Gore Mountain snow making

I mean no disrespect to the snowmaking and grooming crew at Gore, who in my opinion do a great job.  However, can anyone explain why Gore is only making snow on a couple of runs at a time?  We are finally entering a cold snap, and it seems that it is prime time to take advantage and blanket the mountain while the opportunity exists.  Yesterday they were only blowing on Sunway, Cloud, and upper Chati,  all of which are in much better shape now.  However, the rest of the East face of the mountain is looking grim, as is much of the Summit.  Is Gore incapable of covering more trails at once, or is the lack of snow making a management decision?

Oh, and I just read on the Gore site that they are moving snowmaking to Echo soon.  Shouldn't they concentrate on the main mountain first?  Perhaps it is racing related...

Gore really does not like blowing snow on active runs.  They do it, but do it sparingly... and not during holiday periods like we are in now.  At 3pm you will see the start turning on guns for the evening.  Also, they only have so much pumping and air capacity.  The upper mountain runs are too narrow to have all runs on at full and have skiers on it.  I've bit it more then once on headwaters with guns on simply due to being whited out and getting disoriented.  

It's my understanding that the ski areas carefully watch their electrical demand charges.  For major electricity users, you pay a charge for how much electricity you use just like a normal household, but you also pay a sizable additional charge for your maximum electical demand.  This is to account for the infrastructure the utility must build and maintain to allow you to have this capacity.  

Since snowmaking is so electricity intensive, this is important.  Blue Mountain, in Ontario Canada has the capacity to blow snow on their entire mountain, but I don't ever recall them doing so after December... unless they get hit with a late December / early January thaw which closes down the mountain.

My guess is if Gore were close to the end of a billing cycle, and hadn't yet spiked up their demand, they may wait until the next billing cycle to go guns ablazing for the month.

I've been up at the mountain for 3 days and seen a consistent effort. Meaning it seemed the SAME amount was going on each day.

Is that amount maximum? is really the question.

I remember 5 years ago, before the big Nimo upgrade, capacity was around 15 acre feet. I think that was the number. The amount is enough to cover Showcase top-to-bottom with 12 inches in a day.

After the upgrade that was theoretically doubled to 30. (At that time Killington was at around 80.)

So did I see snowmaking equal to two Showcases or more?

The Saddle, Lies, Tahawas, Quicksilver? Hawkeye? Windy Hill? What else?

It wasn't all at the same time so not sure.

Harvey wrote

 What else?

The website says the tubing park opens tomorrow so they must have been pounding that area. So from what you say - making snow from the summit to the ski bowl, that sounds like full bore to me.

Actually the Ski Bowl is almost completely separate.  Going full out there has almost no effect on capacity on the rest of Gore.  You know except money of course.

Harvey wrote

Actually the Ski Bowl is almost completely separate.  Going full out there has almost no effect on capacity on the rest of Gore.  You know except money of course.

So the ski bowl has it's own water pumps, air compressors and employs a separate staff to make snow, interesting - never knew that.

Harvey,

I seems possible that Gore has been blowing the equivalent of two Showcases daily, especially when hitting Sunway hard.  If that's our limit, fair enough.  But I wonder what the rate limiting factor is.  Probably not labor since Gore now has permanent snowmaking guns on most trails.  Is it pump capacity, electrical supply, or cost?  

BTW, Gore's 30 acre feet of snowmaking capacity is on par with Killington's since they list 1500 skiable acres compared to Gore's 500.  Not too shabby after all.

30 acre-feet per day is Gore's theoretical maximum output.  But that's based on optimal conditions.  Were they hitting that over the past several days?  Hard to say because there are many variables, chiefly temp, humidity and wind.  I haven't been to the mountain since Saturday, but it sounds like they are moving around quite a bit from trail to trail.  That takes some setup time, even with fixed guns, which reduces total daily output.  So who knows, maybe they are hitting 20 - 25 acre feet per day since Monday.  Just a guess.

