Trail Expansions You'd Like to See Happen

I wonder if after the 3rd Lookout Mountain trail is cut if WF can make the Gondola line a glade.  It would be so cool to ski that.  All that would need to be done is to remove all the big rocks and stumps and it could be a pretty awesome run.  I don't think that it should be a trail as it would be hard to get snowmaking in there.  Gore has at least 2 lift lines as glades which are the Dark Side Glades under the High Peaks Chair and the High Pines Glades under the Topridge Triple.

You can't reglade a lift line plus most of those rocks are attached so you would have to blast them

Coach Z wrote

You can't reglade a lift line.....

Curious to know what the law is on this one, but lazy enough not to look it up.....but 're-glading' may not be something that is necessary.  By re-glading do you mean reintroducing trees?  If I had to guess, I suspect Gore gets away with calling Dark Side and High Pines 'glades' because they are natural skiable features that were not cut as trails?  If Gore can find a way to open up such terrain without having it count against the mileage count it might be logical to assume WF would be able to do the same?

JTG4eva! wrote

If Gore can find a way to open up such terrain without having it count against the mileage count it might be logical to assume WF would be able to do the same?

You would think but not true.

Talk about double fall line.  I remember the gondiline as being way slanty and very rocky. At least the part where you are really high up.

JTG4eva! wrote

Coach Z wrote

You can't reglade a lift line.....

Curious to know what the law is on this one, but lazy enough not to look it up.....but 're-glading' may not be something that is necessary.  By re-glading do you mean reintroducing trees?  If I had to guess, I suspect Gore gets away with calling Dark Side and High Pines 'glades' because they are natural skiable features that were not cut as trails?  If Gore can find a way to open up such terrain without having it count against the mileage count it might be logical to assume WF would be able to do the same?

We have covered this topic before a few times.  For some reason WF would have to count the milage under the lifts as runs if they were legally opened.  I understand that Gore does not do so.  

There are several lift lines that get reguarly poached but Patrol pulls tickets for this.  The summit and lookout lift lines are the most skied but the summit has the comm cable for the lift on the ground so that is why it should not be skied.  There is a ton of debris in the lookout lift line so to me it looks pretty dangerous.  The Gondi lift line is skiable only in a very big season.  In 2001 employees were allowed to ski it if they volunteered to dig out the Gondi summit after a huge storm.  Before I worked at WF I recall skiing the Freeway lift in a good snow year.

West Bowl at Jay. Oh...wait, what year is it...2050? Never going to happen now with Stenger...see ya!

East/West Bowl @ the Mountain Formerly Known as Quiros Jr. Qurke Mountain, now known as Vail East: Jay and Burke. I give Jr another year, before the mountain is in bankruptcy...what a shame.

I know the 3rd trail on Lookout at WF is included in the mileage limit and will be done when funding is available (hopefully while I'm still a passholder).  Rand's Last Stand opened as a glade relatively recently, and connects Hoyt's to the Summit Quad.  Is it ever planned to make that glade into a trail?  It would be a valuable connection as one would not have to go down and around through LWF or the base area to reach the summit from Lookout.  The glade is rated double black, but I'm guessing it could have a single black rating if it were a trail.  It has a 26% grade and Hoyt's is 37%.

Check out the 2006 Unit Master Plan.  Specifically, pages 65 (Figure F2) and 84 (Table 1, 'Proposed Terrain Specifications').

While I agree that would actually be a pretty nice trail it faces south so it would not hold snow well if not glades.  As it is these are tough glades to get open.  WF is also very close to its max trail mileage and the last trail of the lookout pod is supposed to be on the other side of that lift from Hoyt's

treeskinner wrote

West Bowl at Jay. Oh...wait, what year is it...2050? Never going to happen now with Stenger...see ya!

East/West Bowl @ the Mountain Formerly Known as Quiros Jr. Qurke Mountain, now known as Vail East: Jay and Burke. I give Jr another year, before the mountain is in bankruptcy...what a shame.

Heh that was prescient.


In NYS, I would love to see someone partner up with Laz to the tune of 100M to put pods all over the place. Northside, eastside, westside. A mini-K in the Catskills, but out of the blue line. Finish the pond up top. Maybe even mountain top lodging, but tucked into the trees a bit, not the eyesore Belleayre wants to do. I don't know, I'd love it and he could bump his acres, take advantage of some awesome terrain very few people are skiing, and add some jobs to an area that could use it.


In VT: I'd love to see the Slidebrook area at Sugarbush as ski trails. It'll NEVER happen now, but Cutts peak would have made for some of the best skiing around. The Otten deal for the SBX was not his finest moment. Then they could get around to developing north properly too.

Coach Z wrote

While I agree that would actually be a pretty nice trail it faces south so it would not hold snow well if not glades.  As it is these are tough glades to get open.  WF is also very close to its max trail mileage and the last trail of the lookout pod is supposed to be on the other side of that lift from Hoyt's

Wouldn't it be easier to open as a trail with snowmaking than as a glade?  Many trails face South and are consistently open.  It's not a very long trail and would only be a connector to the Summit Quad.  Would that work in the mileage limit with the 3rd Lookout trail?

ml242 wrote

In NYS, I would love to see someone partner up with Laz to the tune of 100M to put pods all over the place. Northside, eastside, westside. A mini-K in the Catskills, but out of the blue line. Finish the pond up top. Maybe even mountain top lodging, but tucked into the trees a bit, not the eyesore Belleayre wants to do. I don't know, I'd love it and he could bump his acres, take advantage of some awesome terrain very few people are skiing, and add some jobs to an area that could use it.

Totally agree. I've always thought  a bunch of little cabins in the woods would be very cool. Put them far enough back that they're invisible from the trail and keep the road access to them as hidden as possible. Then extend his vertical down into the bottom of the valley and, like you said, add more terrain.

Took this pic yesterday and edited in where a Hoyt's-Summit Quad connector could be added.  It would only be a few hundred feet long and relatively flat.  I'd cut it to one groomer width.  There wouldn't need to be a snowmaking line as the trail would be narrow and short enough to point a ground gun in from either side and groom.  With this arrangement, Rand's Last Stand would not be clear-cut.

They would have to put a culvert in as there is a big creek bed at the end of that.  It's a big process to cut a trail especially if you need a culvert.  It has to get into the 5 year plan and be vetted environmentally with approval from DEC and APA

Forgot to mention the need for a bridge in my original post.

What's the status on the 3rd Lookout Trail?  Is it already approved?

that connection is already there.  it's called Rand's Last Stand.  currently a tight glade accessed off Hoyt's High.  its the white space lookers left and above the lift tralier