mbedle
Well-known member
True.
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When is the last day for snowmaking
- Thread starter prsboogie
- Start date
True.
mbedle
Well-known member
Guy at Stowe told me yesterday they would continue to blow until next monday.
i/2 of that on lynx IMO
MEtoVTSkier
Active member
It's pretty much a given this year. If you want to remain open, then you're blowing snow all season long with no natural to keep the slopes covered. It's that or shut the doors and wait for next year. It's one thing to have a budget to blow a great base on your snowmaking trails until Mother Nature catches up and takes over, it's quite another to have to do Mother Nature's job too. All the more reason for the industry to keep researching new and more efficient methods of making snow, just in case seasons like this start happening more often.
VTKilarney
Well-known member
Very good point. There was a lot of criticism over Efficiency Vermont's incentive program for the installation of low-e snowguns. With the weather this winter, that program may have saved a lot more bacon than people anticipated.
I have an even better solution...
MEtoVTSkier
Active member
Yep, probably no downside to those purchases now. They've no doubt paid for themselves a few times over now.
Have yet to hear of any resort claiming it was the worst set of purchases they've ever made.. ;-)
SIKSKIER
New member
From Cannons website:
Looking Ahead - As many ski areas prepare to shut-down snowmaking for the season, we plan to continue as long as possible to provide some of the best eastern skiing/riding into the spring.
Newpylong
Well-known member
Intel on Ragged was wrong.
They've now moved on to the Chutes and Town Meeting. That's after burying Exhibition.
They've now moved on to the Chutes and Town Meeting. That's after burying Exhibition.
dlague
Active member
I talked to the guy that was saying Ragged was about to throw in the towel and he said they met as a whole this past weekend and everyone wanted to go for it with the cold temps that were coming. Must be making a run for Spring! I am noticing that everyone is going gang busters! While this weekend will be cold - it should be good!
Exibition
BenedictGomez
Well-known member
The Euro is showing a warm day next week throughout New England. Hopefully it's wrong. Would definitely shut the guns for a day or so.
dlague
Active member
warm trend more like it!
machski
Well-known member
That would be about right. Big snow lands South of ski country, blast cold for the holiday weekend and then a warm up and a mixed storm at best. I've seen years like this in the past, sucks to say the least.
goldsbar
New member
I'm thinking this weekend is it for snow making for most areas. Imagine your the typical go twice a year on Xmas and President's Day type of family. Negative zero during the day before windchill isn't exactly going to motivate you to take another trip. This weather is about as worst case as it can get (well, and still be considered a winter). Warm and can't even make snow followed by ultra cold and windy weather on one of the busiest weekends. Looking forward to heading to Mammoth in early April...
drjeff
Well-known member
Mount Snow is making snow on South Bowl, Ego Alley (both needed some more width, not necessarily base depths last weekend), Canyon (fattening up base depths for the Spring), Rollercoaster (needed more depth last weekend as it was a hockey rink in between a few piles that the fan guns where putting out last weekend), Chute (fattening up for Spring), Ripcord (needs some soft snow), Beartrap (needs some soft snow) and they're doing something in the half pipe as well (not sure if they're actually going to try and build a pipe, some management has in the passholders forum said they're not going to this year, but might make some snow in there and let the parks crew push it around a bit and make some different style of park within the dirt perimeter walls of the pipe??)
After this, who knows if they're done or not. My guess is if they aren't, it will just be another couple of days, if and when GOOD temps are present, to do a little final fattening up of base depths on core trails only for spring operations...... It will be all about if the hoses are still hanging on the equipment waiting for use or if the snowmakers start the big job of rolling miles of hoses for off season storage later next week????
After this, who knows if they're done or not. My guess is if they aren't, it will just be another couple of days, if and when GOOD temps are present, to do a little final fattening up of base depths on core trails only for spring operations...... It will be all about if the hoses are still hanging on the equipment waiting for use or if the snowmakers start the big job of rolling miles of hoses for off season storage later next week????
SIKSKIER
New member
"Cannon remains committed to enhancing conditions as much as possible over the next couple of weeks - expect to find some of the best snow surfaces in the state at Cannon for the remainder of the season".
NYDB
Well-known member
All Mountains are going to have to all resurface after the 2/17 rain event. (shitty)Weather has now forced their hand
ss20
Well-known member
Late start, late finish.
Snowmaking really got going in January, with part time-operations in December and November. Normally it'd be full-time blowing in December and January with part-time in November and February. I think we'll see blowing for another 2 weeks or so. This whole "budgets are maxed out" can't be correct since snowmaking started a whole month later than usual.
A disaster snowmaking year would be a cold November, followed by a blowtorch December that melts all the snow. We had the blowtorch December, but there was literally no snow made to melt.
Snowmaking really got going in January, with part time-operations in December and November. Normally it'd be full-time blowing in December and January with part-time in November and February. I think we'll see blowing for another 2 weeks or so. This whole "budgets are maxed out" can't be correct since snowmaking started a whole month later than usual.
A disaster snowmaking year would be a cold November, followed by a blowtorch December that melts all the snow. We had the blowtorch December, but there was literally no snow made to melt.
drjeff
Well-known member
Agree - realistically from whenever the season started for a resort, through basically January 1st, they could make snow maybe 2-3 days a week, a time when usually it's max the system out until they run out of water (if that's an issue) to get as much open for Christmas week as possible - then they got a decent roughly 2 week stretch up to MLK Day Weekend where they had 10+ favorable days, at a time of the year where they'd usually be making snow max out to either finish up all the snowmaking terrain and/or start working on spring base depths, then a 50/50 mix temps wise the roughly last 1/2 of January/start of Feb when it's usually just touch up mode for most resorts and some more spring prep work prior to Pres Week where the shutdown usually happens for most resorts.
Sure, most places have had to do lots of resurfacing, BUT the total number of days of potential snowmaking due to mother nature's fickleness this year is below what most every resort typically plans on by this point of the year, and whether or not those guns had to run on the same say 15 core trails many times over or run on say 50 trails just once or twice doesn't alter the fact that the total number of snowmaking days to date this season is below what they plan and budget for at likely the overwhelming majority of NE ski areas this season
steamboat1
New member
The Superstar glacier is well under construction top to bottom. Very impressive watching it grow this week. The whole mountain recovered beautifully after last weeks weather, yes they blew all around. Best days I've had all season so far. Only downside is I think there are several notable trails that won't see any love this year (Fiddle, Vertigo, lower Ovation & lower Downdraft). I could be wrong though.
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