The NEW Magic Mountain

[slatham]

Great info and ideas on snowmaking. Assuming no off season lift isssue, floods, or other curve balls, snowmaking has to be a priority. Summit pressure, GPM increase, using 300 pump more than just lower loop, etc I would think are on the list.

But so too must early season strategy. Specially, taking full advantage of typical early season cold where summit hits temp first and then temps slowly move down the mountain. Guns and personnel must be set up to move down as temps move down so to maximize run time at lower elevations. I’ve conveyed this personally a number of times - when you have temps low, you go low. But if you have temps for 4-8 hours longer up top, you don’t want to waste that run time while you wait for temps down low. I am sure this is a PIA for snowmakers but for those late November, early December situations when you’re trying to get one trail off green and one off summit, I think you need to be very mobile based on temps. And between permanent towers, portable towers, portable HKD land guns, rats, and fans they can have in place guns on upper carpet into medium, sunshine corner, wand and show off. Thus it would just be a matter of turning guns on as temps move down the Mountian, eventually necessitating guns up top going off. Yes a PIA and easy for a layman to suggest, but if that’s what Mother Nature gives you, you have to adapt to it.

This would mean forgoing the terrain park and beginner area, but I think those areas were a priority this year only because of how late they started.

And I would advocate for any new permanent towers be placed on this terrain.

 

[AdironRider]

Like it or not, snowmaking in the Northeast requires taking advantage of snowmaking windows when they are available, and Magic's penny wise and pound foolish prerogative on this just isn't going to cut it giving the prevailing weather.

To the rest of it, I would typically make comments about how it is very easy to spend other people's money at times like these, but Magic has neither sense or clearly money at this point so it might as well be run by any one of us. We would do better at this point.

 

[SkiingInABlueDream]

I've seen 20+ minute waits for Red on nonholiday midweek days. If I burned a vacation day to ski Magic and found myself standing around for Red that long because they chose not to run Black, I'd be pretty annoyed. I've also been there on days when red was down and old Black was the only lift. I didn't think getting over there from east side was too much hassle.

 

[MG Skier]

Well, I was there until 3:30, no humans on the chair but it ran, and it appears to be pretty quick compared to Red. Not sure bumping and loading chairs can happen at that rate (keep in mind Magic hasn’t loaded a triple let alone a quad in a bit, could be interesting! If they run it at that speed, the lifts will be lined up slowest to fastest left to right.

 

[ne_skier]

Not a chance it runs at that speed. IIRC the fastest a fixed quad can run while loading passengers is 450 FPM. Black has been running at design speed, which is the fastest it is designed to operate, period. I believe the top speed for a double chair is 500 FPM, meaning Red and Green can run faster than Black with passengers, although I suspect Red and Black will run the same speed. Green's slower speed accommodates for beginners and when factoring in stops and slows isn't all that much quicker than just taking Red.

 

[JoeB-Z]

Well, I was there until 3:30, no humans on the chair but it ran, and it appears to be pretty quick compared to Red. Not sure bumping and loading chairs can happen at that rate (keep in mind Magic hasn’t loaded a triple let alone a quad in a bit, could be interesting! If they run it at that speed, the lifts will be lined up slowest to fastest left to right.

It ran until at least 6PM. This is a good point about loading. The damn lift runs counter-clockwise like the old Black. And you need to load 4. Singles line for fill ins? PLEASE. I will be there tomorrow. I may be further testing my new knee on Talisman as the top of Trick went well and I like to ski whales. Very stoked.

 

[JoeB-Z]

Not a chance it runs at that speed. IIRC the fastest a fixed quad can run while loading passengers is 450 FPM. Black has been running at design speed, which is the fastest it is designed to operate, period. I believe the top speed for a double chair is 500 FPM, meaning Red and Green can run faster than Black with passengers, although I suspect Red and Black will run the same speed. Green's slower speed accommodates for beginners and when factoring in stops and slows isn't all that much quicker than just taking Red

I saw them about the same speed a week or so ago. The higher speed is likely for break in and an unofficial stress test. As to Green, I enjoyed dodging icy patches and snow guns last Sunday. For me right now, it's just laps.

 

[Newpylong]

What are we thinking - soft opening this afternoon, or full court press opening tomorrow morning?

 

[ne_skier]

Would like either if they’re both options lol, would like them to just get it open but after 5 years some fanfare is justified

 

[drjeff]

What are we thinking - soft opening this afternoon, or full court press opening tomorrow morning?

Soft opening today please!

With all of the trials and tribulations about getting this lift installed and operational, if they waited until tomorrow, would it surprise anyone if we heard something like "overnight we noticed......"

