The Snowmaking/Operations Outlook Thread

I think the terrain expansion plan you've got going here is pretty reasonable. I wouldn't be too worried about getting everything open for MLK weekend, but as always, the more the merrier. I can't remember any single December that delivered lots of consistent snow, and snow blowing temps. All of them have been pretty disappointing in my memorable lifetime. Two years ago, December was very similar to this one, but January and beyond turned out to be awesome, and WF was 100%. Be patient. Another thing to keep in mind is you can not effectively make snow when there is an actual storm brewing, because all the condensation nuclei in the atmosphere have already been stolen by the natural snow flakes. This is part of why I like your argument about snowmaking temps being more important than real snow because real snow literally robs you of snowmaking potential.

Back on topic, It looked to me like Chatemac had already been blown in parts. The bottom needed some work, but I am pretty sure the upper half is covered. It had a lot of snow on it anyway. I agree, Rumor is low priority this time of year. It should be saved for last. Get DarkSide open, Sagamore, Echo Twister, Lies, and another trail on Northside before moving to Rumor. Also, I have no idea why they have avoided Pine Knot, so they need to cover that too. I can ski Rumor any time of year, but it is really no fun for me except for in the spring.

Woodstream needs a lot of work too. I've got some snow stockpiled, but my snowmaking season has barely begun. The temps the last week or so have been really lame. Not a lot of favorable temps involved. Unfortunately I lost two Great days. One because I wanted to go skiing instead, and the next, a broken pipe. I'll update you on my progress later in January.

Ethan Snow wrote

I think the terrain expansion plan you've got going here is pretty reasonable. I wouldn't be too worried about getting everything open for MLK weekend, but as always, the more the merrier. I can't remember any single December that delivered lots of consistent snow, and snow blowing temps. All of them have been pretty disappointing in my memorable lifetime. Two years ago, December was very similar to this one, but January and beyond turned out to be awesome, and WF was 100%. Be patient. Another thing to keep in mind is you can not effectively make snow when there is an actual storm brewing, because all the condensation nuclei in the atmosphere have already been stolen by the natural snow flakes. This is part of why I like your argument about snowmaking temps being more important than real snow because real snow literally robs you of snowmaking potential.

If temps are below 27, snow can be made at any humidity.  Might not be efficient, but can be done.

This December has been pretty much average.  We had plenty of good snowmaking weather, but some r*in events and warm weather also.

In case you didn't know, Whiteface has this huge promotion called Chevy Owner Appreciation Weekend that they for whatever reason always run on MLK weekend, even though it's a holiday weekend.  It's arguably the busiest weekend of the year, and if Lookout isn't open by then, it will likely cause some major lines on the other upper mountain lifts.

An odd quirk about the Lookout section makes it harder to open, but certainly no excuse to leave it to rot like last year.  The groomers can't go up Hoyt's, only down.  That means that if Wilmington Trail isn't open, they can't get up there to groom the lift area.  That means that they have to cover the entire 2.2 mile run just to get snowmaking on the other two trails.  Still, I don't see this as an excuse not to open it for the holiday weekend, because it's no harder than covering the opening day route of Excelsior-Valley-Fox, especially when the latter one must be done in the marginal temps of November.

Hoyt's takes about 3 days to open, but they keep the guns on it for longer before turning them off.  Wilmington needs 5-7 days of snowmaking to open.  They should get a window like that starting Wednesday next week.  Hopefully they don't chose to waste time resurfacing after the r*in earlier.  Terrain expansion always comes first in my book.

Ethan Snow wrote

Back on topic, It looked to me like Chatemac had already been blown in parts. The bottom needed some work, but I am pretty sure the upper half is covered. It had a lot of snow on it anyway. I agree, Rumor is low priority this time of year. It should be saved for last. Get DarkSide open, Sagamore, Echo Twister, Lies, and another trail on Northside before moving to Rumor. Also, I have no idea why they have avoided Pine Knot, so they need to cover that too. I can ski Rumor any time of year, but it is really no fun for me except for in the spring.
January.

Rumor should be one of the last trails blown, and certainly shouldn't be touched until they have opened all the lift sections.  I don't understand why they opened it before Burnt Ridge in the past few years.

Chatiemac is my favorite trail on the Gore summit.  Good pitch all the way down and has nice character.  Almost like a mini Hoyt's.  Would be nice to see it open soon.

snoloco wrote

  Hopefully they don't chose to waste time resurfacing after the r*in earlier.  Terrain expansion always comes first in my book.

