The "Sugarbush Thread"

[Lotso]

This website/app morass is music to my ears. daughter is cs major graduating this spring. Apparently, there is big demand for this type of work.

Beta test using actual humans who relate to the product, in this case, skiers who frequent THAT ski area. Too often it is clear that sites (not just SB/Alterra) are designed by web designers/engineers who have no connection with the product. When that happens, you get user-unfriendly pages.

 

[teleo]

Thought of going to K today for variety. But then realized they have almost no expert terrain open and stayed at SB.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

its kinda typical early season killington offerings but there's plenty of 'expert terrain'. superstar, skyelark, powerline, ridge run, cascade, downdraft, east fall, wildfire. even a couple of glades have opened. its pretty par considering the weather.

 

[Tin Woodsman]

Short answer - maybe but probably not. We had a major break just below Alpine Options and some other minor leaks. This was old used pipe purchased by ASC in Mexico. Our concern was another break that could have been even more severe and stopped snowmaking completely. At time the time the urgency was to fix what we had Immediately. We replaced the pipe from the pond to Alpine Options. This portion is where the highest pressure occurs and thus the most vulnerable. Subsequently, we began thinking of longer term improvements to address a couple of things. One is the vulnerability of having a snowmaking pond in a flood zone. It was breached once in July when ASC owned Sugarbush and again in August of 2011 when Irene hit, it cost us $1million to repair (uninsured) and was finished just prior to November. We also discovered that the original weir that is put in each fall to allow withdrawal from The Mad River into the pond was bring compromised by winter ice flows. We have repaired it once but the risk of climate change impact has been growing. Before I sold we we’re putting together a long-term plan to replace the existing weir with a bladder one that would be deflated after snowmaking and inflated in the fall. It could also be deflated if there were ice jams. Secondly, for insurance if the pond is breached again, we wanted to build a second reservoir out of the flood zone. So far, the improvement we made to the pond in 2011 have held up but I always lost sleep when the River came up. The most logical spot for a second pond was likely the area (old tennis courts) across from the Sugarbush Inn. Then we thought about how to get more snowmaking capacity. The initial thinking was using the existing pipe fill the pond as well continuing up for snowmaking and putting in a new parallel pipe from the new pond up to the mountain or just putting in a new 36” pipe from the new pond up. We did have an initial preliminary meeting in 2019 with the community to outline this idea. Then Covid hit. I think this is still the long-term idea, but it will require engineering to see what’s viable, permitting after that and a lot of capital. I believe the planning for the new weir is in process, but I have not asked about the status of the rest of this preliminary plan so don’t want to speculate.

Thanks Win. I haven't always agreed with the decisions you've made, but your transparency here is truly appreciated, and allows us to have a window into some facts/considerations that us armchair QBs don't have outside in.

 

[jaybird]

its kinda typical early season killington offerings but there's plenty of 'expert terrain'. superstar, skyelark, powerline, ridge run, cascade, downdraft, east fall, wildfire. even a couple of glades have opened. its pretty par considering the weather.

Open at K ?
The front side is essentially closed.
Cascade, Downdraft, Dipper ..etc.
They appear focused on park features, and like many are dealing with the workforce challenges.

Ridge Run is a light blue .. at best.
Lots of horizontal trails open there..

 

[WinS]

what size pond we talking about?
Wouldnt it be better to have the pond up higher up like by Inferno road?
I've been following some guy on youtube building a 5 acre bass pond in alabama. not a small endeavor.

We were hoping 15-20 million gallons. The existing pond is 25 million but you can not draw down all the way with out sucking up sludge. The challenged is finding land that has the right soils and works. We had looked at numerous options and this was the best while I was involved. Sugarbush owns the land and the connect to the mountain is already permitted and soils was been tested. No, it is not a small endeavor.

 

[WinS]

How early does Castlerock Warming Hut, Walt's and Allen's open for warming?

When the lifts are open. Downstairs Walt’s is open for bathrooms even when upstairs is closed. Hopefully Castlerock will be open after this storm on Monday. It has a firm base.

 

[cdskier]

A Mountain Update Heading Into MLK - SugarBlog

Things have continued to slowly improve, bit by tiny bit, as we've moved out of the Christmas holiday and into MLK Weekend. Yesterday, we opened up Stein's Run and Cruiser, bringing our trail count to 71 and our total open acreage to 310. Both of those are near the top of any eastern resort right

blog.sugarbush.com

Nice to see the mention of the North Ridge issues being discussed publicly! Also some mentions of the recent snow report changes/improvements too!

 

[Johnny B]

Hey everyone. I see you're quick to notice a few snow report updates that just hit last night. This is one of hopefully many waves, but nice to see some of these take effect before MLK, Most noticeably, we can now actually format and link in our snow report narrative. So you'll see next time you click read more on the conditions page that we have (gasp!) paragraphs and links. Now that we can actually format like we used to, we'll start organizing the report just like "good old days". I'll probably jump in tonight and move some things around. Regarding listing wooded areas, we've been working to get them all listed together at the BOTTOM of each mountain area, like it used to be. I was hoping that fix would hit last night, but it looks like it's still in the works. I agree as is it can be a bit chaotic, but I still think it's worth listing wooded areas in general.

I see that my blog post is already getting shared around. Man you guys are fast! I came here to do just that. Hopefully it sheds some more light on a few areas we've been hearing concerns about. Long story short on North Ridge, hopefully by next weekend.

Now let's get stoked for Monday. Pending some decent snowfall, we could be looking at 100% open sometime next week (C Rock probably hiking).

