RichT
Active member
Exactly!!! An added bonus for most of them would be to pay them the price of the pass, instead of giving them one.
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VAIL SUCKS
- Thread starter thebigo
- Start date
Very true. That said, someone else pointed out here that their Vermont resorts seem to offer some more information in their snow reporting. As to the format of the website absolutely. Vail uses one format. Also check out how all of Boyne Resorts’ areas use a similar template.
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kingslug
Well-known member
Look at park city weather report..2 sentences at best.
As much as vail sucks, so has the weather. None of the MWV resorts are doing well. 2 major rain events before Christmas. One of which brought the second highest river level in the last 100 years on the saco. From Christmas to NYE it basically was above freezing. The west side of the whites didn’t get the same amount of rain. Sunday river only has 26 trails and they have had the same weather. This isn’t all on vail
Harvey
Well-known member
Not shocking if you have been watching it the last five years.
nhskier1969
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Sugarloaf has the best snow report plus the interactive trial map is great.
BenedictGomez
Well-known member
They said it's in the "text based" report. How many people get or view that versus looking at the web-based report? Exceedingly few I'd imagine. I dont even know how to get the text based snow report (I didnt even know it existed). Vail knows what it's doing.
"Text based" as in the written portion of the snow report on the website...
Here's the example for Stowe:
RH29
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Belleayre might have the best pound for pound snowmaking in the entire east. At least 75% of their trail skiing is open and a bunch of what isn't is just temporarily closed for snowmaking and resurfacing.
Mount Snow and both Hunter are both shells of what they once were, although both will likely be much more aggressive this week then they've been earlier in the year. It's really been disappointing to see those two fall off under Vail (and Peak).
Mount Snow and both Hunter are both shells of what they once were, although both will likely be much more aggressive this week then they've been earlier in the year. It's really been disappointing to see those two fall off under Vail (and Peak).
BenedictGomez
Well-known member
So Stowe only has snowmaking on 3 trails even though they currently only have 35 of 127 trails open? I doubt that's the case, so I really dont think that's a comprehensive snowmaking report.
And I dont believe I've ever seen this "text based" writeup for Park City, so it seems like not all resorts are doing this? Here's what I see in the same area as you posted for Stowe, but on the PC site.
What to put in that box is a local decision. I did look at PC's website after I posted and laughed when I saw the whopping 10 words they put in that box compared to the giant narrative Stowe has (Okemo and Mt Snow both make pretty good use of that text box as well with a lot of details including a list of a dozen or so trails with active/recent snowmaking at each of those respective resorts). As for Stowe, I do think what they put is likely comprehensive of where they are making snow (unless you want them to list every single trail with only 1 or 2 guns going in the key intersections they mention). Gondolier, North Slope, and Meadows combined are a pretty substantial amount of acreage/mileage. Running those 3 simultaneously could likely come fairly close to maxing out their system (especially if they're running the guns on higher stages due to cold enough temps to do so).
And on the opposite end of the spectrum
www.facebook.com
12K views · 226 reactions | Snowmaking! | A snowmaking update with Tom Day | By Gunstock Mountain ResortFacebook
A snowmaking update with Tom Day
www.facebook.com
drjeff
Well-known member
If Mount Snow is a shell of what it once was snowmaking wise in your view, with having already resurfaced Snowdance, Cascade, Canyon, Long John, Little John, Deer Run, Inferno, Ridge, Cooper's Junction and Thanks Walt (and probably a few others I am forgetting off the top of my head) and already moved into expansion mode for roughly the last 24hrs on Fools Gold, Little Dipper, South Bowl, Drop and Charlie's Chase, and resurfacing on Lodge, and I would suspect Hop as well slated for tomorrow, then I am curious as to what former snowmaking system they apparently had you are referring to, since in the almost 40yrs I have skied there, and now almost 20yrs that I have been basically an every weekend of the season skier there, I really can't recall any time in the past when they have had much more equipment running than they have lately, and also their seeming call they made to put down more snow when opening up a trail than they often have in years past, played out well given the warm and wet weather events of the last few weeks. With 16 days in already this season at Mount Snow, I have to respectfully disagree with your statement of their snowmaking being a shell of what it used to be now
jaytrem
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Gotta agree with Jeff. I think MS has done quite well this year both before and after this week's mess. But yeah, Hunter, not so good compared to years ago.
kendo
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Agree with CD... Stowe's snowmaking mention is updated twice daily on the website and reflects what's active. They've been including this detailed daily info on the website, since early Dec 2021.
