Gore Conditions (2012-2013)

I wish Gore could expand terrain this weekend, in addition to whole resurfacing effort.

I'm thinking of something which does not take loads of snow to cover, like Pete Gay, Sleeping Bar, left side of Wild Air..

Twister, Topridge, or Pine Knot/Cloud probably out of reach for the weekend, hopefully I'm wrong.

snow makers moving to fairview, pine knot and tannery

Fairview? Really?  I wish they would go to Topridge instead. Fairview is rarely worth the trip.

poindexter wrote

Fairview? Really?  I wish they would go to Topridge instead. Fairview is rarely worth the trip.

Agreed. I think I ski fair view more than topridge but I would rather see efforts on top ridge. Lost my pass today. Someone turned it In. Wahoo! Sugar snow.

I see Fairview as a way to get to Showcase, Twister bypassing Ruby Run. I'm sure they can blow it out quick so it may not delay Topridge. Also if they were blowing on Pine Knot and Tannery (were they?), they may not be able to blow on Topridge at the same time (that's a guess).

tBatt - glad you got a pass bro. And glad you got it back.

fairview aka scareview or iceview is an odd choice. it is often the last trail blown because it is skied by so few for obvious reason. the wind just scours it better than a zamboni. usually, the triangle of pineknot-tannery-topridge is a nice pod which isolates skiers from more heavily travelled areas. i'm a homer for gore but... a week before xmas and only a sliver is open. a 79 dollar holiday ticket is going to be a hard sell. gore's snowmaking capacity is minor league. kmart, face, etc are blowing huge amounts of terrain. gore has to find a way to blow more snow before the big holiday or people will be going elsewhere and that's not good for gore.

Gore has the capacity, what they don't have is the budget. They took a big cut this year. Give Cuomo a call.

I don't think the limiting factor has been budget or capacity. Not disagreeing (or agreeing) with the idea that budget was reduced.  While the amount of budget coming from the state may well have  gone down, the amount spent on snowmaking is tied to skier visits and revenue. So that's a fluid number and in many regards is weather dependent.

I think it's about temps.  Think about Hunter. Everyone knows they aren't shy about blowing. If it had been ten degrees colder over the last 10 days they'd probably be 80% open.  It's obviously been a little colder in the Daks vs the Cats, but there hasn't really been any super cold.

Christmas week is crucial. No matter what the budget, nobody is going to cheap out on the guns before Christmas.  As I said the snowmaking budget is dependent on skier visits and Christmas and Presidents Week are a huge percentage of total non-passholder visits.  There's no "saving it for later."  You go for it if you can, and hope the visits, sustained cold and the natural snow comes later.

I think Uncas is next, then the summit. (Cloud, Headwaters, Hawkeye?)

The budget hasn't been reduced.  Gore's budget for operating expenses is $7.446 million in 12-13 versus $7.421 million in 11-12, virtually unchanged.  The budgeted NYS appropriation is slightly reduced to $4.1 million this year versus $4.5 million last year, but that's for ORDA as a whole.  You can get all of ORDA's financials (budgets, annual reports, audited financial stmts) on the ORDA website, Corporate Reports tab.

I think Gore's done an excellent job with snowmaking so far this winter.  I think they've blown as much as conditions (temp) have allowed.  I agree with Harv that weather has been the limiting factor, not budget.  Yes, I'd like more terrain open.  I'm sure Gore's mgt would like that too.

As for Fairview, I suspect it's a matter of convenience.  They can blow there easily at the same time as Pine Knot etc. without devoting much resource.  Maybe there are other operational considerations as well.

I'd say the mountain skied quite well yesterday (Sat).  You can read my trip report here.  Hopefully we'll get a little cooperation from the weather gods in the last half of December.

I think it's all of the above. Certainly the weather has not cooperated, but it seems like we have a weather problem every December. Gore's competitors in VT have had similar weather but have a lot more open. So, I think it is also a capacity issue. I think for the last year or so they have tried to keep the quality of the open terrain high and that's probably the right move. But it would be really nice if it didn't take 3-4 days to refresh 13trails.

I would like to see Uncas, hawkeye and chetimac next. I think they can wait on cloud and headwaters since they have quite a bit of the lower mountain open.

