What's going on with Hickory?

RIP Shawn.

Holy crikies you guys have short memories and ADHD.

Hickory was last open in 14-15 and the season was pretty freaking fantastic. They closed in late march/early april with 100% of terrain open. Quite a feat in the NE with all natural snow top to bottom. I had a few really memorable days there that year. The difference of skiing all natural snow vs. natural on top of man made is huge. The lower volume of skiers there also makes a big difference. It was so nice too to be able to get fresh lines on Saturday after a dump on Wednesday. I think the problem is without snow making they just can't be consistently open enough to make money, sell season passes, etc. Even with the great conditions that year and lots of volunteer hours I wonder if they broke even. They need a rich angel that can dump 4-5 million into the place to get a water line to the hudson for snowmaking and buy some used lifts. While I love the old surface lifts they are not reliable.

Bummer that they won't open this year.

PeeTex wrote

Notice, I did not say climate change wasn't real, I just said the scientists don't understand the recent data which seems counter to thier conventional wisdom.

last maps i saw from weather.gov showed blue in the water around the poles (presumably) from ice melt and then red everywhere else.  This could make the average temp seem like it's stalling, but if you take a glass of ice water out in death valley what do you think would happen there? For awhile my guess is the temp would be constant, until the ice melts, and then eventually it would warm up to the air temp over a longer period of time.



RIP Shawn. I appreciated your passion for Hickory.

RA apres-d way too hard yesterday.

I think the stress of finals finally boiled over and I just had to go ski. All of our ski runs lead right to the bar! I sure can be dramatic when I'm drunk!

Anyways, I agree that the scientists are unsure of what exactly we are dealing with but out here you don't need to be a scientist to see what's happening.

raisingarizona wrote

RA apres-d way too hard yesterday.

I think the stress of finals finally boiled over and I just had to go ski. All of our ski runs lead right to the bar! I sure can be dramatic when I'm drunk!

Anyways, I agree that the scientists are unsure of what exactly we are dealing with but out here you don't need to be a scientist to see what's happening.

raisingarizona wrote

RA apres-d way too hard yesterday......I sure can be dramatic when I'm drunk!

It sure can be.....interesting? fun?.....to see some of the posts we put up in some of our finer moments.  Sometimes when I go back and look at old posts I'm nervous about what I might find!

Things are certainly changing and not for the better particularly with regard to southern or low elevation ski areas.  One factor to consider is that a lot of these smaller dying or dead ski areas were established in the 60's and 70's when the cyclical weather was in a colder and snowy period so they were established in peak conditions that no longer exist as both the cycle has swung the other way plus the man made factors.  People also now ski more - back then how the percentage of people that skied as much as most of us on here do did not exist so areas could survive against competitors without snow making and with shorter seasons than we now expect in the modern age of snowmaking.  Any ski area as low as Hickory is going to be in trouble.  I worry about the viability of the section of WF below Mid which is really low.

I visit my parents in AZ every year and I can see why RA is freaking out more about this than we may be.  Water is a big thing there and climate change is making it a lot worse.  One thing I will point out is that its absolutely fricking insane that as almost 50 million people live in the dessert SW and Cali.  There is no way that climate and geography can sustain that many people in a place where it simply does not rain and never has to enough of a level.  People that bitch about this probably should think again about where they live and impact that they have on the earth.  There are living somewhere that was never intended to support them.  It can only rain and snow so much in the mts to have enough run off to support their needs.  They live there because they like the weather in that it doesn't rain yet they are going to be freaking out in that they have no water.  Hello time maybe to move somewhere it actually rains!  So much of that water is lost in reservoirs and rivers just getting it to the cities.  

This. ^^^

When you fly into Phoenix and look out the window it's crazy to see how almost every home has an outdoor pool. Can you imagine how much water is lost to evaporation every day just from the pools?

We are teetering of the brink of some very serious shit out here. The last time the south west experienced a mega drought it wiped out a whole civilization. I imagine it was not a pretty time but now, 800 years later it's going to have much more devastating effects than then. Instead of thousands of people we are talking about millions. I think the implications won't be felt just regionally either, it's probably going to have a ripple effect around the world.

JTG4eva! wrote

raisingarizona wrote

RA apres-d way too hard yesterday......I sure can be dramatic when I'm drunk!

It sure can be.....interesting? fun?.....to see some of the posts we put up in some of our finer moments.  Sometimes when I go back and look at old posts I'm nervous about what I might find!

 
And embarrassing I'll add! Oh well. :) Back to studying!

Coach Z wrote

I worry about the viability of the section of WF below Mid which is really low.

As long as Mountain Creek is still open with a base at 450 feet in NJ, I think you have nothing to worry about with the lower section of WF.

It'll be interesting to see how Mountain Creek does over the next 10-15 years, being a low southern mountain.

and somehow it all comes back to mountain creek.

One of my daughter's friends up at Emerson is from Philly.  They are both skiers and want to go skiing for a day during the break.  They came up with......Mountain Crick!

Sno

MC is on death row. Just one more more winter like last year and its finished.  This year is shaping up nicely up here.  It ultimately will be an issue for the industry as those feeder areas create the skiers that catch the bug like you did and become the next gen.  Without them we as a sport are in trouble.

In all but 2 of the last 5 years, MC lost nearly all their Christmas business.  Their Christmas is like our Thanksgiving in terms of skiing.  Recently, most of the investment within that resort has gone to golf, downhill mountain biking, and the waterpark, which may prove the assessment that they're on death row.

This year is setting up well for them.  They started snowmaking this week and plan to open 12/17 with top to bottom runs.  If Christmas for them is good, they may have a brighter future.

When I moved to Orange County NY from Queens in December 2003, there were 4 operating ski areas within half an hour drive of where I lived.  2 have closed since then.  I guarantee that if it weren't for those ski areas being so close, my dad would not have taken me skiing that one MLK weekend in 2004, which set my permanent love for the sport in motion.  While it may be fun to bust on Mountain Creek here, they do serve an important role in the industry, as Coach mentioned.

Tuxedo Ridge went out for other reasons though, not climate. If they opened this year, they would do plenty of business

I learned at Craigmuir in New Jersey. It's been gone for at least 15 years or so.

I probably never would have skied if it wasn't for that place. I lived 5 miles down the hill from there.

raisingarizona wrote

RA apres-d way too hard yesterday.

I think the stress of finals finally boiled over and I just had to go ski. All of our ski runs lead right to the bar! I sure can be dramatic when I'm drunk!

Anyways, I agree that the scientists are unsure of what exactly we are dealing with but out here you don't need to be a scientist to see what's happening.

A humble Bumble ! Welcome back RA.

raisingarizona wrote

I learned at Craigmuir in New Jersey. It's been gone for at least 15 years or so.

I probably never would have skied if it wasn't for that place. I lived 5 miles down the hill from there.

Same here! Although I had a pretty different experience, I cried and vowed to never ski again.

I learned at Maple Ski Ridge outside of Schenectady. They're still going strong, as far as I know.

Thunder Ridge (well, Big Birch at the time) was my local HS hill.  Race team and ski club.  Place hasn't posted an opening date yet, but they are operating as far as I know.  They closed last year on March 11.  Season snowfall total....15 inches!

raisingarizona wrote

RA apres-d way too hard yesterday.

I figured alcohol was involved.  Seemed like MikeK hacked your account for a little while.