Top To Bottom

[Highway Star]

Any speculation that WC impacts any of it is just that, with no evidence.

Are you having a stroke? Killington can pump a finite amount of water. About 12,000 GPM.

If 8000 GPM are being used to run 150 snowguns on Superstar and Skyelark, WILL THE OPENING OF THE K-1 SIDE BE IMPACTED?

I'm guessing it's a stroke.

[ME2VTSkier]

It is a completely different surface that they are building over there.

It's not man-made snow they are making over there?

Let the public ski and pack it in. The WC wants a sheet of ice anyhow. Save some grooming time/money.

[madhatter]

Sugarbush Resort added 12 new photos — with Cam Jackman.
20 mins ·
Wintery temps have dominated this week and conditions have allowed us to convert large quantities of water and air into snow as fast and far as we can. Tomorrow has potential for record-setting cold. Summit lows are likely to tease the 0F mark with 30-45mph winds on Friday night. Temps will rebound, but stay generally cold, especially at night, through our scheduled opening day on November 18th. No promises yet, but things are looking good. bit.ly/STOKEexchange

[snoloco]

Answering Southside Bobby's post on the last page.

If there was no WC to prepare for then there would be no question in my mind that they would be blowing top to bottom on Snowdon. They always run that fan gun on Mouse Trap because it's a return line, so they blow snow when they have temps there as it doesn't require any air.

And I agree, the stairs are for use in late October when they are open for a couple weeks before anyone else even tests their guns. If Mount Snow and Okemo can be open this weekend, then Killington has the weather needed to open top to bottom. However, their efforts are going to the World Cup preparation, so they will not be top to bottom.

What I noticed on the 360 cam is they're blowing Gateway off the back of Skye Peak. Not really sure what the point of it is, although it could be to get a loop around the back of Skye Peak open to allow the lift and other trails off Superstar to be open during the event. I didn't think the FIS let anyone on a lift over a course though.

[Southside_Bobby]

Any speculation that WC impacts any of it is just that, with no evidence.

Are you having a stroke? Killington can pump a finite amount of water. About 12,000 GPM.

If 8000 GPM are being used to run 150 snowguns on Superstar and Skyelark, WILL THE OPENING OF THE K-1 SIDE BE IMPACTED?

I'm guessing it's a stroke.

Over the years that you have bloviated about what can't be done, using as much gpm and acreage jargon as you can, how often do you admit you are wrong, which is most of the time?

Your predictions are about as reliable as your attendance at your own ski offs.

The resort's capacity for production in the early season isn't limited as much by capacity as much as manpower and demand. Even if they could light up the whole resort right now they wouldn't, demand doesn't really pick up till Christmas.

Again, you have zero evidence that they don't have the capacity to service the race and do normal opening operations and expansion. They say they do. As far as manpower they have a completely separate crew added over there.

You have NOTHING except a clear track record of being wrong.

[irab82]

Why not open superstar under the guns this weekend. That would be beastly

no way that thing gets ski'd by the general public til after the WC...

You are most likely correct, if additional snow making is needed next week on it, then in my opinion no harm would occur by letting Killington customers ski top to bottom on superstar.

It is a completely different surface that they are building over there.

Last year did happen, right?

You'd never know from the crew.

[Highway Star]

Any speculation that WC impacts any of it is just that, with no evidence.

Are you having a stroke? Killington can pump a finite amount of water. About 12,000 GPM.

If 8000 GPM are being used to run 150 snowguns on Superstar and Skyelark, WILL THE OPENING OF THE K-1 SIDE BE IMPACTED?

I'm guessing it's a stroke.

Over the years that you have bloviated about what can't be done, using as much gpm and acreage jargon as you can, how often do you admit you are wrong, which is most of the time?

Your predictions are about as reliable as your attendance at your own ski offs.

The resort's capacity for production in the early season isn't limited as much by capacity as much as manpower and demand. Even if they could light up the whole resort right now they wouldn't, demand doesn't really pick up till Christmas.

Again, you have zero evidence that they don't have the capacity to service the race and do normal opening operations and expansion. They say they do. As far as manpower they have a completely separate crew added over there.

You have NOTHING except a clear track record of being wrong.

Dude, you've been on here since 2014.

Seriously, get checked, you're stroking out.

Beyond that, you don't know sh*t about snowmaking. So shut the hell up.

[snoloco]

Highway Star says a lot of things, some right and some wrong, really just to get attention. He will be right that the World Cup preparations take full priority over public skiing. The marketing/PR folks are going to say that it won't affect public terrain, but come Thanksgiving Weekend they will be saying that "due to World Cup preprations and unfavorable weather conditions, there is limited public skiing".

