Gore Mountain Terrain Update

See the terrain update on the blog for a complete description and additional photos:


Chatterbox


Barkeater


Barkeater


The New Bridge


The Road to Little Gore


Moxham Headwall


46er


North Creek and the Hudson from Little Gore

Awesome update. I love the view 46er has of NC, the surrounding hills and the Hudson River. I hope we get better snow than last year so they can open up the ski bowl before the end of Jan.

Thanks X.

That view of town from 46er is even better than it looks in those pics.

I think it was Adk Keith — who suggested, in a comment on The Blog — that the holy grail would be skiing from the summit to North Creek via the trees.  While that's always been possible, it can now be done with the aid of lift-service. Would be a great way to end a big day.

One thing about the Bowl ... I'd be surprised to see lift running without a skiable connection from the Gore base.

Harv: Hey Mike... was checking out Hunter's Chopper video... when's our chopper day?

Mike: Not scheduled yet.

Very interesting. Hopefully Gore will inform us of chopper day when it approaches.

Harv, In an above post, you mentioned that the 46er was " covered with soil ". Would you know, is that what will happen to the "road from lil Gore to BR?" Sure is a lot of rocks on it and " shot rock " is very sharp. Do they typically bury that stuff? That would take alot of dirt to bury it's length even a foot or so deep. I know there were patches of shot rock left on Sags, but nothing like what is on that road in the pic you put up. It looks like it's all laying rather flat and the bottom of that pic shows some hay coverage. They'ld have to bury it good with something, dirt or lots of snow.  Just curious.

It's much more interesting watching this expansion unfold vs. BR cuz the Harvinator is bringing us these cool pics and updates. We're not in the dark so much.

Snowballs wrote

Very interesting. Hopefully Gore will inform us of chopper day when it approaches.

Harv, In an above post, you mentioned that the 46er was " covered with soil ". Would you know, is that what will happen to the "road from lil Gore to BR?" Sure is a lot of rocks on it and " shot rock " is very sharp. Do they typically bury that stuff? That would take alot of dirt to bury it's length even a foot or so deep. I know there were patches of shot rock left on Sags, but nothing like what is on that road in the pic you put up. It looks like it's all laying rather flat and the bottom of that pic shows some hay coverage. They'd have to bury it good with something, dirt or lots of snow.  Just curious.

I'm getting the impression that it is going to be a dead sprint to get this work done by opening day.  I can almost hear Mike's "out-of-breathness" in his short emails.

I have no idea if the plan is to cover the rest of the "Road to Little Gore" with topsoil this year. I can't remember exactly what shape it was in back in July - but if you look at the pic I included, in the foreground you can see straw, which I'm sure was laid down for seed:



If I get a heads up on chopper day I will post it.  We'll be in the mtns in Sept, and I'll try to get some time with Mike.  Part of me feels that it's all been said, so another update might be pointless. But it does seem like I learn something unexpected each time we meet.

I believe they are right on schedule Harv. When the Burnt Ridge quad went in it was right in the same time period. They finished most of the prep for the tower pads, and will finish the forms this week. They will pour the pads the first part of September, and be ready for the chopper. I got some really good photos of the Burnt Ridge:

Here's the chopper bringing in cement:



And Here's the chopper bringing in the towers:



The tower pads were poured on 9/5/08, and the towers were placed 10/1/08. The towers would have been done sooner but the chopper was not available. So, based on that I don't see any reason why they would not be able to finish on time this year.

The perennial challenge to scheduling the chopper for tower placement is forest fire season in the west. When the USF runs out of air support for fire fighting, they contract out to the same major helicopter companies that set lift towers. The BR installation may have been delayed a week or due to fires out west as I recall.

The first tower of "The Hudson Triple" is set!

Zelda and I went over to Gore today to have our pics taken for our passes, and sign Neve up for half-day Mountain Adventure.  I popped in on Mike and he generously gave me the better part of an hour to shoot the breeze on all things Gore.

I didn't really feel like I had enough for a full blown blog piece, and I've got to get cracking on this Big Tupper piece, so I'm going to give you what I got here, in the forum:

• Helicopter dates still aren't set. As you probably know two dates are needed. The first date for pour the concrete tower foundations, and the second date to set the towers. Those dates have to be a mininum of 48 hours apart to allow the cement to cure. It's more likely that those dates would be as much as a week apart.  These dates are hard to pin down. The big chopper companies make the big money on natural disasters. Construction is more of a sideline. For a variety of reasons, no advanced notice will be given on those dates.  He is very confident that this will get done for this season.

• Snowmaking will be completed this year on Peaceful Valley, Eagles Nest, and Oak RIdge.

• The odds are very slim at this point that 46er will get snowmaking in the upcoming season.  The two related, limiting factors are (no surprise) time and money. While budgets (and the size of the summer labor force) are fixed the time to finish specific tasks is dependent on a variety of things including weather.  Mike had hoped that if every went right the crews could get on the welding of the pipe on 46er.  But it looks like that will not happen now. This summer's crew is the smallest it has ever been at Gore since Mike started as GM. They've done a huge amount of construction over the off season, but very soon have to move on to maintenance and all the regular pre-season work that has to be done to get Gore open.

• All of the steel for this job - the pipe - has already been paid for. And, very lucky for Gore and Gore skiers, it was purchased a few years ago, before the cost of this type of pipe skyrocketed. (Harv wonders: is this one of the hurdles for getting snowmaking on Hoyt's High at Whiteface?)

• Here's something pretty cool IMO... we were looking over the site plan for the entire mountain. I noticed some lines on the map, on Burnt Ridge, that I didn't recognize. I snapped this photo with my digital camera:



I asked about them. Each red line is an "approved trail." Hmm.

Starting at the left, the first red trail roughly resembles The Cirque.

Harv:   Mike what's this?

Mike: That's the Cirque.

Harv: MIKE.... you're not planning to turn the Cirque into a TRAIL are you?

Mike: No. It's just that to get approval for that much cutting we need "trail approval."

Harv: So the same is true of Barkeater?

Mike: Yes.

Harv: So wait... (pointing to the trial that connects Barkeater and the BRQ) ... what is THAT?

Mike: It's another "trail."

Harv: What's it's called?

Mike: It has no name.

Harv: Let's give it a name, so tree skiers can fantasize and analyze!

Mike: The crew calls it "Haymaker."

Haymaker it is. No work has been done on it yet. Currently it's not a priority. Next year, in the off-season, top-priorities include snowmaking on 46er and the blasting of Hedges to allow and easier return trip from the BRQ.

That's what I got. Maybe I did have enough for a blog entry.