Plunge: The Catskill Beast?

Been tossing this idea around between a few of us about what it would take to bury Plunge in 10 feet of snow with the goal of keeping one run open in the Catskills through April and potentially into May.  Would love to convince Laz to go for it, if it is practical.

There are a lot a variables with snowmaking including temperature, wet bulb and cost/kwh but an educated estimate of total cost is somewhere around $50,000 in extra cost to do this.  That number was spitballed by Laz himself.

To pay that off you'd need somewhere around 1000 skier visits from non-passholders, or maybe a few less if you could leverage the extended season to sell more passes. "Buy now and ski the rest of the season free."

1000 visits would be 100 per day over 5 weekends.  

This could add 5 days to my season. It's not easy for me to get to Killington at this time of year and I could definitely day trip Plattekill.

Love this idea but last thing I want to do is push for something that could hurt Plattekill financially.  Logistically I guess you blow Plunge on it's regular schedule and look for prime (cold) opportunities to go deeper.

One last thing, the choice would really be between Plunge and North Face. I'm pushing for Plunge.

Pros for each:

Plunge: narrower (so cheaper to blow and it gets less sun) and right under the lift so you don't need to keep the connector covered and more opportunity for social media love with pics from the lift.

North Face: top to bottom guns hardwired, no need for running hoses.

NY Metro, Hudson Valley or CNY skiers: What do you think? Realistically would you pay to ski Plattekill a la Superstar if it was open later in the spring?  Would it increase your likelyhood to buy a pass?  Maybe a non-holiday?  Other thoughts on logistics or how to make this viable? Sponsors? Ideas on how to market or brand it? Used the beast, but I think that is already taken. ;)

Wouldn't it be easier and less wasteful to just ride your bike or do something else besides ski on a man-made glacier?

This idea seems like something Snoloco would propose.

Maybe some people want to stretch out ski season.  It's not wasteful for the ski area if it's profitable.  Most cases it isn't profitable, so I don't see Plattekill doing this.

So as long as you make money, it's not wasteful.  Check.  

MikeK wrote

So as long as you make money, it's not wasteful.  Check.  

Provided that the water goes back into the same place where it started....and a profit is made, I don't see it being that wasteful. Granted, energy will be consumed to get the snow on the trail.  

I think making a profit might be a long-term goal as I think that it would take time to build the late season "brand", as Harvey mentioned in the other thread where this idea first arose.  Given the hardware in place, I think it would be easier and more efficient at this time to try and do this on Northface.  If more pipe is added to Giant Slalom and the lower portion of Plunge, my opinion will most likely change.  As it is now, there is no pipe on the middle section of Plunge, Giant Slalom or Lower Plunge.  Hoses are pulled through from Northface to make snow on Giant Slalom and Lower Plunge.  I don't ever recall man-made snow on Middle Plunge.  I 'd like to see this come to fruition despite this probably adding to my season pass cost.  

My point was 50k is a big electric bill... roughly a year of electric for 50 residential homes.  On top of the amount they use every year to spin the lifts and pump water and compress air.

Still seems wasteful to me.  One of the reasons I love the NE is change of seasons.  Seems strange to not embrace that.

What if you have a favorite season?  Mine is winter.

As far as the 50k electric bill, it's their money, not mine.  I'm only paying if I choose to go.

snoloco wrote

What if you have a favorite season?  Mine is winter.

As far as the 50k electric bill, it's their money, not mine.  I'm only paying if I choose to go.

Not the point.  It's the fact that it's a giant waste of a resource that contributes to us having less snow overall in the future.

If you want to ski late into the season, get the hell out of NY.

If you lived in northern Cali you could be skiing Shasta right now... oh wait, no you wouldn't, because you'd have to hike to get there.

For such a smart guy this is really hard for you to figure out, isn't it?  Not everything that has value or worth can be added up as 1+1 on a sheet of paper.

What?!  Snowmaking is just storing water as snow/ice on the mountain.  How does it contribute to having less snow in the future.  If it's profitable, it gives the mountain more money to make snow which means more snow in the future.

I can't even...

Dude, reference for the future.  If you gave me answers like this in a job interview, particularly if you were in the energy, transportation or environment sector, I'd show the door immediately.

Go back and read real careful and try to figure out where you missed the boat.

If I applied for a job and realized you were interviewing me, I'd walk out before you could even show me the door.

snoloco wrote

If I applied for a job and realized you were interviewing me, I'd walk out before you could even show me the door.

I'm not unique in this respect.  What do you think almost every motivation in those industries is these days?

Instead of trying to learn something and think from a different perspective, you are whining like a two year old.  Bravo.