They have a dedicated crew for Superstar now. I wonder what happens to that crew once the event is over. Probably just goes to working on public terrain as they'd be doing this time of year if it weren't for the World Cup. I'm sure if they had the capacity to be blowing top to bottom as well as on Superstar, they'd be doing it now. So they don't have quite as much capacity as they say they do, and what they have will be devoted to the World Cup. End of discussion.

[PeteH]

I have been a dual season pass holder at both Killington and Mt. Snow for 15 years or so. I have always made my first runs at Killington and prefer skiing there. This year Mt. Snow is working with a much upgraded snow making system and they are advertising top-to-botton skiing on two long routes down the mountain by Saturday. The idea of doing Cascade to Canyon at Mt. Snow is much more attractive than doing Great Northern to Rime to GN to Mouse trap to Bunny Buster. And there is no guarantee that K will make it TTB by this weekend. If it's just Rime/Reason this weekend, then K is out of the question.

Mt. Snow's new system might be a game changer for K's early season competition to be number one. However, because Mt. Snow has a contract with the Forest Service that has a set end date for skiing, they will not be able to provide the late season runs K is tops at.

A few have said that Superstar will be skiable right after World Cup. Last year it was a week or two before it opened to the public. They inject water into the base to harden it and getting the surface from a WC racing form back to a recreational surface will not happen over night.

[Southside_Bobby]

Answering Southside Bobby's post on the last page.

If there was no WC to prepare for then there would be no question in my mind that they would be blowing top to bottom on Snowdon. They always run that fan gun on Mouse Trap because it's a return line, so they blow snow when they have temps there as it doesn't require any air.

And I agree, the stairs are for use in late October when they are open for a couple weeks before anyone else even tests their guns. If Mount Snow and Okemo can be open this weekend, then Killington has the weather needed to open top to bottom. However, their efforts are going to the World Cup preparation, so they will not be top to bottom.

What I noticed on the 360 cam is they're blowing Gateway off the back of Skye Peak. Not really sure what the point of it is, although it could be to get a loop around the back of Skye Peak open to allow the lift and other trails off Superstar to be open during the event. I didn't think the FIS let anyone on a lift over a course though.

snoloco, unless you think K is lying when they say that their crew on the North side is the same size as years without the race, then the only way they could move expansion any faster is to add more crew than normal.

K's snowmaking operations are very labor intensive compared to a lot of mountains. That is a choice they made, and it certainly has disadvantages.

It's not like Mount Snow, where if it is cold enough they can light up Long John top to bottom with a flip of a switch (this is not as much an exaggeration as you might think.).

If the North Ridge had already been open a couple of weeks, they could be finishing a march down Snowdon by now. But they just got the North Ridge open yesterday. It takes at least some time to move on.

We'll see come next week who is right on this. You think WC prep is slowing the expansion. I don't think it is.

If we are still walking up and down a week from now, you may turn out to be right.

Regardless, I imagine each of us will be infinitely more likely to admit being wrong than "you know who". And we agree that K SHOULD be expanding as fast as possible right now.

One thing is for sure, all of this speculation went on last year. The rate of expansion of public terrain was like any other year, determined by the conditions during the prior weeks.

I have skied K Thanksgiving weekend when Caper was open by Saturday, and others when GN didn't get below the Snowdon Quad. If Caper isn't open this year, it will be pretty easy to speculate it was because of the WC prep. It would also probably be wrong.

[skiadikt]

we won't know for sure about their capacity and intentions until the morning or friday overnight so til then folks should just chill. things have warmed up and they've turned off guns on supe. no way there's productive snowmaking down low on the mtn.

and yeah the world cup is the priority but it's also in their best interest to get as much of the mtn open as quickly as possible. people are worried that okemo or mt snow might have more terrain this weekend, then go there for the next week or so but once the season gets going, k will be kicking all their butts and will be looking in the rear view mirror come april & may. enjoy your whining ...

[alanlw9]

we won't know for sure about their capacity and intentions until the morning or friday overnight so til then folks should just chill. things have warmed up and they've turned off guns on supe. no way there's productive snowmaking down low on the mtn.

and yeah the world cup is the priority but it's also in their best interest to get as much of the mtn open as quickly as possible. people are worried that okemo or mt snow might have more terrain this weekend, then go there for the next week or so but once the season gets going, k will be kicking all their butts and will be looking in the rear view mirror come april & may. enjoy your whining ...

But Killington took my three free days at Okemo off my pass

Don't forget beast bucks!!

[Mister Moose]

Why not open superstar under the guns this weekend. That would be beastly

no way that thing gets ski'd by the general public til after the WC...

You are most likely correct, if additional snow making is needed next week on it, then in my opinion no harm would occur by letting Killington customers ski top to bottom on superstar.

