Snowmaking - It's Not The Same

[snoloco]

This started in the 11/21 report thread, but I felt it deserved a thread of its own.

Over the past two years, basically everything since covid, I feel like Killington's snowmaking has gotten noticeably worse, at least when it comes to expanding terrain. Last year, they did still open earlier and close later than anyone else, by a margin of multiple weeks, so they were still good in that regard. Another thing they did well is how late into the season they made snow, and making enough for terrain on Snowdon and Ramshead to last unti May. This year so far hasn't been as good. They lost the earliest opening to Sunday River by three hours, when they used to beat them by multiple weeks. Other resorts that have always been considered to have weaker snowmaking opened just a day or two later.

Last year's terrain expansion was awful. Multiple times when they had perfect temps, they'd only work on two trails at a time. Meanwhile, despite less-than ideal weather, other resorts like Mount Snow, Stratton, Okemo, and Sunday River completed their terrain rollouts in January as usual. It used to be you could always count on having Bear open by Christmas, and unless the weather was truly terrible, you'd also have Skyeship. Even if they had perfect weather from here to Christmas, I'm still not convinced that Skyeship would open in time. It has gotten to the point where what I used to consider as Killington's biggest strength, I now think is their biggest weakness.

This year is unfortunately not off to a good start, Other than 2020, when they opened with significantly more terrain than normal due to covid, this was their latest opening since 2006. Now they did get approved for the World Cup, and completed a top to bottom run in just 6 days, but as people who were there noticed in the other thread, there were far fewer guns going than expected given the temps. I hope this trend doesn't continue, because it will mean we are way behind on terrain by Christmas, even if the weather cooperates.

Now there are factors they can't control, like the weather, but as I mentioned earlier, I think even with perfect weather, they would still significantly underperform previous years. The World Cup also limits how quickly they can go top to bottom. I think it's uniquely difficult when it is so warm for so long, and then all of a sudden gets very cold. In that scenario, they have to open North Ridge, prepare Superstar for the World Cup, and go top to bottom all at once, which they don't have enough snowmaking for.

The main purpose of this thread is to understand why and by how much things have declined, and what would be needed to return to snowmaking like we saw just a few years ago. Is it because they have fewer staff, or because aging infrastructure isn't functioning as well? Or is Killington's snowmaking the same, but appearing to be worse because the competition has gotten so much better? Many northeast resorts have made significant investments in pumping capacity upgrades and low E guns, while Killington has not seen much beyond routine maintenance.

Of course, I could be wrong on all of this. I want to be wrong. The weather could cooperate, and the resort could get all base areas open by Christmas like they used to. However, it's not something that I'm optimistic about at the moment, even with perfect weather.

[Big Bob]

They have lost key members of their staff, lack of staff, water line blowouts, weather. Did I miss anything? Sunday River/Boyne has committed to infrastructure upgrades to their snowmaking system to be pretty much fully open by Christmas. Loon will be opening tomorrow with 2000' of vertical. This is the date the traditionally open. Even Sugarloaf has gotten snowmaking upgrades.

[wtf021]

The $ loss from hosting the WC has to be made up some how. The seasonal expansion is paying the price.

I was told as soon as snowmaking was completed on SS the rental compressors were shut down. As a result, the snowmaking on Skye Lark was taking away from the resources on Snowdon. Things will pick up on Snowdon as Skye Lark is shutdown.

In all, Killington is hitting below its weight class when it comes to snowmaking. Pound for pound, they are probably around 10th place in New England.

[snoloco]

In the first four years of the World Cup, they still opened Skyeship by Christmas.

[TheLurker]

I wonder if there is any correlation to a shared revenue pass (Ikon) vs a dedicated pass (kton only). Perhaps they don’t have the $s on hand to afford it. Just another angle to potentially look at.

[rogman]

We are entering the worst part of the Killington season with contrary weather. The forecast varies between marginal and no snow making for the next 10 days. According to today's condition report, their expansion plans are oriented towards getting the 6 pack on line "towards the end of the week". I assume they'll also manage to get Killink and Lower GN to Ramshead as well. Their goals should include Caper, but that may be too lofty.