 

[letitsnow1]

I've seen 20+ minute waits for Red on nonholiday midweek days. If I burned a vacation day to ski Magic and found myself standing around for Red that long because they chose not to run Black, I'd be pretty annoyed. I've also been there on days when red was down and old Black was the only lift. I didn't think getting over there from east side was too much hassle.

Powder days are the only weekdays I've ever seen a liftline. Most weekdays its ski on the lift

 

[SkiingInABlueDream]

Powder days are the only weekdays I've ever seen a liftline. Most weekdays its ski on the lift

That may be the case (I couldn't say either way because I've never gone to Magic on a non-powder weekday), but going along with what you're saying, I think my point still stands: they should run Black on any day that's busy enough regardless of whether it's weekend or weekday, holiday or non. And if the need for both lifts is borderline then they should run Black and not Red. Basically IMO Black should become the default lift.

Edit. And if the shuffle from east side over to Black is too much then hop on Green so you can ski down to Black

 

[ne_skier]

What I'd be concerned about as well with that is people catwalking across the bottoms of Showoff and Lower Redline - I don't know if anyone here has skied Belleayre, but they have a trail, Howe's Highway, which cuts across the bottom of the steep ridge on all the expert trails from Belleayre Run to Area 51 and countless times people skiing within control have had to slam on the brakes because someone cuts across without looking up. Just a thought. Realistically I imagine they'll get a good sense of who's showing up based on ticket sales and if it's a particularly busy day when Red would ordinarily only run they can just shift operations to Black.

 

[skithetrees]

My expectation is that the quad, green and red will run Christmas through mid-March every weekend. Beyond that, maybe it runs powder days midweek, but I wouldn’t count on it. It only makes sense to run the quad if green is also running.

 

[doublediamond]

I thought the plan was to run Red midweek, Black on Fridays, and weekends both.

 

[slatham]

Ha I think the only plan was to just finish and open it lol……

But whatever plan they had, they now have the data to drive the decision as to when to run one vs the other vs both.

My guess is soft open.

 

[LoafSkier19]

Looks like a soft opening tomorrow and Friday with Grand Opening Saturday per the mountain report

 

[JoeB-Z]

Looks like a soft opening tomorrow and Friday with Grand Opening Saturday per the mountain report

I saw Geoff and what I presume is the lift mechanic load and ride about 2:30 today. I met Geoff back up top later and he was grinning ear to ear (and wearing Mardi Gras beads) when I asked him if that was what I saw. Said it was a real smooth ride. He described a few hours Th and F and then run for the weekend.

I was studying today and the Black lift runs at least 10% faster. But the chair pitch is larger so people have time to load. I think the soft opening is wise because I don't think any of the lift crew has run loading for this lift.

 

[IceEidolon]

I like this thought process and I have been advocating for the common manifold (or a simple cross feed if no pump changes are made to start). The caveat with the dissimilar pumps on the same feed is they'll have different curves, so depending on where they are making snow one could be working against the other. IE, they wouldn't want to approach the top of the designed TDH of the small pump even if the flow numbers still look good due to having the 400 also operational. Without knowing what the TDH of either are, that's an operational move only they can make. Maybe the 300 would still be effective up to the top of Green. But as you said, at minimum that gives them both pumps available on the 300 line which is a huge difference.

300 line pump is the old 400 line pump if I remember right. They got a used pump from maybe Killington as the "new" (90s) 400 pump. So it should be able to hit Green lift terrain with no issue, possibly Talisman valve house, but I agree I wouldn't want to run the summit (or even Trick) with both pumps. Honestly it's 90% just to dump an extra 400-600 GPM onto Lower Carpet if it's cold enough to valve those Impulse sleds up.

As far as moving firepower around, I would put a very high priority on a weather station on the patrol building at the summit, even if it was just a Weather Underground tie-in connected to a cellular modem and a battery. Part of the issue preventing that kind of early start, late ending snowmaking is lack of data. I'm in the same boat but to a much smaller degree where I work - a dial thermometer just doesn't cut it.

A couple additional Ratniks on permanent towers would also help - a Baby Double or three eats up most of a compressor in marginal, and hooking up three tower guns is very little effort - and they're not as efficient as an HKD but they definitely make piles!

 

[slatham]

IceEidolon, after 6 years (or however many years Ski Magic Ltd has owned Magic), they finally took my advice and put a weather station on the summit. That said prior they were able to triangulate pretty accurately based on other nearby stations: 1,500’ near base, 2,200’ on NE shoulder of Glebe, 2,500 over at Stratton, etc. But summit station will be a big help next fall. Hence my comment about being flexible to start at summit and move down as temps allow. I’ve watched this temperature dynamic closely for years now (my condo is across the valley at 2,300’). You’ve just got to be aggressive and flexible, but again, easy for me to say. I am sure at some point they’ll tell me to put in a night with the crew to appreciate the reality…..