Tom

Once again passed the ski bowl on Saturday night and they were blowing the tubing park and the ski bowl hill . . . would love for that snowmaking to be on Topridge or Hawkeye instead . . . .

dacks have been plently cold, weeks of 20s at night...totally different than hunter this year.  Look at whiteface, they are blowing everywhere.  What is gore thinking with fairview?  We get any wind and its an ice sheet, it has poor exposure and its a useless trail.

Fairview opened today, was a lot of fun - nice whalebacks. The slush that fell overnight made for hero conditions all over the open terrain. The only down side was the drizzle. The weather is surely not cooperating but what is there is very nice.

"Fairview is now open!  For Friday, join us for Winter Solstice with a special "Blessing of the Skis & Boards," along with FREE tubing that day for all ticketed guests and season passholders!"

Well there is the reason...I was thinking...with the high speed skiing going on now, if they opened up Fairview and it got bumped up...that's nice pre-season conditioning...bump to sunway then cruise...repeat

Cool plan, but the aspect of Fairview, combined with the general wind direction leads me to believe that the bumps will be icy death after every thaw/freeze cycle (which seems to be happening a lot in the past few years). At least Topridge has a nice southern exposure, so sun has a chance of hitting it and softening up the icy bumps a bit. And also, Topridge has a bunch of nice guns on it that they can use to refresh the trail. Usually, once they cover Fairview enough to open, they don't really pump a lot of energy or time into making more snow on it (preferring to just wait for natural).

I guess I just want another mountain area to ski (but I realize it's probably more economical to not open additional lifts).

they will be icy death by wed...

I am hoping for icy death tomorrowbut I think it will be too warm...I need to put the new boards thru the full test.  I am not trying to second guess the groomers, I am just trying to rationalize why I keep skiing it.  I thought about going to the face but the extra 45 minutes each way doesn't make sense if I have to work in the afternoon.
If I have a few hours of time, I want to spend them on snow and since I bought the pass I have only two options right now...oh and did I mention that with Fairview open you don't have to go "Do I think I can make it from the bottom of Foxlair to Showcase".  That Fence was way out there yesterday

HermitCam

Gore got 3 inches last night, that wasnt expected.

@ADK_Jeff,
I am glad you pointed out the ORDA budget page, I had heard the numbers from mountain management but never really dug into the annual reports. It does make interesting reading.

One thing we need to understand is that the budget is a projection for the following year. ORDA is run more like a corporation than like a government and Gore is like a business unit within that corporation. Just like a private corporation, budgets change throughout the year. I know my operating budget by Q3 is never what it was walking into Q1.

From the data on the ORDA website: In 2012 Gore was asked to provide a revenue of $9M on a budget of $7.4M (their best year ever was 2008 and the revenue was $8.5M - wishful thinking). Gore was only able to achieve $7M on that horrible year and had to struggle to hold down expenses to get as close to the $1.6M targeted return to ORDA as possible, the numbers are not published but I believe they did at least break even which means they did not spend to their original budget - at least that is what I recall being told.

Now lets look at 2013. The 2013 budget is set at $7.2M, the revenue target at $8.6M so the return is down to $1.4M and based on the weather and the poor start this year, things are not looking up. Now I don't know the exact numbers but since the 2013 budget was set, ORDA picked up Belleayre and the state cut another ~$300K out of ORDAs subsidy  Ref:. So ORDA picked up Belleayre and Albany gave no money to ORDA to help with the transition and they also did not give ORDA Belleayre's subsidy that came through DEC, such a deal. Again, I do not claim to know the real Budget Gore has now but you don't have to be Greenspan to figure out what has happened. Gore (as I am sure is true with other departments in ORDA) is getting squeezed.

The upside is that Gore has a dedicated staff doing all they can with the hand nature and ORDA has dealt them, they are team players and ORDA is not the "bad guy" either, that in itself is a whole other story. Gore has made great strides in doing more with less (look at the snow making numbers for last year - more snow, less energy costs). Yes - nature needs to cooperate too.

Now as a consumer of Gore's product you need to make your own choice, are they offering you the product you want or not. Since Gore is run by ORDA and ORDA is a state agency, if you are a NYS resident you have some voice. If you are from out of state and want to see improvements, then help sell Gore to others, keeping it as our own secret - no matter how temping that is will not put more snow on the trails. The bottom line is the bottom line.

If you know a good snow dance - now would be the time...