I'm all for this. I don't think it's wasteful except in the sense that using electricity for anything but the bare essentials is wasteful. I believe it's up to Laz to decide what to do with his money and his customers have the right to buy or not buy a ticket from him.
Regarding which trail, I would choose North Face. I like Plunge but I'm afraid all the snowmaking in there will widen the trail over time and change its character. NorthFace is the perfect candidate and it's already got the pipe.
Marketing Plattekill as the most hardcore mountain in the cats is the way to go, in my opinion, and this would just burnish that image.
Rather then trying to make those extra days profitable, I would like to see it used as a marketing tool to get the Hunter/Windham/Bell skiers to come give Plattekill a look, once their mountains have closed.
If they can come close to breaking even on those days, I would advocate setting a 5 year goal for increased season pass sales (figure out the math on what percentage increase would justify it) and use that as the ultimate measuring stick for how successful it is.

As a season pass holder, I would certainly pay more for my pass if Plattekill promised to carry out this proposal. I would think an extra $100/pass would be reasonable.  IMO, Plattekill has the perfect setup for this, and they may even have an advantage over Hunter. Even late season at Hunter is very busy, and if Plattekill stayed open three weeks past Hunter, they would most likely get at least a portion of that crowd. I think with the current setup, Northface would be better. I say this not only because it is hardwired, but because it is slightly less steep, and it will be easy to stockpile snow at the bottom of it for keeping the lift entrance open. There is not a lot of space between the lift and the ground on lower Plunge. I have seen this happen at Plattekill way too many times. They make a ton of snow at the top, and not nearly enough at the bottom.

 I agree that the top cross section would be a a little difficult to cover, but with a nice pile on top, they could take care of that too. I also think NorthFace is easier to share with other skiers because it is wider, and not quite as steep. Its really a single diamond, while Plunge is really a double. There is talk about getting snowmaking on middle Plunge very soon, so if that happened, and they had a way to make a lot of snow on Lower Plunge (maybe use some fans) than that would be cool too.  Then you could have Plunge and GS open which would add some more variety. If that happened, than I agree Plunge might be better. I just fear that Lower Plunge is just a little too narrow, and too close to the lift.

Aslo, Plattekill is expanding their deck this year. They had to reconstruct the retaining wall under it, and had to tear part of it off in the process. To my knowledge, they are going to be making it bigger. I think the combination of the new deck, and a Superstar of the Catskills go perfectly together. Late spring skiing with food, and beer on the deck.  This is going to be awesome! I would kill for this to happen. I would even volunteer my time as a snowmaker during a cold period to make this happen!

The bar could probably kill it. Create a spring party scene with live music out on the patio/deck.  

hmm... well fuck it then.  Why even bother to make cars more efficient or have lower emissions?

We should just toss the CAFE 2025 in the garbage.

http://www.nhtsa.gov/fuel-economy

I mean if we are just going piss away our energy and create C02 with ski hills, I want to drive 1000hp cars that get 4mpg.  I mean if I can afford it, it's not wasteful... right?

The whole ski industry in the east is incredibly wasteful in terms of energy.  You are talking 640,000 kWh of added energy to ski 5 more days a year?

I'd like to see the total energy usage per year, per visitor and have to bet, based on average temps, that extending the snow that much has a HUGE increase on the amount of energy needed.

Yeah but giving that much cash to the power company is good for the local economy. So is keeping Plattekill employees employed longer.

Ethan Snow wrote

Yeah but giving that much cash to the power company is good for the local economy. So is keeping Plattekill employees employed longer.

You'll use that energy no matter what.  Wasting in one big shot does nothing for the economy except put strain on it later on.

Plattekill employees could run a bike park.  And it doesn't really do much to keep them employed for an extra month of break even or loss of profit business.

MikeK wrote

Ethan Snow wrote

Yeah but giving that much cash to the power company is good for the local economy. So is keeping Plattekill employees employed longer.

You'll use that energy no matter what.  Wasting in one big shot does nothing for the economy except put strain on it later on.

Plattekill employees could run a bike park.  And it doesn't really do much to keep them employed for an extra month of break even or loss of profit business.

 
I think we are only talking about a couple of more weekends. The uncertainty of actual scheduled closing/opening dates creates problems for ski areas and their ability to actually have reliable employees there.

I can see Mike's point here. It's skiing and it's sort of ridiculous to waste valuable energy resources for an expensive recreational activity that so little of the worlds population actually can afford to participate in.

I'm not really that concerned but his points are valid.

Yeah it's crazy that we go through so much for certain things, but for this... fuck it!

I've made peace with the fact that we have a lot of resorts blowing snow in NY and a lot of lifts spinning.  It just seems crazy to ask for more.

Put in a sweet bike park at Platte and have the spring skiing one day, and when the snow melts, MTB the next.  The bar and grill will still make the money and it will be less impact overall.

Also, just seems to me that if I was going to blow a shit ton of snow, I'd want to do it at the highest elevation possible.  Sure, it's going to cost more energy to pump, but it should last longer (and you should get a bigger natural base to add to).  Killington is a 4k footer, it makes slightly more sense there.

Upper WF would make more sense for something like this IMO, but for the NYC crowd, it's not any closer than Killington.