Helps with my trip planning.
They also embed their Twitter feed into their lift status page for real time lift, parking and ops info.
Other Epic NE and mid Atlantic resorts likely don't have the local staff or the interest in staying on top of & reporting all this info. Out west, once you're open, not much need to report daily snowmaking activity from Nov thru late Feb or March, like here.
Helps with my trip planning.
They also embed their Twitter feed into their lift status page for real time lift, parking and ops info.
Other Epic NE and mid Atlantic resorts likely don't have the local staff or the interest in staying on top of & reporting all this info. Out west, once you're open, not much need to report daily snowmaking activity from Nov thru late Feb or March, like here.
kendo
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That maybe all the capacity they have.
Here's some additional snowmaking info from my post in the weather thread today.
Stowe today. . .
Day 45 of the season. Probably day 59+ of operations (ie: snowmaking prep & grooming).
34 snowmaking trails open / out of 52 trails noted as snowmaking trails on the map.
65% of snowmaking trails open.
To note - 1 black trail open with snowmaking / out of 9 with snowmaking ... 10-15 turns for expert skiers at EPIC's premier eastern resort.
Stowe is behind on opening expert snowmaking trails & the ROI for the expert skier is low. They note they're pumping 3500gpm today (resurfacing) and last week they noted 4000gpm. Not sure what their max capability/capacity is, but that's probably it.
Expansion & recovery capability during shorter weather windows needs to be enhanced.
Stowe's new GM recently noted she's 'aware of opportunities for higher efficiency and low-e equipment, but those require capital investment.'
It'd be great if resorts reported acerage with snowmaking open / versus total snowmaking acreage onsite ... easy way to gauge who's interested in providing the best product to their customers.
SnowRock
Active member
And Stowe still does the snow phone report with much of that same information from the text reports.
I don't know why, but I thought Stowe's system was more powerful than Sugarbush's. But if those number are accurate, then it is roughly comparable to the system at LP at Sugarbush. (and ME has another 2-2.5K GPM or so on that side at Sugarbush).
I think it depends on what metrics you use. AIG dumped a lot of money into Stowe right before the crash. Besides Spruce Peak they put in a lot of automated snowmaking that was the latest technology at the time. Even though LBO had made massive improvements about 10-12 years earlier, they were using air and water lines with rental and some other diesel compressors. LBO, of course, was big on guns and hoses as it was what he had been using at Sunday River for a long time. Stowe's newer system meant that they can open more terrain faster than Sugarbush. I also think they have more fan guns/on-board compressor snowmaking equipment than traditional air and water lines like at SB. But it's been a while for me since I've been to Stowe. And one can have the most powerful snowmaking system out there but it doesn't matter if one doesn't utilize it as often as they should.
FWIW most places out here (except for Deer Valley) have snowmaking systems that are water line only with lots of fan guns or snowmaking equipment with compressors. That is newer technology and obviously cheaper with only water pipeline and not air lines (but you have to install electrical).
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GPM is still GPM which is the metric I was comparing in this case. Automation mainly helps startup/shutdown times (which I'll agree are important with short windows like we had this year at times early season). Although if I remember correctly, Stowe's automation was on the Spruce side. I don't know if they ever added much automation to the Mansfield side. I remember a lot of pretty standard air/water towers on the Mansfield side for the most part on a lot of their trails my last couple visits.
The fan guns at Stowe (from what I remember) are mainly around the base area and on some of the wider trails like the ones on the Spruce side. I'm going to say on the Mansfield side any fan guns are limited to a couple trails on the lower 1/3 of the mountain.
Edit...I did some searching and came up with some posts back in 2016 that were talking about GPM at various resorts. At the time it was mentioned that Stowe was around 7K GPM max. Not sure how accurate that was, but if they're only running at 3.5-4K right now, either those old numbers were wrong, something changed in the system, or they're not maxing it out. It may also depend on where they want to make snow and how the pumps/pipes/valves are configured as to how close they can come to maxing it out. At least now I know why I thought Stowe's system had more GPM than SB's.
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