Stowe Thread

[Kingslug20]

Best run on the mountain today...

 

[hovercraft]

For sure, just loved the paths through the baby whales. So much fun to ride through them.

 

[Kingslug20]

Hope for good dump Thursday maybe...

 

[cdskier]

Hope for good dump Thursday maybe...

The 12z run of GFS was pretty nice. The 12z run of the Euro was crap. And now the 18z run of the GFS is also crap. Very little run to run and model consistency so far, so hopefully we can still pull something decent out of this. I'll keep my fingers crossed, but not even going to remotely start to get my hopes up with the way the weather has been lately.

 

[Kingslug20]

Lots of guns over on the gondi side..making their own cloud system...also over on the blue side of the mountain...
No love for liftline though...

 

[hovercraft]

I believe the plan is to finish refreshing the trails that were already open, finish Gondola side then hit lift line. I would think Wednesday or Thursday would be my guess….

 

[Tonyr]

This has to be one of the worst starts to the season on the east coast in a long time......

 

[Kingslug20]

The very beginning was ok...then it all went to hell...

 

[hovercraft]

Putting cost aside I wonder how much capacity is left to keep blowing snow like this. One step forward 2 steps back. It’s crazy to think that they needed to go back and redo all of Perry, Gondolier hasn’t been opened yet, no snow blowing on Lift line and it’s jan 9th. In the snow report tonight they are blowing on tyro, lower standard, gondolier, and next is upper ridgeview to sunrise. In most seasons this is done by mid to late December. Hard to believe…..

 

[Kingslug20]

No idea what the water capacity is...or their pumping capacity..was wondering that today.
Liftline takes a whole week to blow...

 

[hovercraft]

They are going to have to blow some on north slope as well. If you think about it they just got Perry opened less than three weeks ago and had to go back and redo the whole trail over the past few days. We need snow now……..

 

[cdskier]

No idea what the water capacity is...or their pumping capacity..was wondering that today.
Liftline takes a whole week to blow...

They have a 110M gallon reservoir and I seem to recall their max GPM being somewhere around 7K (although searching just now I found an article from 2016 that said they had just increased their capacity to 3K gpm...but that seems low from what I remember as I thought they definitely had more capacity that LP at Sugarbush which is in the 3.5-4k range from what I remember).

Although how that GPM is distributed I have no idea. It may be split between their different booster pumps so maybe on the Mansfield side you can only hit 3K and then 2K on the Gondola pumps and 2K on the spruce pumps (these aren't real numbers...just used to illustrate that it likely is split between the different areas somehow).

 

[Kingslug20]

Doesn't sound like much...but I was used to running 10 to 30 k worth of pumps..
I don't know much about this area of snow making...but the way things are going...more is going to be needed.
Hunter used to blow so much you could powder ski on it.

 

[Tonyr]

The very beginning was ok...then it all went to hell...

We had plans to come up over MLK weekend but I just canceled due to the lack of snow which is a bummer. I'm hoping to get atleast one trip up there in early February or early March if a good storm hits during one those timeframes.

 

[doublediamond]

Pre snowmaking upgrades, they could run 75 rats on Perry or Gondolier. That was the full strength of the system.

 

[kendo]

Putting cost aside I wonder how much capacity is left to keep blowing snow like this. One step forward 2 steps back. It’s crazy to think that they needed to go back and redo all of Perry, Gondolier hasn’t been opened yet, no snow blowing on Lift line and it’s jan 9th. In the snow report tonight they are blowing on tyro, lower standard, gondolier, and next is upper ridgeview to sunrise. In most seasons this is done by mid to late December. Hard to believe…..

Last year they buried yet to fully open Liftline ttb on 1/11 (while also refreshing other areas on Mansfield simultaneously) and yet to open Hayride ttb on 1/24. It was super cold so that helped efficiency.

Hoping we can get a good cold blast (asap!) to get both open this year.

 

[drjeff]

Pre snowmaking upgrades, they could run 75 rats on Perry or Gondolier. That was the full strength of the system.

Tough to make a hard calculation as to how that compares to more modern low e guns, as with the old air hogs, like those Rats, available air, under most snowmaking circumstances, was the limiting factor. Now with low e guns, often its available water that is the limiting factor.

Seems like many of the snowmaking perceived powerhouses these days have the ability to pump somewhere in the 7-10k gallons per minute range, and I fully think that in the coming years, that number is going to go into the 10-15k gallons per minute range, especially if resorts can/do have the water storage capacity to accomdate that type of water flow.

Simultaneously being able to cover multiple, top to bottom runs with equipment that can relatively quickly produce the volume of snow needed to get a run open is going to have to be where many of the resorts, who haven't made the large upgrade in snowmaking system capacity, go in the near future, and many of those resorts currently tend to be in Northern New Engand where historically mother nature would make up for the lesser snowmaking firepwer than many of their competitors further South have

 

[Kingslug20]

With very little real snow..I've come to like skiing under the guns. SB had a virtual snowstorm going on 2 huge runs. Huge whales and .....well...not ice...made it almost seem like a snowstorm. Kind of made my day.
I can see in the near future this being advertised as.....man-made powder days.
Oy.vey.....

 

[tumbler]

This is what SB used to do in the ASC days was run a trail for 12-16 hours overnight and put down dry powder with even coverage- no whales, advertise it and people loved it. The old SR-7's made good snow.

 

[Kingslug20]

Several years ago Hunter blew so much it was over 6 inches deep...very dry. Artificial powder day..pretty fun.