The NEW Magic Mountain

[letitsnow1]

In a Facebook comment a few weeks ago magic said they will be making snow on witch to black line

 

[IceEidolon]

I'm guessing you mean all the new towers are R5, which is good to hear. Almost all of the 2016 install towers are R4. Pretty much only the Vipers were R5 before this year.

We comfortably ran fourteen ish R4 Impulses (flow rate 15 -> 30 - 30 -> 45 at 400 PSI)* on a mix of Step 2 and Step 3 on Lower Carpet, alongside several Rats. The pump wasn't putting out 950 PSI at the time, and I don't have the exact flow curve for that pump, but they very much can run more than twenty guns at 15 GPM per gun on Lower Carpet. I've personally seen it.

"There's no point even running on stage 1 except to avoid a startup/shutdown" is an absolutely wild opinion to me, so I'm going to assume it's hyperbole. If I only made snow when I thought I'd get into the low 20s or lower, I'd hardly ever make snow.

Edit: Magic said in a comment reply that there are 35 new guns from 33 1/3 down, and 12 Ratnik portables for Witch/Black Line.

 

[Newpylong]

If they were able to reliably run the numbers you're talking about throughout the entire range of snowmaking conditions they wouldn't always be struggling to get terrain open. The sheer reality is 1300 GPM is probably undersized by 50% on the low end of what their acreage requires for water capacity.

It may be a wild opinion to you, but I know of no snowmaking manager in New England who will run long term on stage 1 or a 24 to 26 degree wet bulb. That's a startup wet bulb, unless your Killington pushing for October. Perhaps it's a different philosophy up here but that's reality.

 

[ne_skier]

Probably late to the party but two notable things in the Alpine Update were the installation of tower guns on LMC and "baby ratniks" purchased for upper mountain steeps (Witch-Black Line mentioned). Having reliable snowmaking on LMC is great as it's the best/easiest beginner trail off Green and keeps beginners and little kids away from highway-esque Wand. Meanwhile, I correctly predicted that the quad's opening would get more people skiing on Black Line, so seeing the mountain invest in the trail in return is great. April slush bumps on Black Line on a sunny day would be awesome.

 

[MG Skier]

Probably late to the party but two notable things in the Alpine Update were the installation of tower guns on LMC and "baby ratniks" purchased for upper mountain steeps (Witch-Black Line mentioned). Having reliable snowmaking on LMC is great as it's the best/easiest beginner trail off Green and keeps beginners and little kids away from highway-esque Wand. Meanwhile, I correctly predicted that the quad's opening would get more people skiing on Black Line, so seeing the mountain invest in the trail in return is great. April slush bumps on Black Line on a sunny day would be awesome.

April on Black Line sounds great right about now! Lets hope for cold and a descent wet bulb this November!!!

 

[skithetrees]

April on Black Line sounds great right about now! Lets hope for cold and a descent wet bulb this November!!!

Amazing as that would be, not sure that is realistic. Black line is always one of the first to melt out. Granted, it hasn’t gotten much, if any snow making, but between the undulating pitch and lack of shade, it seems like snow melts out there first every year.

 

[IceEidolon]

Eh, I'll take mid or late March and be happy.

Not to reopen a can of worms here but IMO if they can use up all the available water on Lower Carpet, it doesn't matter what temperature it is. 35 sticks/540 GPM on Step 1 is just as good as running 18 sticks on Step 2 at the same output - it's essentially the same kW for the pump, compressor, $/hr for staff... Sure, if they had 4000 GPM available they'd work it differently, but at least this year they don't.

 

[slatham]

Great volunteer day today. Beautiful weather. As Do Work said, it’s the fall equivalent of a powder day. Pics too big to load so check out Magic social media.

 

[MG Skier]

Amazing as that would be, not sure that is realistic. Black line is always one of the first to melt out. Granted, it hasn’t gotten much, if any snow making, but between the undulating pitch and lack of shade, it seems like snow melts out there first every year.

Agreed and understood. Just the general concept of being on that trail in April sounds great right about now.

 

[skithetrees]

Agreed and understood. Just the general concept of being on that trail in April sounds great right about now.

I hear you. I am pretty sure it was open until close last year because of the late season storms. Skiing powder in the trees on closing day was pretty special.

 

[ne_skier]

100% open on the last day, first time that season. If you had told me in early March when we were waddling across bare patches on Wizard that I'd be skiing Black Magic in a month, I'd think you were joking

 

[MG Skier]

I hear you. I am pretty sure it was open until close last year because of the late season storms. Skiing powder in the trees on closing day was pretty special.

I think you are right, or nearly the end.

 

[doublediamond]

So the 18 snowguns added to Showoff are not impulses. They aren't even new. They look like mini SV10s (only 8 nozzles). I know of a small area had these strange guns on their first-to-open trail (never used until mid season) and got rid of them with a snowmaking upgrade ahead of last season.

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Good luck to Magic

 

[skithetrees]

They came from killington. May not be perfect, but these new guns on LMC and showoff are a huge improvement in my book.

 

[urungus]

So the 18 snowguns added to Showoff are not impulses. They aren't even new. They look like mini SV10s (only 8 nozzles). I know of a small area had these strange guns on their first-to-open trail (never used until mid season) and got rid of them with a snowmaking upgrade ahead of last season.

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Good luck to Magic

 

[doublediamond]

I’ll admit I didn’t get that far into the caption nor did I notice the unique Killington style mounts.


But my point remains the same. The same gun design was used at a small area and they too got rid of them. They were not useful for opening terrain.

 

[skithetrees]

Interesting info, thanks. What was the reason they were not useful?

 

[Newpylong]

Hard to tell but those look like Rangers. Since Killington put Impulses on Needles Eye, it would make sense since NE used to have all Rangers. They can be finicky but should be a good asset for the Magic to have. In today's classification I would say they are best described as Mid-E.

 

[doublediamond]

They’re one-stage. You either change nozzles throughout the season or take a best-fit approach where if you want to make decent amount of cheap snow mid season you can’t use them early. Or if you want to make snow early you make expensive snow mid season.

Mid-E is what Ratnik makes with the BSG2s.

 

[Newpylong]

Yep, I re-nozzled some on Saturday.