carinthia,

they could run it with bluebird / challenger and the route back via long john or cascade canyon. i would do long john to connect back to carinthia.

rip cord was open maybe 7 days total this season which was 7 days more than last year so in the Dr Jeff world, we are making progress.

 

[drjeff]

skied northface on Friday and it was still loaded up (and really good) on free fall, plummet, ripcord, fallen timbers. chute was thin in spots. agree that the leak has nothing to do with this - probably just warning club members that their feet might get muddy getting their stuff out of the club to head over to carinthia,

they could run it with bluebird / challenger and the route back via long john or cascade canyon. i would do long john to connect back to carinthia.

rip cord was open maybe 7 days total this season which was 7 days more than last year so in the Dr Jeff world, we are making progress.

The fact they made snow on Ripcord (that didn't happen last year) and it was open on occasion this year (heck, it was worthy of 3 laps today even with the hike over from Outpost), is a big plus in my book!

And hopefully they'll find and fix the water main break (apparently there's been some water in the paid seasonal locker area in the basement of the baselodge roughly under where the Backside snowboard shop is)

And the "big dig" is slated for next Friday - Monday, the ski club email that went out on Friday had the wrong dates. Once they get that one fixed, maybe they can get the sewer pipe from the Summit Lodge that they've had issues with during the season, especially down near Little John not too far below the entrance to Southbowl!

I'll get some more Carinthia only days in, and if the weather isn't ugly next Saturday or Sunday maybe shoot up to Okemo for a change of pace. Heck, I could probably call it quits after today which was about 3 hours of fun Spring laps with my wife and a few other good friends that we all enjoyed

 

[SLyardsale]

i think you miss the point. if your so mismanaged that you make snow on a signature trail and only have it opened 6-7 days in the last 90 days then you completely suck and don't know what you are doing. the better strategy was last year not to make snow on it. the gm knew the situation that vail gives no shits and he didn't waste his dollars on that project and in return he's now at whistler. get it ?

 

[reefer]

Dr Jeff is drinking the cool aide
Was there Friday also with very few others. That is the reason. The pencil pushers took over from the skiers. They are cheap ass's period. Plenty of snow on the north face and a couple down the main face. Although the Elk migration does have me a little concerned.

 

[chuckstah]

Closing up the main face and particularly North will ensure low visitation going forward. The penny pinchers will see that only 100 people showed up after April 6th, and justify earlier and earlier pod closings year after year. It's clearly already ongoing at Wildcat with nobody showing up for 3 trails, so that will be the new norm. (Hopefully wrong on this but....)

I'm going somewhere Wednesday, and it would have been Snow, but not for Carinthia. Maybe Bolton if they open as they are hinting at. An extra 20 minutes to support an Indy sounds good to me.

 

[drjeff]

With the exception of the 2019-2020 season where COVID shut everyone down in mid March, since Vail has owned Mount Snow, they have had their late seasons operations plan where Mount Snow stays open as late, and in some years later, than any other of their Eastern properties, which has typically been to whatever Sunday falls in the April 20-25th or so time-frame, with the last 1 to 2 weeks being Carinthia only.

Heck, just looking at the Calendar for next year, as long as it's something resembling a semi normal Winter and early Spring, I would guess that next Spring, the main and North Face will close on Sunday, April.11th and Carinthia and the end of overall operations on Sunday April 25th. They have had that consistent of a Spring operations plan since they have owned the mountain. One can certainly question other operations decisions they have made, but their Spring operating plans have been pretty reliable

 

[sull1102]

Closing up the main face and particularly North will ensure low visitation going forward. The penny pinchers will see that only 100 people showed up after April 6th, and justify earlier and earlier pod closings year after year. It's clearly already ongoing at Wildcat with nobody showing up for 3 trails, so that will be the new norm. (Hopefully wrong on this but....)

I'm going somewhere Wednesday, and it would have been Snow, but not for Carinthia. Maybe Bolton if they open as they are hinting at. An extra 20 minutes to support an Indy sounds good to me.

This 1,000,000%. “Oh, well look here the numbers just drop off a cliff after the first weekend of April so we really don’t need to blow that much snow in January and February to build up the base cause we aren’t going late anymore.”

All this after Peak put in so much effort and capital to make one of the best snowmaking systems in the country.

 

[sull1102]

With the exception of the 2019-2020 season where COVID shut everyone down in mid March, since Vail has owned Mount Snow, they have had their late seasons operations plan where Mount Snow stays open as late, and in some years later, than any other of their Eastern properties, which has typically been to whatever Sunday falls in the April 20-25th or so time-frame, with the last 1 to 2 weeks being Carinthia only.

Heck, just looking at the Calendar for next year, as long as it's something resembling a semi normal Winter and early Spring, I would guess that next Spring, the main and North Face will close on Sunday, April.11th and Carinthia and the end of overall operations on Sunday April 25th. They have had that consistent of a Spring operations plan since they have owned the mountain. One can certainly question other operations decisions they have made, but their Spring operating plans have been pretty reliable

But is reliable good or just good enough? Seems like it’s doing the bare minimum to say that you push the limit. Not saying they have to be Killington with the glacier, but is it really worth being open if it’s just Carinithia

 

[chuckstah]

With the exception of the 2019-2020 season where COVID shut everyone down in mid March, since Vail has owned Mount Snow, they have had their late seasons operations plan where Mount Snow stays open as late, and in some years later, than any other of their Eastern properties, which has typically been to whatever Sunday falls in the April 20-25th or so time-frame, with the last 1 to 2 weeks being Carinthia only.

Heck, just looking at the Calendar for next year, as long as it's something resembling a semi normal Winter and early Spring, I would guess that next Spring, the main and North Face will close on Sunday, April.11th and Carinthia and the end of overall operations on Sunday April 25th. They have had that consistent of a Spring operations plan since they have owned the mountain. One can certainly question other operations decisions they have made, but their Spring operating plans have been pretty reliable

Certainly not an experience of a lifetime like I was told in an email today.

 

[drjeff]

But is reliable good or just good enough? Seems like it’s doing the bare minimum to say that you push the limit. Not saying they have to be Killington with the glacier, but is it really worth being open if it’s just Carinithia

I wouldn't exactly say that year in and year out making enough snow to stay open through April 20 something, when maybe a dozen or so other resorts are still open (almost all, if not all) are much further North, is "just good enough"

One can certainly bring up issues with Vail's business models of how they choose to operate, I definitely have some of my own pet peaves about some on hill and off hill things they have chosen to do. When it comes to their efforts at making snow, keeping the hill in good shape through Mother Nature's ups and downs, and getting a season that is longer than probably 90-95% of all other Eastern Resorts, the choices they have made thus far, I don't have any issues with. And I can pretty much reliably plan on a (weather permitting obviously) a season that in most years under their ownership starts roughly the weekend before Thanksgiving and will run with daily operations through that April 20-25th time-frame. Regardless of ownership, there just aren't that many resorts that can say that

The late season Carinthia only thing, well inspite of some of the naysayers who after Vail bought them were speculating that they'd stop basically building any parks at Carinthia (the naysayers were wrong about that), even as a non park user, I do appreciate being able to utilize the snowmaking efforts for a few more weeks late season. Now if they could of made some more snow on say Inferno or Nitro headwall to allow for an area where some bumps could form these last few weeks ahead, I wouldn't complain