Closing the gap

[rogman]

Now that the World Cup is out of the way, Killington has done well closing the gap on Mt Snow. In terms of "quality" of terrain open, it's no contest: Killington wins hands down by knockout. I've been tracking acreage in an Excel spread sheet; decided to plot it up:

acreage_by_resort.JPG (47.37 KiB) Viewed 1034 times

Clearly Killington has used it's elevation and air to good advantage; Mt Snow has stalled a bit due to the warm temperatures. I expect both to open more terrain by tomorrow (Snowshed looks about ready here). The next few weeks should be interesting. The cold temperatures should make it an even "race" for terrain opening.

[BoozeTan]

acreage is misleading. Snow has huge wide open boulevards. How many miles of actual trails do they have open?
Killington 43 trails open, 182 acres, 18 miles
Snow 20 trails, 213 acres, does not report miles

so unless you are skiing back and forth from one side of the trail to the other, I think Killington has got them beat

[brownman]

Adding Snowshed Boulevard and Cascade Freeway restores Beastiality.

[St. Jerry]

Now that the World Cup is out of the way, Killington has done well closing the gap on Mt Snow. In terms of "quality" of terrain open, it's no contest: Killington wins hands down by knockout. I've been tracking acreage in an Excel spread sheet; decided to plot it up:

acreage_by_resort.JPG

Clearly Killington has used it's elevation and air to good advantage; Mt Snow has stalled a bit due to the warm temperatures. I expect both to open more terrain by tomorrow (Snowshed looks about ready here). The next few weeks should be interesting. The cold temperatures should make it an even "race" for terrain opening.

Jeezus. Someone has way too much time on their hands.

[Humpty Dumpty]

Adding Snowshed Boulevard and Cascade Freeway restores Beastiality.

Also known as sex with Dorsal.

[snoloco]

Report says starting blowing on Lower O. Isn't it unusual for it to open this early? K is definitely prioritizing expert terrain at this time.

[skiadikt]

Report says starting blowing on Lower O. Isn't it unusual for it to open this early? K is definitely prioritizing expert terrain at this time.

mt snow can talk "acres" all they want but starting with the opening of skye lark & superstar last weekend, it's been no contest regarding advanced terrain and now throwing cascade, bitter & middle o into the mix, it's a rout. and this weekend gets more beginner terrain open where they are lagging.

read that about lower o. that would be the earliest they've ever done that by far. will believe when i see it. but yeah they've definitely been prioritizing expert terrain. and the move to needles is on.

btw not knocking mt snow. they've had an impressive early season and we all benefit when the bar is raised.

[snoloco]

This season the weather just happened to work out in Mount Snow's favor.

We had zero snowmaking temps up until that week prior to when they opened. Then we had a big cold snap that meant that elevation and latitude didn't matter for at least 3 or 4 days, and it didn't warm up to blowtorch temps afterwards so ski areas were able to stay open. They wouldn't have even considered making snow in the first place if it was going to be 60's and 70's the following week. That allowed Mount Snow to get their usual opening terrain open, plus a little extra due to their snowmaking upgrade. Meanwhile, K had just gotten North Ridge open and had to make snow on Superstar for the World Cup and fell way behind. Now, with the extra air capacity and about equal water capacity, Killington can benefit from higher elevation and latitude to catch up with Mount Snow. I'm sure they have more miles open than Mount Snow and better quality terrain, but probably not quite as much acreage.

In a normal year, there would usually be a short cold snap in late October that is cold enough for K to get North Ridge open, but not for other mountains to get open. Then they have to nurse the snowpack through a warm spell until the next cold snap when they got top to bottom. They're usually open about 2-3 weeks before just about anyone else is. That early cold would've allowed them to get a head start on Superstar so they didn't need to mostly ignore public terrain for two weeks. That would've kept them more on par with what other mountains had open.

[Dr. NO]

What is this "extra air capacity" about? There are 8 Compressors sitting in the Vale lot awaiting transit home. Are they hiding more someplace?

[heiusa]

This info was posted on AZ by Mt snow:

You asked, so here we go (had to go to our VP of Special Ops for this one, so it's going to get a bit techy):

The short answer is that Mount Snow has two pumping systems. West Lake Pumphouse at 10,000 gpm design and upper Carinthia Pumphouse at 11,800 design. Pumps all have pump curves - where the nameplate flow and head (discharge pressure) is at a point typically called Qopt. With a normal pump curve flow is inversely proportional to pressure. IE - if the flow increases (turn more guns on) the pressure decreases.

That’s based on theoretical design. Friction comes into play (most directly with pipe diameter)
This is what we’ve actually flowed this year:
West Lake Pumphouse has 5 pumps that are all 2,000 gpm pumps.
Carinthia Pumphouse has 8 pumps that are 1,000 gpm pumps that are rated to produce about 700 psi of total head. We don’t need this much pressure now, so by running those pumps further out on their curve we have been able to produce 9,600 gpm out of 8 pumps (measured by an ultrasonic flowmeter).

We also reconfigured upper Carinthia, so that it only runs down - which lets us run much further out on the curve there (don’t need as much pressure) We’ve seen 2,250 gpm (measured by an ultrasonic flow meter) there this season.

So technically our max flow to date has been 11,850. The key for opening terrain fast is the crew and gun infrastructure. We’re averaging well over 9,000 gpm for the season which is nearly an 80% utilization rate. For a system of this size - that’s the most important #.

[skiadikt]

What is this "extra air capacity" about? There are 8 Compressors sitting in the Vale lot awaiting transit home. Are they hiding more someplace?

saw those as well doc. are there a few extra world cup compressors that we're keeping for a while. don't know ...

[Ragged#1]

My friend who goes to Killington School of Hospitality said that they are getting guns ready to go on Lower O as we speak!

They also said in their report a couple days ago that conclusion and Vertigo will be fired up on soon! Crazy to see these trails open so early in the season! But i'm all for it!

[DrJeff]

12 new trails open up tomorrow, Saturday, at Mount Snow. Then if the temps predicted for this coming week pan out, they anticipate having all of their snowmaking terrain, less the half pipe, open by next weekend.

Also to date, they've pumped 82 million gallons of water and counting.....

Acres, miles, air capacity, gallons pumped. Heck, VT is the home of some of the most impressive snowmaking sysystems anywhere!!

[tyrolean_skier]

12 new trails open up tomorrow, Saturday, at Mount Snow. Then if the temps predicted for this coming week pan out, they anticipate having all of their snowmaking terrain, less the half pipe, open by next weekend.

Also to date, they've pumped 82 million gallons of water and counting.....

Acres, miles, air capacity, gallons pumped. Heck, VT is the home of some of the most impressive snowmaking sysystems anywhere!!

How were the crowds at Mt. Snow today? We had long lines here and at 8 AM I got parking in Bay 4. When I left I saw cars all over the place and the Vale parking was all full too.

[Dr. NO]

Ah, remembering the days where even weekends were quiet and calm prior to Christmas. Oh well, guess fewer ski areas and more skiers and riders changes the situation.