 

[jaybird]

.. " Many people coming from miles around
To hear you play your music when the sun go down
Maybe someday your name will be in lights
Saying "Johnny B. Goode tonight" "..

Keep it Up !

 

[Tonyr]

Skied Sugarbush earlier today, was real nice out there. They had over 70 trails opened with lots of great terrain available to ski, probably the best in the east right now for expert terrain. I will say though that Stein's was absolutely bulletproof pretty much the whole way down. My wife and son had a tough time but they got down!

 

[Newpylong]

Short answer - maybe but probably not. We had a major break just below Alpine Options and some other minor leaks. This was old used pipe purchased by ASC in Mexico. Our concern was another break that could have been even more severe and stopped snowmaking completely. At time the time the urgency was to fix what we had Immediately. We replaced the pipe from the pond to Alpine Options. This portion is where the highest pressure occurs and thus the most vulnerable. Subsequently, we began thinking of longer term improvements to address a couple of things. One is the vulnerability of having a snowmaking pond in a flood zone. It was breached once in July when ASC owned Sugarbush and again in August of 2011 when Irene hit, it cost us $1million to repair (uninsured) and was finished just prior to November. We also discovered that the original weir that is put in each fall to allow withdrawal from The Mad River into the pond was bring compromised by winter ice flows. We have repaired it once but the risk of climate change impact has been growing. Before I sold we we’re putting together a long-term plan to replace the existing weir with a bladder one that would be deflated after snowmaking and inflated in the fall. It could also be deflated if there were ice jams. Secondly, for insurance if the pond is breached again, we wanted to build a second reservoir out of the flood zone. So far, the improvement we made to the pond in 2011 have held up but I always lost sleep when the River came up. The most logical spot for a second pond was likely the area (old tennis courts) across from the Sugarbush Inn. Then we thought about how to get more snowmaking capacity. The initial thinking was using the existing pipe fill the pond as well continuing up for snowmaking and putting in a new parallel pipe from the new pond up to the mountain or just putting in a new 36” pipe from the new pond up. We did have an initial preliminary meeting in 2019 with the community to outline this idea. Then Covid hit. I think this is still the long-term idea, but it will require engineering to see what’s viable, permitting after that and a lot of capital. I believe the planning for the new weir is in process, but I have not asked about the status of the rest of this preliminary plan so don’t want to speculate.

I think the engineers would settle on something more like 24" steel or ductile iron which will accommodate 10,000 GPM at industry standard design velocities. This would have to occur in lock step with a capacity upgrade as well. You do not want to use too large a diameter pipe if you're not going to be passing sufficient volume (ie if Lincoln stays where it is or only goes to 7,000 GPM) because you risk freeze ups due to velocity issues. In this respect too little volume in too large a pipe can be as bad or worse than too small a pipe and too much volume.

Mount Snow and Sunday River both recently installed 24" transfer lines of significant length to each accommodate 10K GPM.

 

[NYSnowflake]

So who is going to brave the cold to get some turns in tomorrow? And who’s going to be snuggled up in front of a fire with a dog/cat, and tea/coffee/scotch/bourbon etc. resting up for Monday?

I run cold, so I won’t be out long tomorrow. My thumb froze this afternoon despite Hestra mittens and hand warmers. Had to go in at 2 to thaw out.

 

[Kingslug20]

Skied Sugarbush earlier today, was real nice out there. They had over 70 trails opened with lots of great terrain available to ski, probably the best in the east right now for expert terrain. I will say though that Stein's was absolutely bulletproof pretty much the whole way down. My wife and son had a tough time but they got down!

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Too bad about Steins..I was lucky to hit it right after they blew it...we knew that wouldnt last..

 

[Kingslug20]

So who is going to brave the cold to get some turns in tomorrow? And who’s going to be snuggled up in front of a fire with a dog/cat, and tea/coffee/scotch/bourbon etc. resting up for Monday?

I run cold, so I won’t be out long tomorrow. My thumb froze this afternoon despite Hestra mittens and hand warmers. Had to go in at 2 to thaw out.

Little trick i use..1 handwarmer in the main part of the mitt...and 1 in the thumb..works great..

 

[NYSnowflake]

Little trick i use..1 handwarmer in the main part of the mitt...and 1 in the thumb..works great..

I don’t think there’s room in the thumb for a handwarmer but I will give it a try!

 

[Tonyr]

Too bad about Steins..I was lucky to hit it right after they blew it...we knew that wouldnt last..

Yea that was lucky. Stein's is one of my favorite trails in the east especially when the conditions are good but yesterday around mid-morning the trail was brutal.

They skied down the Tower 3 Chute at Jackson last year which is substantially steeper and narrower than Stein's. The difference though was that the Tower 3 Chute had a foot of fresh snow laying on it Stein's conditions yesterday were similar to a skating rink.

 

[jaybird]

Too bad about Steins..I was lucky to hit it right after they blew it...we knew that wouldnt last..

Yeah, not surprising lower steins turned titanium.
The multiple descents Thursday AM were our best of the season .. no question
Curious, did they pack in the crevasse up top ?
Have never seen a fracture there.

 

[Tonyr]

Yeah, not surprising lower steins turned titanium.
The multiple descents Thursday AM were our best of the season .. no question
Curious, did they pack in the crevasse up top ?
Have never seen a fracture there.

They must have, I didn’t notice and crevasses up top. As a matter of fact the top skied much better than the mid and lower sections of the run.

 

[Kingslug20]

I don’t think there’s room in the thumb for a handwarmer but I will give it a try!

Try it..mine are large gloves..or just 2 warmers in the mitt..toasty...