Opening day in the northeast

[MEtoVTSkier]

Pre world cup powder did one lift in 10 years of owning K, In the last three years they have done 2 lifts, retrofited the K1 gondola, are building a new lodge and have spent a ton of money on snowmaking equipment and pipe......While I agree it sucks we cant get top to bottom until after turkey day, I doubt any of that happens without the WC.

More like 4-5 lifts if you count moving the Poma to it's current location on Ramshead (and getting the racers over there out of the traffic flow), moving the Snowdon Quad up to the South Ridge and restoring lift service up there, and finishing the re-build of and re-installing a mid-station on the Snowdon Triple. On top of replacing the North Ridge Triple with a brand new Quad, and installing the Snowdon 6... That's a lot of lift infrastructure taken care of that people have been clamoring for years to be done... Oh yeah the K1 updates...

 

[drjeff]

Mount Snow used to rush to open with a pretty poor product. Total thin to win top to bottom garbage thin cover. I bet that changes now.

That's a yes and no situation. There have been some years where for various reasons they did open with a sketchy product (the top to bottom last year in October as well as 8 years ago when the Bluebird debuted and the weather in November was so ugly that most places, Mount Snow included, didn't open until December come to mind off the top of my head. In general though, if it's been a November opening, the vast majority of the time, the product, while certainly not edge to edge, short of a few historical thin areas (the pitch on Cascade just above the top of Canyon Quad where Overbrook breaks off to head to the North Face, and a few select areas on Canyon where the fan gun spacing is a bit further apart than the rest of the trail, their opening day surface has been quite good.

Personally, I'd be questioning Vail's early season motives much more if they had already made some snow last week and/or were waiting until Tuesday, after the next weather event and slight warm up late Sunday/Monday had passed before firing up. This weekend is just not quite enough hours to get things going for a desired Saturday opening in Early November. Pretty sure if it was Peak, and not Vail calling the shots right now, that you wouldn't be seeing anything much different than what you are right now

 

[machski]

Killington in full on assault mode this morning. Guns running on the entire Snowdon route to the K1 base and SS is being absolutely hammered too. The negative? First pow day and they couldn't open limited lifts and trails on time. That is pathetic.

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[bdfreetuna]

I think it was 2 seasons ago Mount Snow made a pretty big statement by crushing Killington with top to bottom multiples on main and north face. Conditions on the trails were fantastic on open too.

Last year everyone had a good November but Mount Snow didn't slack.

Doesn't really matter if they open on the 15th to me but I'm a little confused why they sold me a ticket for the 14th..

 

[ss20]

Killington in full on assault mode this morning. Guns running on the entire Snowdon route to the K1 base and SS is being absolutely hammered too. The negative? First pow day and they couldn't open limited lifts and trails on time. That is pathetic.

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*sigh* nothing on the snow report about snowmaking TTB in the write-up or the lift/trail report. The lift/trail report also just has snowmaking on Nivis Walk and Launch Pad. Also K-Zone says Upper East Fall opened yesterday but that's not being reported.

An inaccurate snow report is a slight annoyance but they had this issue all of last year as well...

 

[Zand]

Would be huge if they got TTB by the end of the weekend. If Tuesday overperforms it opens the door for trails like Northstar.

 

[skiur]

*sigh* nothing on the snow report about snowmaking TTB in the write-up or the lift/trail report. The lift/trail report also just has snowmaking on Nivis Walk and Launch Pad. Also K-Zone says Upper East Fall opened yesterday but that's not being reported.

An inaccurate snow report is a slight annoyance but they had this issue all of last year as well...

Killington recently had a job opening for a snow reporter. I guess it did not get filled.

 

[cdskier]

Doesn't really matter if they open on the 15th to me but I'm a little confused why they sold me a ticket for the 14th..

Probably wishful thinking on their part for the weather to have been a little colder a little earlier.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

k sure looks nice in white on the webcam. i'd like to poach my way down at the end of the north ridge day tomorrow, but my rock skis (my old moments) were totally shredded by the end of last year, and my new 'rock skis' are my dps, which i'm a bit more precious about. i have black crows corvus sitting in my apt waiting for bindings. and my kastle 118s for west/pow. my old k2 public enemies are at my parents house, which is a bummer, bc id ride those over a rock field with 3" of snow.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

it appears that upper dipper and upper east fall have been added to the k trail count.

assuming great northern is added for tomorrow morning.

 

[asnowmobiler]

Blue Mountain in Pa. will start making snow tonight.

 

[urungus]

Killington is aiming for TTB for Sunday ... I’m in.

From this afternoons update at https://www.killington.com/the-mountain/conditions-weather/current-conditions-weather

Our snowmaking team is taking advantage of these cold termperatures and aiming for terrain expansion this weekend. Mountain Ops dropped ropes on Upper East Fall and Upper Double Dipper today. Upper Great Northern is slated to open some time tomorrow, which means we'll be able to ski and snowboard down to North Ridge terrain from the Gondola. We'll be using the Peak Walkway to walk back up to the K-1 Gondola for downloading.

With their sights set on top-to-bottom for Sunday, snowmakers will focus their efforts on a top-to-bottom route tonight and tomorrow.

 

[JimG.]

Perfect timing I'll be heading up for day 1 on Tuesday.

 

[Zand]

Perfect timing I'll be heading up for day 1 on Tuesday.

Me too. Also Burlington NWS discussion says higher peaks have a chance for up to 1 foot Tuesday. Would love some Northstar or Great Bear laps on day 1.

 

[JimG.]

Huh if that forecast plays out I might try for 2 days.

 

[machski]

Me too. Also Burlington NWS discussion says higher peaks have a chance for up to 1 foot Tuesday. Would love some Northstar or Great Bear laps on day 1.

They won't be that far over by then I don't think. But they may add the Triple by then which could access that.

Kusty, yo will want Rock skis unless they fill in the entrance to GN below Rime. They have not made a flake of Manmade on that short section (likely to curtail poaching). I would also say I only felt they had about 3 inces of natural today. 6-7 inches would be enough to make me strongly think about poaching powerline, but what they had wasn't even close to enough for that thought.

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[machski]

I will be back on Tuesday as well as it is likely to be the only game around. Some of the model runs I have seen has warmer and more clear precip invading NH and ME on Monday afternoon/night before shifting back to white. VT seems to mosty be avoiding that as of now.

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[Not Sure]

Blue Mountain in Pa. will start making snow tonight.View attachment 25542

If they open ? I think it would be a record earliest open . Not much wind so everything is staying on the slopes . Main St webcam looks like a blizzard.

 

[WoodCore]

Not opening until the 23rd but Stratton is fully lit up......

View attachment 25545

 

[spiderpig]

Not opening until the 22nd but Stratton is fully lit up......

View attachment 25545

Stratton is going to open prior to the Wednesday before Thanksgiving?!