Sno was dead wrong!

2 weeks after the Lookout pod opened it now is done toast finished for the season.  

Look out Below was open for what maybe 5 days total?  That snow should instead have been blown on the top of Skyward which he s now brown and close to needing the shovel brigade to stay open.

WT was open today but was rocky last weekend and after the rain today will be closed.  That snow could have been 4 feet more on all the key trails.  

I can see sno saying:

"I was right. Don't cut it if you can't get it blown by Christmas."

Looks like quite a bit of snow coming down in the ADK's. Hopefully that helps out alittle. Wont doing anything for Lookout though.

Im very interested in seeing the Belleayre Webcams tomorrow.....

Coach Z wrote

2 weeks after the Lookout pod opened it now is done toast finished for the season.  

Look out Below was open for what maybe 5 days total?  That snow should instead have been blown on the top of Skyward which he s now brown and close to needing the shovel brigade to stay open.

WT was open today but was rocky last weekend and after the rain today will be closed.  That snow could have been 4 feet more on all the key trails.

Last weekend, when we had 6000+ on Saturday & Sunday, having Lookout Mountain open was EXTREMELY helpful in keeping the crowds on the trails and lifts at reasonable levels, and anyone who skied those trails (on Lookout) was very happy to have them.

We've had an EPIC meltdown over the past 8 days, with record temperatures on several of those days. This is not anything that anyone could have reasonably predicted, and to second guess the decision to open those trails after the fact is quite simply ... ridiculous.

D.B. Cooper ... Remember our conversation this morning? The above post makes my point perfectly!

Coach Z wrote

2 weeks after the Lookout pod opened it now is done toast finished for the season.  

How do you know this is fact? I am pretty sure a little grooming can fix up Wilmington. There are still guns set up on Lookout Below, and Hoyts. I don't think either of those trails were considered "finished." I think they were hoping to make snow there again. Due to how severe this dumpster fire has been I think they would be smart to blow snow on other trails that are more important like Essex Mac or U Northway, or Skyward.

I think Whiteface did the right thing to open Lookout when they did. They had no way of knowing this disaster was coming and all they were trying to do was get all the mountain areas and key lifts open for the busiest part of the season. The fact that Mother Nature basically just told all us skiers to go fuck ourselves, well that's out of our control.

Coach Z wrote

the shovel brigade

It's called a groomer. There's a ton of snow on Skyward, it's just not in the right place. Take a look at the intersection with lower Sky and Niagara, and look at how much snow gets deposited there. What WF needs is a conveyor that a groomer can just that snow onto to cary it to the top.  A night's work with a winch cat can accomplish almost the same thing.

WF blew snow first weekend in March last year, and I think they should do the same thing again. In key locations. The rest of the month of March MAY turn out to be ok.

Face4Me wrote

 This is not anything that anyone could have reasonably predicted, and to second guess the decision to open those trails after the fact is quite simply ... ridiculous.

very well said.

The long range forecasts all had this warm up in them weeks ago.  

WT is a dumpster fire trail that no matter how much you blow on it rocks come thru.  As I written many times that trail is in the wrong place.  It should be down in hollow where SVG is.  

If they do decide to blow again it certainly won't be on Lookout.  The reality is that now that the busy weekend is over they want to lay off lefties so not running that chair saves them over a grand a day between labor and electric.  

They had to blow WT I get that as much as I fricking hate that trail.  LBO should not have been blown - period.  At that point it was a certainty this warm up was happening and that snow needed to be blown at the top of Skyward.  They should be blowing a Superstar lite mini glacier there, on the spot on Niagara that always washes out and on the top of Mt Run.  

Don't know if they'll be able to make much snow even if they want to. It looks warm for awhile and if a couple more weeks go by " warm " , then it gets cold, they won't blow, too late.

Hard rain today for hours. As Ethan put it, this has the feel of a disaster.

Next weekend looks like a great snowmaking window. That was almost exactly the same time they made snow last year in March.

I wasn't suggesting they make more snow on Lookout. Although, I suppose they could just leave the summit to rot and focus on keeping Lookout open. I don't even like Skyward. Would much rather ski LBO and Hoyts.

Snowsnookie hasn't posted in 10 days, likely his new friend Glade has convinced him to try another venue for his musings.

Whoa!  Did snosnookie get taken out by gladeserial?  

ScottyJack wrote

Whoa!  Did snosnookie get taken out by gladeserial?

Glade continues to post hole is way thru the webz.

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An interesting aspect to this discussion that I think is being overlooked is how often this season and maybe an average of the last ten seasons that some of the less priority trails have been covered by snowmaking and opened as well as the natural trails and glades that need maintenance to continue to be operational when enough snow is there. It looked like a week or two ago conditions reached this seasons peak (so far) but that window was what? A week or two long?

So if you were part of the ORDA ski area management team I think it would be important to look at the costs of these operations and the maintenance of these areas as well as trying to project the effects of climate shift to project into the future and prioritize efforts and where to spend $ for the next 20+ years. An expected effect of climate change is more of this extreme pendulating weather patterns which is likely going to have adverse affects on ski area snow making operations, especially in places that already have fickle and unpredictable weather patterns such as the north east.

I guess that sort of projection is complicated and maybe even impossible but it's something I would be trying to accomplish if I were a ski area management person. But you have to wonder, when does the costs of maintaining previously mentioned types of terrain become more expensive then there value of having them there.

I suppose that if you had a strong local scene of interested and motivated folks you could incorporate an off season long volunteer program to maintain glades and natural snow trails to cut down on costs but as SNO mentions, if you can't get them covered then why cut them in the first place. I don't completely agree that the snow making trails must be covered by Christmas but I do think his argument holds some validity in some regards, possibly anyway.

I get that but the reality is Orda is a state run org and the Gov is much more interested in gifting shiny stupid new shit like gondis that have to go over parking lots and zip lines that get him on the news than snow making expansion or god forbid the money to actually make the snow.  Why stop making snow in Feb?  The reason is the budget says they have to.  Stop giving Orda Capex and instead just fund the operation and preventive maintenance of what is already there.

PeeTex wrote

Snowsnookie hasn't posted in 10 days, likely his new friend Glade has convinced him to try another venue for his musings.

Talked to Sno.  He felt the forum was distracting him from his studies so he is taking a break which seems like a good decision to me.  Most of us use this as a distraction from work.  He still is skiing plenty and is not tied up in GR's basement. Sno was pretty happy with the surprise pow today.

Coach Z wrote

Sno was pretty happy with the surprise pow today.

That's a relief.

Face4Me wrote

D.B. Cooper ... Remember our conversation this morning? The above post makes my point perfectly!

Yes.  You should change your handle to Nostradamus.  You had that verbatim.

Ethan Snow wrote

WF blew snow first weekend in March last year, and I think they should do the same thing again. In key locations. The rest of the month of March MAY turn out to be ok.

That won't happen without a compelling reason, e.g. a VIP group.

What they should do is move snow from, for example, Weber's onto Victoria.  Vic gets blasted with traffic and sun.

I'm not so sure D.B.   I've seen WF go to some pretty great lengths at different times over the years to put forth a quality product under trying circumstances late in the season, and it didn't have anything to do with VIP groups.  I'd bet a beer that we haven't seen the guns for the last time this year.