Whiteface Conditions (2015 - 2016)

snoloco wrote

You shouldn't have put the lift in if you're not going to use it every year no exceptions.  That's a terrible business decision.  I'm going to vote with my feet and ski elsewhere this season.

Not sure I get what you are saying.  If a mountain makes a "bad business decision" you won't ski there?  Does that applies just for that season, and they get another chance next year? Or you'll never ski Whiteface again?

A rational consumer would probably look at the ticket price, the open terrain and snow quality of different mountains and then make a decision on where to ski.

Would you be happier if every terrain pod was open but coverage was margin on all of them?  Just for a moment step away from the idea that the operating budget is unlimited. Budget is by definition a limit.

No, I said that I wouldn't ski there this season.  Don't feel like standing in lines because lifts aren't open that should be.

This year the way things work out, I'll be taking my "entitled ass" over to Mount Snow and plopping it down on the cushy high speed bubble chair.

Should've broke this out into "I'm Not Happy".  I apologize for that.

snoloco wrote

Don't feel like standing in lines because lifts aren't open that should be.

Sno, do you actually, like, think before you speak.....or does shit just rumble off you finger tips as it bypasses your synapses?

Think before you speak.....sage advice that many of your posts don't seem to reflect.  You need to wake up and realize that, sometimes, you just don't have a fecking clue, and your opinion isn't the only valid one.

Sometimes I compose a response to a thread/post, then I let it sit for a bit, then come back and read it before I send.  Sometimes I ask myself what the heck I was thinking and I scrap it.  You might try that.

For the record, with respect to lines at WF, you are clueless.  There are no long lines at WF because the Lookout Chair didn't open, and there won't be this spring.  There are hardly ever lines at WF at all.

Also, I don't post much in a conditions threads for a mountains I have no intention of skiing.  Such is just noise and interference.

Coach Z, you here today?  I am.

Coach Z wrote

Sno

I'm sure I speak for all the WF and Gore posters here
Please go ski elsewhere.  I'm tired of hearing your bitching about what WF and Gore are doing when you are a pass holder at two other places.  Please don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Isn't this a conditions thread? FWIW, I had an awesome day at WF today. You had to keep an eye out for ice but it was sunny with no wind. Skyward was awesome.

snoloco wrote

AFAIK, the ORDA mountains are some of the only ones that failed to get all their lifts running this season.  

This is the first time in a long time that I've been told by skiers/riders on the lift who are normally vermont skiers that the snow is better at Whiteface this season....

Opening a lift to access terrian with limited snow pack just to say you opened that lift is stupid.  I for one would much rather ski on better snow longer into spring.  While you are getting buzzed by all the other Kmart skiers in search of the blue light special, we up here on WF will be enjoying the best spring skiing conditions in the east...  

YOURE RIGHT ABOUT THAT! I had some of the best skiing of my life this past weekend.

Agree, WF this weekend had good coverage all considered.  Yes it was firm, but 95% of open terrain well covered.  Great job to WF staff.  I have also heard multiple times this year that WF conditions continued to kick butt over VT this season.  Great stuff!

Not everyone coach.  I thought the should have fired them up.  I wanted that POD open.  I think this year could be a learning experience.  We need more fire power, enough to open the summit and Look out at the same time.  The reality going forward is whoever makes the most snow fastest is going to get the skiers.  We need more snowmaking capacity for Christmas.   Every year it is a struggle to get the summit open for the Christmas holiday which determines whether you are profitable or not.  If you build it they will come.  If we petitioned for something like that for some of that 650 million instead of going for the low hanging fruit of trying to prepare for another Olympics( not happening) may be we would have gotten somewhere.  Cuomo saw that and shut the file folder and said NEXT!!
That said whiteface staff did everything they could do with what they were dealt and have.  VIVA MORE SNOWMAKING FOR THE BEST MOUNTAIN IN THE EAST!!

tjf1967 wrote

Not everyone coach.  I thought the should have fired them up.  I wanted that POD open.  I think this year could be a learning experience.  We need more fire power, enough to open the summit and Look out at the same time.  The reality going forward is whoever makes the most snow fastest is going to get the skiers.  We need more snowmaking capacity for Christmas.   Every year it is a struggle to get the summit open for the Christmas holiday which determines whether you are profitable or not.  If you build it they will come.  If we petitioned for something like that for some of that 650 million instead of going for the low hanging fruit of trying to prepare for another Olympics( not happening) may be we would have gotten somewhere.  Cuomo saw that and shut the file folder and said NEXT!!
That said whiteface staff did everything they could do with what they were dealt and have.  VIVA MORE SNOWMAKING FOR THE BEST MOUNTAIN IN THE EAST!!

TJF for the win!!  