Might be that the snow they are blowing now is a much higher moisture content to freeze solid for a race course base, and would not ski at all well for us mortals.

While the World Cup certainly has their full attention. it's realistic to expect that the World Cup budget allows greater production expense than the normal trail roll-out does. That will pay for guns down lower on Superstar than GN. They usually open Upper DD, Upper East Fall, and GN to the U-turn back to the Glades chair prior to making a run for the base, which hasn't happened yet.

Geez, they just opened, what, yesterday? .... You guys need something to do.

[Highway Star]

Answering Southside Bobby's post on the last page.

If there was no WC to prepare for then there would be no question in my mind that they would be blowing top to bottom on Snowdon. They always run that fan gun on Mouse Trap because it's a return line, so they blow snow when they have temps there as it doesn't require any air.

And I agree, the stairs are for use in late October when they are open for a couple weeks before anyone else even tests their guns. If Mount Snow and Okemo can be open this weekend, then Killington has the weather needed to open top to bottom. However, their efforts are going to the World Cup preparation, so they will not be top to bottom.

What I noticed on the 360 cam is they're blowing Gateway off the back of Skye Peak. Not really sure what the point of it is, although it could be to get a loop around the back of Skye Peak open to allow the lift and other trails off Superstar to be open during the event. I didn't think the FIS let anyone on a lift over a course though.

snoloco, unless you think K is lying when they say that their crew on the North side is the same size as years without the race, then the only way they could move expansion any faster is to add more crew than normal.

K's snowmaking operations are very labor intensive compared to a lot of mountains. That is a choice they made, and it certainly has disadvantages.

It's not like Mount Snow, where if it is cold enough they can light up Long John top to bottom with a flip of a switch (this is not as much an exaggeration as you might think.).

If the North Ridge had already been open a couple of weeks, they could be finishing a march down Snowdon by now. But they just got the North Ridge open yesterday. It takes at least some time to move on.

We'll see come next week who is right on this. You think WC prep is slowing the expansion. I don't think it is.

If we are still walking up and down a week from now, you may turn out to be right.

Regardless, I imagine each of us will be infinitely more likely to admit being wrong than "you know who". And we agree that K SHOULD be expanding as fast as possible right now.

One thing is for sure, all of this speculation went on last year. The rate of expansion of public terrain was like any other year, determined by the conditions during the prior weeks.

I have skied K Thanksgiving weekend when Caper was open by Saturday, and others when GN didn't get below the Snowdon Quad. If Caper isn't open this year, it will be pretty easy to speculate it was because of the WC prep. It would also probably be wrong.

You just wrote a lot, waved your hands a bit, and said absolutely jack sh*t.

YOU DON'T f*** KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT SNOWMAKING AND ARE JUST TALKING OUT YOUR ASS.

Snowmaking is a process based on very well proven scientific principles and a wide range of engineering disciplines. I've researched the process extensively, and have the professional background that makes me qualified to speak knowledgably about it in a casual internet context.

There are VERY CLEARLY IDENTIFYABLE limitations to every snowmaking system. Killington's NOMINAL WATER pumping capacity is 12,000 GALLONS PER MINUTE, that has been publicly claimed by them. An acre-ft of snow requires about 180,000 gallons of water. In OPTIMAL CONDITIONS, KILLINGTON MAXES OUT AT APPROXIMATE 4 ACRE FEET PER HOUR, MAYBE +/- 10%.

IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW MUCH YOU SPEW OR HOW MANY PEOPLE THEY HAVE ON A CREW, THEY SIMPLY CANT PUT MORE FROZEN WATER THAN THAT ON THE MOUNTAIN. THEY DON'T HAVE OR NEED CREW OF A HUNDRED GUYS OUT THERE WAVING THE GUNS AROUND, IT'S NOT ANY MORE LABOR INTENSIVE THAN ANY OTHER NORMAL SNOWMAKING SYSTEM HAS BEEN FOR THE LAST 40 YEARS. THEY HAVE TO OCASSIONALLY MOVE THE GUNS TO KEEP THEM FROM SELF BURYING, OR THEY NEED TO TUNE THE A/W RATIO. THEY ARE NOT LIMITED BY MANPOWER AT ALL.

[machski]

First, it is above freezing today at KBL as of 1pm (you'd know if you were here). As I understand it, since Mike took over solidifying the upper terrain before linking to the base has always been the game plan with the stairs in place. This was the case prior to WC, still is now and I would guess still will be after WC leaves (if it does). May not seem great but it is a good plan given the distance down to KBL. Something has to give with how early and often they push only to watch it melt. They are the early season game in the east and this game plan is how they play it.