I'll disagree on this one. I think it really depends on how good/bad things get. A few years ago it seems gore made a decision to focus more on quality vs quantity and it worked out well. I'm all for terrain expansion but if the existing terrain can't be used by most skiers, it's effectively closed anyway.

tom

When you've got the busiest weekend of the year coming, opening all the lifts has to come first.

Specifically with Whiteface, the best way to avoid crowds is to stay on the upper mountain all day.  If one of the upper lifts isn't open, that makes this strategy less effective.

snoloco wrote

If temps are below 27, snow can be made at any humidity.  Might not be efficient, but can be done.

Actually, that's only somewhat true. Typically humidity levels in the winter are between 50-60% around here. When is is snowing the gauge usually reads in the 90s, but it may as well be 100% when a storm is brewing. When it comes to Low-e stick guns, and fan guns which utilize external nucleation technology (meaning that condensation nuclei from the atmosphere is required) they do not work above 90% humidity.

This is the advantage to the old school air/water guns. They can make snow in any humidity, and can still make a lot of it, because they create their own sub-atmosphere with large quantities of air that has been dried and cooled at the plant.  This is why sometimes you see Gore and WF bring out the ground guns when they need to make snow in marginal conditions.

I used to have little respect for the old air/water guns, but my position has changed after fighting fickle weather conditions. Sometimes they are the only way to aggressively open terrain in time for the holiday week.

Belleayre opened Algonquin and Huron today.  Still blowing on Dot Nebel, which looks like it could open tomorrow.  The lower section of Mohican (under the double double) is being blown, and the report shows Deer Run being blown next.

Dot Nebel is a very wide trail that is underpowered when it comes to snowmaking.  They have one line of Ratnik Sky Giant towers on skier's left, and the guns aren't all that close together.  That trail really needs towers on both sides to be able to open quicker.

Deer Run is much narrower, and 3-4 days of snowmaking should be enough to open it.

Whiteface is now reporting Skyward and Wilderness open.  Snowmaking ongoing on both, likely as long as this window lasts.

My guess is with the next snowmaking window, they spend a couple days touching up high traffic areas and then it's onto Lookout!!

Annapurna is open!

Wilderness will need more blowing next week after the rain to get it ready for the WC bumps event.  Typically Mac gets blown in that cycle as well.  My best guess is lookout gets blown the week before Mlk weekend.

The goal would be to open Lookout for mlk weekend, right?

The goal is to open everything as quickly as possible. They could just start using those thin cover signs and open up Mac and head to Wilmington.  

Wait which weekend is the busiest of the year? MLK?  Is that a fixed truth?

snoloco wrote

The goal would be to open Lookout for mlk weekend, right?

Are we grading on a curve now?

More like hope on a curve. Lookout can be an elusive mistress.

Harvey wrote

Are we grading on a curve now?

Yes - the SnoBloEffluent curve.

Harvey wrote

Wait which weekend is the busiest of the year? MLK?  

MLK Saturday is usually WF's busiest day because the WC bumps and Chevy appreciation day plus the Holiday crowds.  Given my career in sales and sales management my opinion is that Orda has extremely poor business judgement.  That mlk weekend is already a busy weekend so choosing to give away a thousand lift tickets for that instead a week later shows little control of the business side of things.  Any major privately owned ski area would immediately decline that offer becuase they can make more profit selling $100 lift tickets that day.  I'm sure Orda's sales team means well but given how Orda pays and that the guy they are negotiating with at GM probably makes several times what Ted makes.  

I thought that was weird too.  Makes it even more important to open Lookout.  Long range looks really good after Wednesday night, so I think it's a possibility.

I might consider skiing Gore that weekend.

I spoke to the snowmakers and cleared up any confusion about who authored the grading thread, so you should be all set.

In general, how many days of continuous snowmaking does it take to open Wilmington Trail?  I always assumed it was comparable to Skyward, which takes about 5 days.  I'd think that if they could get up there by Sunday, they would open it for MLK Weekend.

5 to 7 depending on temps
I don't recall ever skiing it with whales ungroomed so it has to sit before being groomed for a couple of days
also takes a day to set up the netting
its quite a project to get that trail up and running

It's not real steep, so I can't imagine it requires a ton of snow. Do they ever get enough so they can open Lookout all Natural?

Also, I would hope they blow Lookout Below while they are doing Wilmington. Otherwise it forces skiers to take two lifts to ski one slope. And Lookout Below is awesome. I can live without Hoyt's High if I have to.