Gore Conditions (2015 - 2016)

Gore is a logistically expansive mountain, so snowmaking is what it is. You gotta be strategic there. It ain't Huntah where everything can be white in 72 hrs.  

In terms of investment, Topridge as an example has saved the day many times this year with those new quiet guns.  They were blowing light fluffy pow-pow on Saturday. Yes a little heavy at the  bottom due to warmer temps, but it dried right out when they shut the guns.  

I just hope they can finish getting Sagamore in shape by the weekend.  It's rough when they blow the heck out of that mile+ juggernaut for nearly a week and then it pours for 24 hours straight.   It's just r epresentative of the type of year we're having.  

I recall that Gore has capacity for 30 acre feet per day.  Hunter has capacity for 60 acre feet a day.  Gore's snowmaking terrain is twice the size of Hunter (which has 100% snowmaking).  That means that Hunter has four times as much capacity as Gore.

Gore has basically unlimited water since they've tapped the Hudson River.  All they need to do is pump more up the mountain.  Air issues can be solved by getting more of the HKD tower guns to minimize the use of the outdated ground guns.  Adding more of the tower guns where possible would help greatly in opening more terrain earlier.  Hawkeye, Chatiemac, Lies, and Cloud/Headwaters could use them.  No more time wasted setting up the ground guns, and those guns can be used on the narrower trails (where they work best) which would open those sooner.  If they doubled capacity to allow for 60 acre feet a day, they'd have no trouble opening all lifts by Christmas, except in a year like this one.

I don't disagree with this ^^. Gore is underpowered in terms of snowmaking capacity relative to other major NE resorts.  WF is too, though to a lesser degree.

I beleive there's an issue with using the low-E guns at high elevation, something about needing booster pumps to allow them to operate at the summit.  MP told me a couple years ago that most of the "low hanging fruit" had been picked in terms of switching to low-E guns.  So what you're going to see is more incremental improvements rather than big jumps in capacity.  I've made the same point myself (that Gore's snowmaking firepower needs to be doubled), but the reality is it's a 7-figure project that doesn't have the sex appeal of a new lift, new lodge or new terrain.  You got a couple spare mil burning a hole in your pocket?

Well that new lift or new terrain won't have the same "sex appeal" if it's never open.  Think of how many people who've skied Gore actually have been on the ski bowl.  

My "master plan" also calls for a new trail on Topridge, upgrading the North Quad to HSQ, and relocating the North Quad to replace the Sunway Chair.  Do these (plus the additional Burnt Ridge trails) and do incremental snowmaking upgrades along with them.

"Master plan"... *sigh*


What about CON. DI. TIONS. don't you understand?

There are some good ideas here, but until Gore/ORDA starts a real marketing campaign in the NY metro area, Gore will continue to be an underused NYS asset begging for funds just to try and be where it should be.

Here is a simple need at Gore -any idea when there will be more real rest rooms added on the mountain?

x10003q wrote

Here is a simple need at Gore -any idea when there will be more real rest rooms added on the mountain?

Did you think all those new glades were for skiing?

I've been in better smelling and cleaner outhouses than the mid station bathroom at gore. It seems to get worse every year which I didn't think was possible. I'm scared about next year.

and back to CONDITIONS.  Yes, conditions.  People actually ski this mountain.  I did this today.  There is snow there.  No one complained that sagamore is not open yet.  No one complained that the bowl interconnect was not open.  In fact, people actually had smiles on their face because unlike my back yard Gore has snow.  

It looks like mountain ops has moved to blowing snow on the essentials.  Guns blasting up and down sunway.  Guns blasting on showcase.  Guns blasting on foxlair.  

Had a few inches of fresh stuff that made the day kind of interesting.  Hard groomed surface with a wet snow on top.  Mountain was slow but you could carve it nice.  Upper mountain skied much better then lower.  No wind so uncas and topridge were busy.  With twister down I didn't feel like heading over to burnt ridge.  Heading back up Thursday.  

I was pretty excited about the inch or two of fresh this morning!  Hopefully some more tonight and I'll be giving it a go in the AM. Day 23...

Footer wrote

and back to CONDITIONS.  

Motion to limit snoloco to his on 'not happy 'thread

What I posted was totally civilized and I wasn't flaming anyone.  I was responding to someone's post about a possible new trail, and where I think would be the ideal location for it.  Maybe you should make your own "I'M NOT HAPPY" thread.

Please post Gore conditions here. I'd ski on Friday if I get some better sounding conditions than last Friday. Thanks for the "Ski Conditions" report in advance.

Skiing Gore last Saturday was interesting.  Hawkeye and Chaty were quite good early AM and held up well for a few runs.  Topridge was fun with all the snow blowing as was Wild Air.  

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EDIT. Sorry for the above... just realized I was in the wrong thread

On and off snow showers all day not adding up to much. Seems like you really need to pay attention to the reports. Grooming /snowmaking trails ski best. Really a day to day thing. Everything is pretty hard underneath. Extracurricular not in play, BONY!

Report says making snow on Sagamore, could be a trail to ski this weekend.

I like Sagamore as much as the next guy, but after seeing it's condition last weekend even I was in the "just skip it" camp. Still needed a ton of work and after the way the hill got clobbered Feb 2-4, I was ready to concede defeat on that trail.

They had made some snow on it, but not nearly enough to open. And they sent a groomer up it. "Skiable"--and I use that term loosely--width was one snowcat wide for the bottom half of the trail.

Whoever ran the groomer up it must have said to his boss, "You want me to do what?" when given that assignment...."Hey, I'm not a miracle worker, boss"

Some Sagamore shots from this  past weekend:

Saturday






Sunday


It needs lots of work.

I'd guess they are shooting to get Sag open for this weekend.  Should be doable.
The one I'm wondering about is Open Pit.  It's been listed as closed since that melt-down last week.  I would think it'd be an easy trail to re-blow and open.  It's a nice alternative to Hawkeye/Chati for upper intermediates.  Wonder why it it's stayed closed for so long now.

I was wondering the same....was looking pretty gross last week, but still had plenty of cover.