The Beast is open

Has anyone made a trip to Kmart yet? The Beast is open.

skiing the WROD is not my cup of tea..

OK, I'll bite. WROD?

x2

WROD = White Ribbon of Death.

I've seen it more as a spring phenomena, not fall.

Snagged from Vimeo... opening day at Kmart:



Quote from JT who was there:

"5 trails open with great packed powder conditions, a little zooey with everbody on limited terrain but hey its early Nov. and I'm on snow."

Ok anybody who is not envious after watching that is a liar. I'm jealouse. Nice lookin snow. Thought he did pretty good for early season. kept waiting for him to fall...sucka ;)

Oh, yeah, duh. I was there one Thanksgiving day with maybe 12 trails open. I left by noon after three collisions, all from behind. It was not safe.

Looks like a fine weekday morning of entertainment.

Kmart is reporting 8" of new snow this morning:

http://www.killington.com/winter/mountain/conditions/index.html

Um, yeah, and I was told my check was in the mail.

Furgetabout Vermont, it may be time to think about an early trip to Co.

http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20101105/NEWS/101109882/1078&ParentProfile=1055

"Copper Mountain and Keystone Resort kick off their winter season at 9 a.m. today, and it should be all smiles at the resorts after Mother Nature's recent storm helped provide “some of the best opening conditions in recent memory,” Copper Mountain spokesman David Roth said.

Copper boasts 22-inch base
Copper received 35 inches of natural snow on top of its snowmaking efforts since it opened for private race training on Oct. 23. With a 22-inch base, Copper plans to open with full tree-to-tree coverage on Main Vein, Rhapsody, The Easy Rider Learning area and about 10 features in the Eagle Jib Park, at the top of the American Eagle chair lift, Roth said. New snowmaking at Timberline chairlift should mean new terrain will open soon, he added."

Benny the only way I can interpret that report... 8 inches at the summit yesterday, that was followed by some NCP.

There is no base/summit reporting in that report.

One thing I will give Kmart credit for (besides of course being OPEN!)... the weather widget on the conditions pages now actually displays the word R**N. In years past, when it was POURING it would say .... 38 cloudy.

CONTENTS DELETED

I've found Gore's reports to be pretty reasonable. I always assumed they were taken from the base, as the numbers are usually an inch less than what I am seeing at HQ a few hundred feet higher.  I asked Emily about this last year... she told me that she "called around" and took an average of what she heard.  I'm assuming she meant, ski bowl, base lodge, saddle and summit.

One thing is for sure... I don't know where you'd measure at the saddle.  I can't think of a spot there that would give an accurate reading.

Personally I think mid-mountain is reasonable, as long as they are upfront about it. Summit seems a little ridiculous as you can't really ski the summit, once you start skiing, you're no longer at the top.

Harvey44 wrote

I've found Gore's reports to be pretty reasonable.

Did they change their reporting so you could actually tell how much snow they received in a 24 hr period? I never checked it out last year, but prior they would have something that stated 8 inches in the last 5 days or something. So if you weren't checking it daily you wouldn't know

skimore wrote

Harvey44 wrote

I've found Gore's reports to be pretty reasonable.

Did they change their reporting so you could actually tell how much snow they received in a 24 hr period?

Actually, no.

When I said "reasonable" I meant to say that it's my impression that Gore snow reports are not designed to give a false (high) impression of snow totals.

That said, I'd be surprised if anyone follows (or tries to follow) Gore's snow total reporting as closely as I do.  During events like last years Big One (week of 2/22), I was checking total reported totals constantly and it was extremely hard for me to determine what was being reported.

When the number used is for the last 24 hours but it is updated 2 times in one day and 5 times the next, and you are comparing it to a 7 day number, it's no simple matter.  Ultimately when it stopped snowing, Gore posted a 50 inch total for the seven day period an I'd estimated 48 inches based on all the incremental reports.

While it ultimately doesn't really matter, a nutcase like me would like to see a better reporting system.