Update Your Damn Website Burke

[Zand]

Website says you're open, but you're not. "5 out of 6 lifts, 19 out of 50 trails." Defied death getting up that access road to find out that was a lie. And I can tell by the snow on the chairs that the new lift didn't run at all today. Then on the way back I hear on Moo 92: "Today's ski report: Burke picked up a few new inches of snow overnight, they've got the mid-Burke Express and Sherburne Express open with 19 trails."

And don't blame the weather, the rain stopped 2 hours ago. The ice melted 4 hours ago. And if it was an icing problem, you have a damn fixed grip quad right next to it.

Time to put up a website that looks like it was designed sometime after 2000, and UPDATE IT.

For the record, yes the Sherburne was open (which even more tells me that the new lift being closed was BS), but don't tell me the summit is open when it's not. It's bad enough that resorts lie about their conditions, now they're lying about the upper 4/5ths of the mountain being open when it's not.

 

[Cannonball]

that blows! Did you find turns anywhere?

 

[Zand]

that blows! Did you find turns anywhere?

Didn't feel like skiing just the Sherburne and it was 1:30 so it wasn't worth going up to Jay who only had the lower mountain (at least they made this known right up front on the website). Hopefully getting up there tomorrow.

 

[BenedictGomez]

If you makes you feel any better, at least you didnt drive 5.5 hours, like the poor bastard bitching on Jay's Facebook. Apparently he felt they were less than forthright regarding availalbe terrain for today.

 

[riverc0il]

Maybe I shouldn't have complained about the Snocountry link? The new report on Burke's site is nice but it doesn't help if its not up to date.

If you makes you feel any better, at least you didnt drive 5.5 hours, like the poor bastard bitching on Jay's Facebook. Apparently he felt they were less than forthright regarding availalbe terrain for today.

I don't know what the report looked like this morning, but last I checked it specifically recommends wearing Gore Tex. I suspect the northern ski areas were expecting mostly snow but everyone got teh nasty. I doubt this was a case of bad reporting.

 

[abc]

OK, I'm not exactly proud of the technique so I don't use it too often. But when things are borderline and changing like this, and I had doubts about how up-to-date the snow report is (whether it's website or phone), I call a nearby (or on mountain) rental to ask a dumb rental question, like the price of a package. Then just casually ask about how much of the mountain is open. Most shop employees are un-guarded and will tell the truth, like "It's so icy I nearly landed on my butt walking in from the parking lot".

Not that I don't trust the resort's report. The problem is some of them don't update it as often as need.

 

[Zand]

OK, I'm not exactly proud of the technique so I don't use it too often. But when things are borderline and changing like this, and I had doubts about how up-to-date the snow report is (whether it's website or phone), I call a nearby (or on mountain) rental to ask a dumb rental question, like the price of a package. Then just casually ask about how much of the mountain is open. Most shop employees are un-guarded and will tell the truth, like "It's so icy I nearly landed on my butt walking in from the parking lot".

Not that I don't trust the resort's report. The problem is some of them don't update it as often as need.

The thing is the weather wasn't really that bad. Obviously we have freezing rain in the morning and it became straight rain till about noon but then it stopped. I understand if the freezing rain was bad up there and they couldn't get the lifts running, but say that on the website. Or at least update the number of open lifts, as 5 out of 6 implies that at LEAST 2 out of 3 of the upper mountain lifts are open. It would be one thing if it was first thing in the morning and the ZR was just ending and sent them scrambling, but everything had clearly been sitting idle since 9am and they gave no update in 4.5 hours.

As for the Jay thing, I checked their site at 1 pm when I checked Burke's and they said on the front page that it was lower mountain only. I'm sure this guy either drove up last night or early this morning before they had a chance to see how much damage was done. Thats a risk you take though with the forecast the way it was.

 

[Tooth]

That sucks. Burke is a great place. It takes a few mins to update any changes to lifts. Had that problem in the past at Sugarloaf. Its way better now. They listened to enough peoples suggestions and I really dont hear any complaints these days.

 

[nekgirl]

Sorry for the confusion

Hello Everyone,
Let me start out by apologizing for our slow response in getting information out to you about our lifts the other morning. We take full responsibility, and as all of you are, we are also human beings behind all this technology-that, sometimes, we may rely on too heavily at times. I am also guilty of this too. A few things to clear up, just so that you know a little bit about the flow of information in snow reporting. The snocountry reports get sent out to radio stations as early as 4am on that day to allow all radio stations (this covers NY, CT, NH, MA, and beyond) to record reports and get them on the air. So at times the snow report may not be as accurate as we all would like, especially, when Mother Nature throws us curve balls like freezing, rain, sleet and snow all in one day. For the most part, we have a pretty accurate forecast the day before of trail counts, weather, lifts, open for the next day. Communication with the top patrol is ongoing throughout the entire day. When these occasions of horrible weather do happen, trail status can change almost immediately, lifts do not always run the way we want, the snow surface freezes rapidly, so the snow report is constantly changing. We did experience some technical difficulties in communication of that information to you the other day and we apologize. These occasions, although rare, unfortunately do happen and we will continue to improve our ways of communicating that to you. The Guest Relations Office is always listening to our mountain radios, so if all else fails, please feel free to call us for the latest conditions. 802-626-7300

Thanks for you time, everyone, I enjoy this forum and your feedback. I invite anyone who is interested, to join me any morning at 6am, maybe as a guest snow reporter for a day?

Hannah Collins
Marketing Manager/Snow Reporter/Events Coordinator at Burke Mountain

 

[psyflyer]

Website says you're open, but you're not. "5 out of 6 lifts, 19 out of 50 trails." Defied death getting up that access road to find out that was a lie. And I can tell by the snow on the chairs that the new lift didn't run at all today. Then on the way back I hear on Moo 92: "Today's ski report: Burke picked up a few new inches of snow overnight, they've got the mid-Burke Express and Sherburne Express open with 19 trails."

And don't blame the weather, the rain stopped 2 hours ago. The ice melted 4 hours ago. And if it was an icing problem, you have a damn fixed grip quad right next to it.

Time to put up a website that looks like it was designed sometime after 2000, and UPDATE IT.

For the record, yes the Sherburne was open (which even more tells me that the new lift being closed was BS), but don't tell me the summit is open when it's not. It's bad enough that resorts lie about their conditions, now they're lying about the upper 4/5ths of the mountain being open when it's not.

Yesterday it was spring conditions and slushy which kind of made it fun. The new lift was closed all day due to winds which died down after 1pm so it could have opened after that. However there were maybe 10 people on the mountain including us so it was understandable that they decided to bag it. For those of us present, we were all lapping the park which given the terrain was pretty fun. At around 2pm they opened the poma, which made for some nice turns. Mid Burke lodge also was dead, us and two other people most of the afternoon.