Gore Conditions (2016 - 2017)

The games are about to begin.........sharpen thy boards.

Just flurries, but the mere fact that white stuff may fall does warm the cockles of my heart . . .

Petronio

2" at 1900.

That could be enough if you have some beater XCDs!

They replaced the gondola haulrope this summer.  It had it's gearbox rebuilt in 2014.  

snoloco wrote

However, after experiencing Gore's opening weekend last year (which was about the most pitiful excuse of a WROD that I ever saw, with rocks and mud everywhere), I'd be skeptical of going back.

I don't get it didn't you vote for earliest possible opening?

So you want the mountain managers to go all out in early season marginal conditions, but then not open if it is not up to your standards, or give away free lift tickets or what? What do you want?  What would you have done last year at Gore?

They didn't groom it properly and that's why all the rocks were exposed.  There was a bunch of snow that was still in piles and hadn't been pushed onto the trail.  I remember Matt said that it was one and done for him that day.

I probably would have done a better job grooming and that's pretty much it.

Ski areas have to do whatever they can given the weather conditions.  I just don't think that Gore put out the best possible product in the given scenario.

Regardless, this is a Whiteface thread.  I will continue to hold out hope that I get to ski before Thanksgiving, and that I get to start the season at Whiteface.  Due to being further north and having better snowmaking in relation to the amount of terrain, Whiteface is almost always the better choice early season for someone that can get to both.  They also open up more challenging terrain earlier than Gore which is also a plus.  You can't beat being able to ski 2500 vertical in one run on opening day, which is usually what they try for.

Last year, Gore opened with Showcase and AE2, adding Sunway-Quicksilver later.  Before then, they always opened with the gondola serving Foxlair-Sunway-Quicksilver.  Are they going to open with the AE2 every year from now on, or was that just what they did last year?

snoloco wrote

They replaced the gondola haulrope this summer.

What's some thing that cost, any idea Sno ?

Things are looking good for Saturday the 12th. stay tuned.

snoloco wrote

They didn't groom it properly and that's why all the rocks were exposed.  There was a bunch of snow that was still in piles and hadn't been pushed onto the trail.  I remember Matt said that it was one and done for him that day.

I probably would have done a better job grooming and that's pretty much it.

Hey Sno, I run a cat at Gore during my winter breaks. You have absolutely no clue what goes into grooming operations and how tricky it is to groom early season when there is no base, limited snow to work with and most of it being absolute slop. Maybe I'll treat you to a ride over break to give you a better taste of the difficulty of the job.

Nicky Z wrote

snoloco wrote

They didn't groom it properly and that's why all the rocks were exposed.  There was a bunch of snow that was still in piles and hadn't been pushed onto the trail.  I remember Matt said that it was one and done for him that day.

I probably would have done a better job grooming and that's pretty much it.

Hey Sno, I run a cat at Gore during my winter breaks. You have absolutely no clue what goes into grooming operations and how tricky it is to groom early season when there is no base, limited snow to work with and most of it being absolute slop. Maybe I'll treat you to a ride over break to give you a better taste of the difficulty of the job.

Sorry if you felt insulted by my comment.  It was just one of those not so good early season days and it seemed like they could've done a better job.  It's always tough to deliver the best product in marginal early season conditions, especially in a bad year like last.

I've already ridden in a groomer as Hunter sells rides.  It was so cool to see the mountain from that perspective and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

You're posting in conditions threads as if there's conditions to report.

This is drift, maybe I'll move this to the Gore thread.

One thing I have a seen over the last 10 years is that it's easy to take shots at things from the outside.

From my vague old man memory:

Gore barely had the temps to open on Nov 27.  I seem to recall the governor did a bit of grandstanding, announcing opening, which probably made it tough to do anything but follow through.

I do remember they started blowing from the top and were only able to turn guns on at the bottom after midnight for a couple nights.  Nicky probably remembers this better than I do (he was txting me that night) but the way I remember it the delayed opening was to get as many hours of blowing in and to do the grooming at sunrise as temps neared but didn't exceed freezing. Even with modern tech the snow at 28-30 is pretty lame and grooming it couldn't have been easy.

Assuming you could have spread things out more without banging up tillers, I believe the forecast for the following week was warm, and even if you had the time to spread it all out, you could have been increasing the odds of ending up with nothing the following weekend.

I'm not saying Gore played it perfectly, I have no idea.  I do know it wasn't easy. For some reason your know it all attitude pisses me off.

Harvey wrote

I do remember they started blowing from the top and were only able to turn guns on at the bottom after midnight for a couple nights.  Nicky probably remembers this better than I do (he was txting me that night) but the way I remember it the delayed opening was to get as many hours of blowing in and to do the grooming at sunrise as temps neared but didn't exceed freezing. Even with modern tech the snow at 28-30 is pretty lame and grooming it couldn't have been easy.

 
This is correct, I was in the cat that morning.

Harvey wrote

One thing I have a seen over the last 10 years is that it's easy to take shots at things from the outside.

I'm not saying Gore played it perfectly, I have no idea.  I do know it wasn't easy. For some reason your know it all attitude pisses me off.

^^^Amen to that.

I'll give credit to where it belongs---you can't squeeze blood from a stone. I'll take snoloco's described WROD anyday if it means there's still snow the following weekend. Would much prefer that to mortgaging whatever they did have so sno could have 1 moderately more meaningful day skiing. Kudos to the boys last year for making what they could from effectively nothing.

and the odds of the kid actually going to VT to catch some turns rather than complain about Gore/WF early season conditions are slim to none. Much easier for him to complain than to actually change his present situation.

Killington is over 4 hours away from Potsdam which is too long for a day trip.  I'm still not old enough to make a hotel reservation in my own name, nor do I have the money to pay for one frequently.  I'm not going to ask my parents to pay for it if they're not going.  If I want to be well rested enough to have a hope of skiing the next day, then sleeping in the car is also out, as Brownski suggested that I do.

snoloco wrote

  If I want to be well rested enough to have a hope of skiing the next day, then sleeping in the car is also out, as Brownski suggested that I do.

OMFG!!!! What a friggin spoiled little city boy. Sad, very sad