More snowmaking is always a good thing.

tjf1967 wrote

 The reality going forward is whoever makes the most snow fastest is going to get the skiers.  We need more snowmaking capacity for Christmas.   Every year it is a struggle to get the summit open for the Christmas holiday which determines whether you are profitable or not.  If you build it they will come.    VIVA MORE SNOWMAKING FOR THE BEST MOUNTAIN IN THE EAST!!

All true tj. In fact, sounds like something Sno would say.

Don't know if anyone saw this article on NCPR last week:

Will Lake Placid become a "footnote" in winter sports?

Basic gist is that LP's Olympic infrastructure is aging and needs tens of millions of dollars in investments (including snowmaking infrastructure) to remain competitive.

Personally I think it'd be great to see NYS pony up the cash to double WF's and Gore's snowmaking plants (the hell with Belleayre, Crossroads can pay for that )

Ethan Snow wrote

I wish you knew you stupidly expensive it is to make snow. It costs Hunter $13,000 an hour at full capacity in electric not including The cost of the infrastructure, and Employees.

Snowmaking is indeed expensive, but I can tell you that it does not cost Hunter $312,000 per day in electricity to run their snowmaking plant.

I hate to throw Harv under the bus, but he was the one who told me that. Maybe I heard him incorrectly. It does seem awful high. I know there is a huge demand charge on the startup as well. Maybe 1,300/ hour? Or maybe it's 13,000/ hour to run the whole resort. I can tell you it costs me about $1.50/ hour to make snow at my place. It ads up when you run for days on end.

It does seem like a whole lot doesn't it.  Not sure I buy it either.

I heard this in 2011 from Gerry Tschinkel.  What he said was that the cost to Hunter to blow at maximum capacity was $13k/hour.  I was amazed and skeptical.

I've tried to make this math work out and here is the best I can do.

Mike Pratt told me the 25-30% of Gore's total operating budget was for snowmaking and most of that was electricity.  If Gore operates on a $7M annual budget (have no idea if that is true but I think it used to be) then 1.75m could be for snowmaking.  

If Hunter is operating on 25-30 million and the same ratio is true (granted some big IFs) then they might spend 6 or 7m on snowmaking?  If so $300k per day would get you 20-25 days at full bore.  We've seen Hunter get the almost the entire mountain open in 7-9 days so that budget would do that 2 or 3 times.

Reality (LOL) is that they only time the really go all out like that is before Christmas. So maybe they would get 40 days of snowmaking out of it?

Still seems a bit fetched huh.  I'll leave it Jeff and some of the better math minds to shred it. There is probably a better way to do this math using acre/feet.

I don't know anyone at Hunter well enough anymore to ask this question by email.  Be curious to know what Mike Solimano would say about K... SkiRay might be able to get an answer like that.

All of ORDA spent $5.3 million last fiscal year (2014-15) in fuel and utilities.  That's for all of ORDA's venues, including the 3 ski areas, the ice arena, bobsled track, skating oval, VanHo, etc.  You can look it up in their audited financials.

I'll take a Scientific Wild Ass Guess and assume that Gore + Whiteface are around 2/3 of that.  That'd be approx $3.5 million.  

I'll take another SWAG and assume that electricity for snowmaking is around 2/3 of that $3.5 mil.  The other 1/3 is electricity for lifts and lodges, diesel for groomers, heat for lodges and other buildings, etc.  That means that Gore + WF combined would have spent around $2.35 million in electricity for snowmaking.  Granted, these are merely educated guesses, but I think I'm in the ballpark.

That would mean that Gore and WF combined for all of the 2014-15 winter spent what Hunter spends in 7 days on electricity for snowmaking.  Can't be.

I can also tell you that Gore and WF each operated their snowmaking plants for the equivlent of approximately fifty 24-hour days in 2014-15, or approximately $47 thousand in electricity per day to operate both snowmaking plants combined ($2.35 mil divided by 50).  That $47K per day = approx $2 thousand per hour for both ski areas combined.  Nowhere near $13 thousand per hour.

Coincidentally, Gore's snowmaking plant = approx 30 acre/feet per day.  WF capacity is approximately the same.   Hunter's snowmaking plant = approx 60 acre/feet per day.  So the comparison of Gore + WF = Hunter is reasonably good.

Sounds reasonable to me.

No one is going to argue against having a bigger snowmaking plant but unless we have a bigger budget to blow with it what good does that do?

I've said this a few times before.  WF is a expert skiers mt.  Screw getting intermediate and green terrian open early season and blow the summit first and use the Facelift to up and download.  We are blessed with high elevation up top but cursed with 1100 feet at the river.  I'm not sure there even is a ski area in VT that goes that low at the bottom.  Why force opening that low and the inefficiencies making snow brings at those temps and go high.

I said basically the same thing in the ski area improvements thread.  http://forum.nyskiblog.com/Ideas-for-Ski-Area-Improvements-td4070254i50.html  It's the long post that went up at 3:45pm.

I use the gondola and Little Whiteface chair instead of the summit.  Gondola has 100% downhill capacity and Facelift doesn't.