Gore Conditions (2018 - 2019)

And who can forget the majesty of Gay Way in Santa Fe, NM -- actually one of my favorite blue runs in the country:

Anybody ski? How was Gore today?

Would love to make a run for it on Monday.

We skied today.  Well, if you can call it skiing.

First, to put it into perspective, it was raining the entire drive up yesterday afternoon.  So we knew it was going to be challenging well in advance of hitting the slopes.

While I was splitting kindling this morning and moving wood, it started to change from a mist to a mix of snow and ice crystals, at least in Johnsburg at elevation 1,460.  At around 10:00 this turned to light snow and at that moment we decided to pull the trigger.

As soon as we went down into the valley the snow disappeared but by the time we hit Gore, there was some form of frozen precipitation coming down and the higher we went, the more "like" snow it became.  

The lots were full down to and including the F Lot with some parking on the access road.  The lodge was packed as we arrived at 11:30.  We took the AEII up with a strong, cold and damp headwind, dropped into Wood In which was hard pack and fast.  I immediately realized that the mountain was still draining.

Up the High Peaks chair we wanted to do Lies, but it was closed.  The only way down was Headwaters.  Open Pit was a disaster, no snow blown since Thanksgiving.  

We took the Straightbrook up and there was evidence of liquefaction everywhere with blow outs and wash outs, again more draining.  As we were going up (we already knew that Rumor and Lies were closed) I noticed no activity on Chati or Hawkeye, which were also closed.  So the only thing open was Cloud and Headwaters (we elected to stay away from Upper Steilhang).  

In short, it was hard pack with areas of drainage.  Limited terrain available on the upper mountain.  On the way down the mist was freezing to my goggles.

TopRidge, Uncas both closed.  Pine Knot open but after looking up at it from the Straightbrook no one wanted to even go near it.

Best runs of the day were Sunway and Otterslide if you could navigate through the hoards of novice skiers struggling with the difficult conditions.

I saw one guy eject from both skis and toboggan down about 50' like a human sled.

Only two guns blowing snow, which convinced me that there is a major structural issue in the new snow making system.

If there is not more natural snow soon, the entire season could be in jeopardy.

That being said, any day on skis is a good day.

Happy New Year to all!!!!

FKNA Mike thanks a hell of a lot for posting.

I skied from open (20 minutes late) until a little later than when Mike arrived.  I ended up coming in to the lodge at about 20 after Noon and I had a hard time finding a place to change out of my boots.  My run of the day...and don't laugh...Sleeping Bear.  I did Tahawus first and it was eh but I ended up skiing Sleeping Bear a couple of times despite that lift.  My next favorite run was my first time down upper steilhang.   I skied it again before leaving the summit (only 4 runs up there) and it was pretty skied off.  Not much was left up top as they groomed it when it was warm and it froze earlier than I had hoped.  I only skied Pine Knot once and it was around 10am but it really wasn't that bad.  Agree that all things considered we are skiing and that was all I wanted to do today.  I managed 3.5 hours.  It was about what I expected although I was hoping to catch a few runs before it froze solid up top. The lower frontside was still sugary when I left.   I will be back Monday  Hopefully they can get some new stuff laid down by then.   I am pretty sure tomorrow will ski better than today,EARLY.  It will be a groomer day

Conditions aside, do Hawkeye, Chatimac, Topridge, Rumor and Lies at least have coverage?

They Do.  

Rumor headwall looked massive actually.  

It’s just all frozen solid.

Well that's good to hear at least, I'll be up this weekend.   After this year I might need to invest in a new set of carving skis, ones that have ice skates in them

Skied 3 hours in the morning. Had close to first tracks on Hawkeye and it skied great, skied it again and was also good next time down was significantly scraped off. Lies was next and was pretty slick. Heard they closed it later in the morning. I saw some one slide off the trail and into the woods(not too fast thankfully) as I came by the bottom. Headwaters was good then alternated 2 runs each on Topridge and Pineknot both had lots of new snowmaking snow and were fun and holding up fine. Finished on twister which was pretty skied off at 11:45.

Parking was well down the access road but upper mountain was not too crowded.  As I left the bar had a good crowd.

I've always felt it's not fair to judge a mountains success in December. I was at Mount Snow on Thursday, and the amount of open terrain covered by snowmaking was impressive. But, there were also amusement park style lift lines everywhere, and sheets of people on the slopes. The base area reminded me of Times Square the week before Christmas. there was no area on the mountain where crowds could be avoided. In an attempt to not get hit by a human rocket, I made a quick turn, and launched out of my skis second run. Tore something in my leg, and bruised my ass real bad. It will be a few days before I can ski again.

I skied a few more runs that day before I realized I didn't want to do any additional damage to my leg, and it was getting more painful to ski. The mountain it self is also rather boring. Even the Northface is just a slightly steeper version of the rest of the mountain. Carintia Parks looks like a ton of fun on a day when it's not super busy. I've skied much more challenging terrain from steeps to trees, drops, and hairy lifelines at Gore and never felt as nervous as I did that day at Snow.

