Bear Den Mountain- Whiteface's repackages Kiddie K

I heard that Kiddie Kampus at Whiteface has been re-named "Bear Den Mountain" and that a number of improvements have been made to the Bear Den Lodge to try and make holidays less crowded.   I was wondering if anyone has heard about any other improvements at Whiteface?     More fan guns on the top of Mtn Run perhaps?   Snow making improvements?

Just pondering...

"Kiddie Kampus"  had to go!  The PTAs and teaKhers of local sKhools s agured the sourSe of poor state testing sKores was the signage mis-spelling.      

Heard rumor they were thinking of a heated dome in 1st Class area to get temps up to 10F.    Kids can't write or type with frost bitten fingers.  


JOKING----that said, teaching kids in Northern NY has to be hard on those super cold days.   Props to parents and instructors.      

I spoke with Aaron two weeks ago... he said he'd have some kind of update at the end of this week.

I heard they were renovating the base lodge.  Renaming the trails.  Putting a cover on the magic carpet to prevent freeze up.  Commitment to keep mini park up.  Not sure what else.

I taught over there a good bit so Long term the changes I'd like to see are
1 put snow making on medalist so the connection to main side requires less walking if snow is low.  This isn't Gore and we don't like flat spots.   .  Actually it can be tough for intermediate and below kids to get across that spot on home run.  

2 put a new lift in.  That lift is the oldest on the Mt if not all or orda.  It needs a upgrade given how much money the kids lessons generate for Orda.

Dee-lighted! As an adult learner, it was more than a bit demeaning to have to head on over to the Kampus as so named.

But, Coach, replace that lift? How about the double-double at Belleayre? Truly a slow race to the bottom between those two.

Here's what we got from Aaron:

http://nyskiblog.com/whiteface-mountain-improvements-2014/

Sorry I'm nit familiar with the lift at Bellayre you are mentioning.  I only skied three one day and mist of that I was watching the race

The triple at KK now Bears Den is from the early 70s.  Not sure of exact yr.  it's really slow and stops a lot due to the difficulty of loading the little ones.  The line gets really long during peak times on weekends and holidays.

A new lift with conveyor loading would make a huge difference on the amount of on-the-snow time that beginners could get in a day.  It's even slower than lifts in the southeast.

Coach Z wrote

Sorry I'm nit familiar with the lift at Bellayre you are mentioning.  I only skied three one day and mist of that I was watching the race

As you know, Belleayre is divided into a lower and upper mountain.  The Double Double serves the lower mountain.  Unfortunately, a bunch of eastern mountains still have some of those old things around.  They remain an expensive, inefficient, and slow way to move skiers up the mountain.  A high speed quad, or a fixed grip with a loading carpet is cheaper and much better.  The one at Belleayre has no padding at all like the rest of their lifts and it is 3,800 feet long and runs like 400 fpm.  That lift is longer than the East Peak Express at Windham and runs less than half the speed.  To watch the race, you were on the upper mountain, so you would not have seen that lift unless you went down to the beginner area at the bottom.