I'm sure I've posted these links here before, but you might be interested in this behind-the-scenes tour of Gore's snowmaking operation.  It's from 3 years ago but is mostly still current (they've added a few more low-E guns):
Gore Snowmaking Tour

Regarding the overall adequacy of Gore's snowmaking plant, I've always felt Gore's snowmaking plant is somewhat undersized compared to other ski areas.  I did a comparison of snowmaking plants at Adirondack ski areas plus Killington and Hunter two years ago.  You can see in the chart Gore lags based on how many days (13.3) it takes to cover their snowmaking terrain in one foot of snow (K is 7.5 days, Hunter an amazing 4.0):
Adirondack ski areas by the numbers: Snowmaking

Jeff's right, and I'm glad the word "theoretical" showed up somewhere in my original post.  It's all theoretical and weather dependent, but it does provide one way to compare capacity.

I'm guessing Gore is beyond 30 acre feet with recent improvements.

I bet Killington is bigger too.

This graphic was from a blog post I did in Spring 2010:

Happy New Year All...
Yesterday I heard a lot of complaining about snow making and how they would do it better.  I continue to thank the snowmakers when I see them.  Everybody is entitled to their opinions but I am happy with what and how they do it.  I showed up on Sunday after a serious overnight rain and still had a great day of skiing.  I know having the demo day (Volkl being the only one who bailed ) helped bring people out, but I didn't see anyone upset with the terrain that was open and the conditions.  On Tuesday I showed up at 12:30 and yes there was some serious ice in places, but there was plenty of snow built up on the sides and Chati and Lies were absolutely wonderful.  You have skiing on 4 faces of the main part of the ski area after freeze thaw and rain...you can second guess and armchair quarterback all you want, but I would like to commend the snow makers and groomers of Gore and thank them for their hard work.
If you don't like it you can go to Okemo and Stratton...just stop complaining and thinking you can do a better job.
Accept what you have and enjoy it
May 2015 include multiple Powder Days (DAIZE!)

+1

Amen

Just to be clear Suds, I wasn't complaining in my post and even commended the snowmaking crew.  I was just curious about the snowmaking process at Gore and wanted some insight into why it's done as it is.  

CMR my post was not directed at you but the folks I rode the lifts with yesterday.  I could not believe the amount of bitching I heard and I truly thought that considering the traffic and the weather we have had, the skiing was awesome.

So I'm riding up with this guy who had the look (MIB esk) and asked where he was from...Killington.  Lives and works for said mountain for years...Skiing Gore!  Nuf Said.  There is nothing like seeing Green Plates in the lot

Blue Mountain in Ontario pumps 14000gpm on 250 acres.  I'd be curious if anyone can beat that.

http://www.bluemountain.ca/winter_conditions_snowmaking.htm

sudsnbumps wrote

May, 2015, includes multiple Powder Days (DAIZE!)

It would be awesome to have some May powder days oh great soothsayer

Obviously it's the same staff. And air I assume. So maybe I overstated it.  

Pumping a facilities are unique and water comes directly from the Hudson instead of from the river to the reservoir.

I do think that our own Christmas week, (which is sadly over!) was significantly better that it would have been 10 years ago before the upgrades.

Suds re your peeps on the lift ... everybody is a QB. I actually won the contest: I'm GM for a week and I'm going blow Wild Air next, then Dark Side, BRQ, and then the Bowl.

sudsnbumps wrote

Accept what you have and enjoy it

This is Gore's new slogan.

Nothing wrong with complaining if you want to complain. I agree, they should make more snow and groom better. But I don't spend a ton of time thinking about that. I just ski what's there.

X I will be skiing in May and hopefully with my Bionic Puppy but don't edit my posts
Matt, as I said everybody is entitled to their opinion but you can complain even on a powder day...as long as you're not an employee
Harvey, I want snowmaking on Cirque, Ski Bowl Glades and High Line...oh wait can't do that last one until they put a sign up...ok we'll take Tahawus and Twister glades instead....well gotta go put some edges on for tomorrow