We had a lot of snow in November this year, and the Latter part of December was not nearly as favorable. I think we gained high expectations based on the unusually good conditions early season. Plattekill as well, really dragged their feet with snowmaking early season, and now they are skiing Christmas week on 1 lift and 3 top to bottom runs. No one would have expected the weather to go in reverse between November and Dec, but it did, and I'm not the least bit surprised.   It's not even January yet, but there are favorable outlooks for Jan, and Feb, so I am confident that in the foreseeable future we will be in paradise once again.

There were a lot more guns going today vs. yesterday. hopefully that improves things.

Good crowd today caused things to get skied off pretty early. If you're skiing tomorrow, I suggest an early start.

tom

So that does mean more than 2 guns?

frk wrote

So that does mean more than 2 guns?

With a supposed 6K GPM capability that Gore claims, that should mean they can run about 240 guns at full capacity with the average gun running about 25 GPM. A dual or triple head gun would count as two/three guns accordingly.

But wait, the 6K GPM is only the theoretical GPM at the Hudson river pump house. The main Mountain pump house is actually capable of about 4K GPM. Theoretically the other 2K GPM can be used at the ski bowl before the rest of the capacity makes it to the pipeline pump house. So that means the main mountain can support about 160 guns. But when do we ever see even 100 guns running at Gore?

Are these the numbers post 49% improvement?

Actually, these numbers are pre 49% improvement. I am not sure what the statistics are currently, but presumably they should be larger numbers.

Mount Snow has had a few days this season running over 300 guns. From what I understand, those numbers are hard (but not impossible) to achieve due to the labor required to maintain those numbers while operating.

Which goes back to my “issues” comment on other thread.   Is the root cause of the challenges labor based?

It very well could be.  The real question is, is the root cause of the challenges really due to workers being unavailable, or is it due to management wanting to keep payroll down. If it's the latter, it's just poor management. Automated snowmaking is really the way to go and is not all that complicated, it's just a bigger investment upfront. Unfortunately, it leaves the human factor out which is sometimes necessary on steeper more unique terrain. If it were up to me, I would have Showcase, Twister, Sunway, Wild Air, Arena, Topridge, Ruby Run, Foxlair, Uncas, Echo, possibly Sagamore, and most of North side automated. This would leave High Peaks and Straightbrook more authentic.

Gore will probably always rely on man operated guns for much of their terrain. This can be partially proven by the fact that they bought a huge fleet of Ratnik Baby Snow Giants a couple years ago. Regardless of what they tell us, they are really not any more efficient than the old guns they had. They are a shinier version of the same damn thing. They just work well in high elevation, windy, and steep terrain.

Echo, and Sags was open last year at this time. Overall we've had more snowmaking temps since Thanksgiving this year.

I follow three different snowmakers from Snow on IG. They are all full time year round operations employees for Mount Snow. Their IG profiles prove just how excited they are to work all summer improving their infrastructure, and work all winter making snow every opportunity they have. This demographic can not be found for Gore as well as many other mountains. It is likely that the guys making snow at Gore are the equivalent of a fast food service employee, and they don't really give a damn about what they are actually doing. I'm sure there is always a rare exception.

Disclaimer: I hate actually skiing Mount Snow.

Ethan Snow wrote

frk wrote

So that does mean more than 2 guns?

With a supposed 6K GPM capability that Gore claims, that should mean they can run about 240 guns at full capacity with the average gun running about 25 GPM. A dual or triple head gun would count as two/three guns accordingly.

Yes, a lot more than two, but I rarely count. I didn't get a chance to check things out today, so really can't comment on today's operations.

I have heard that there have been some mechanical/electrical issues with the new pumps, but I really don't know. In prior years you would typically see guns going on 2-3 trails and on good days this year, I think it has been closer to 4-5. Unfortunately they haven't been able to achieve this too often despite the decent weather.

tom

TomCat wrote

I have heard that there have been some mechanical/electrical issues with the new pumps...

tom

I think ORDA's problem is that they don't have any project managers that can get the job done. A patroller told me that there had been some pump station problems that were resolved, but that the new system was still not fully operational as of December 19. When was the last time ORDA finished any project in time for opening day?  (Remember the no-snowmaking pipes along the side of Sagamore the first year, or the Whiteface bar 2 years ago?) It's like November catches them by surprise every year.

mm

Eating lunch at Saddle now.

Upper mountain closed. Solid ice above 3,000 feet.

Edegable, barely, down to Sunway “slowzone”.  

Lower mountain frozen granular.

Parking lot empty. It looks, feels, and skis like it rained all night long.

The cold damp wind at the Saddle is cutting.  If you’re not here, you didn’t miss much.