This is the problem with Killington this time of year. Parking issues drive their decisions. So what we have to look forward to over the few weeks are Snowshed (and all its connector trails), Ramshead (but Upper Header? Not a chance). It's all runouts, connector trails, and intermediate to green trails. We'll get SS and Skyelark in early December, but not much else. They are already behind the rest of the North East, will fall further given the forecast. Right now we are looking at a trail roll out that will finish somewhere in late January.

Given the parking issues (which will be worse with the village), I'm surprised the master plan didn't include a fixed grip double, or some other people mover from Ramshead (or even further down the Access Road) up to the K1 area. It would allow a far more rational trail rollout, not driven by parking. Really looking forward to those buses this weekend.

[newpylong1]

The Cliff Notes:

• Killington has chosen to host the World Cup, which admitted by Killington (and the numbers broken out by myself) draws finite early season snowmaking resources away from the "public terrain".

• Killington's main advantage is elevation. This year was the perfect storm to negate that advantage. It was so late by the time the inclimate weather left that everyone else in the pack from Maine to PA was able to go full bore. Not only that, Killington by that point was in a bind with the Cup venue. What do you think is going to happen?

• Killington's snowmaking advantage has also been eroded (and in many cases passed over) by other mountains that have made serious (we're not talking a couple valves, a compressor and pipes here and there) snowmaking investments. These are items that need to be delt with but all in all or simply part of operating a snowmaking system and will not provide a noticeable difference to the customer. If you go back to earlier threads you would see the alarms that I sent up about what was going on up at Sunday Ruiver Loon, etc. I think the results speak for themselves. That said, Killington has two new lodges and a new lift and some relos. That is where the money has gone. For as many people that bitch about snowmaking, there are probably are equal amounts who bitches about the lifts and lodges.

• To put things into better perspective that all is not as grim as has been presented here: If the resources spent on the World Cup venue were spent on "Early Season public terrain", Killington would be at or near the front of the pack. Even as things stand, Killington was only 2-3 days behind the competition going top to bottom and they have that monster ready to go on Skye Peak.

• Some may not agree with the snow plan. They may have lost some hours here and there (for various reasons) but opening GN off the top in two days, UEF in 2.5 days, and from NR to the base in 2 more days is impressive. If other ski areas were under the same microscope/scrutiny you would see they ALL botch things. I think the crews did the best they could in the time they've had thus far with the resources they've had.

Long story short: some of what I see if just nitpicking, but not all of it. I would expect the same scenario to play out year after year if 1) Falls continue to be warm and 2) they continue to host the WC with no substantial snowmaking investments being made. Both of these items are going to trickle down into the trail rollout as the season progresses and they will be "behind".

Hope this helps.

[DrJeff]

Anectdotally it also seems like their early season opening strategy has shifted a bit from "just get enough down to get open and then do the same on a few other trails" (which did lead to a few melt outs and shut downs in the past on occasion) to a strategy where they're putting down a greater amount of snow on a trail before moving to another trail, so that it seems like now WHEN, not IF, a warm stretch shows up, they have the base to make it through it, so it's a quicker recovery before moving back into expansion mode.

Agree though that it seems like the competition has caught up via investments in snowmaking tech that lets them be more efficient, which has allowed the competition to close the gap with the shear size of the system that K used to have over the competition.

Heck, I was listening to one of the recent Storm Skiing podcasts where Bromley's GM was being interviewed and he made the statement that throughn the investments and enhancements to their system over the last 15 to 20 years, over the course of the season they can now make the volume of snow that typically would take around 1500 hours of time over the season in about 800 hours That is a significant difference in the speed and efficiency that they can put product down on the hill

[throbster]

Are we victims of the Green New Deal lunacy?

More likely it is the lack of people willing to make snow.

[deadheadskier]

Killington is the fastest to start typically (elevation advantage) but hasn't been the fastest to expand in at least 15 years, even prior to the world cup. Plenty of years where early December one or all of Sunday River, Okemo and Stratton have had more snowmaking terrain covered. When this has been mentioned (again for at least 15 years) many K people would get defensive, puff their chest out and say, "Yeah, but we aren't covering cow pastures!" Only thing is, North Ridge and Snowdon kinda are.

Bitching that SR opened 3 hours prior to K? Serious douche chills reading that

[skibikeclimbguy]

Tait Germon vs Jeff Temple?

[KingsFourMan]

Anectdotally it also seems like their early season opening strategy has shifted a bit from "just get enough down to get open and then do the same on a few other trails" (which did lead to a few melt outs and shut downs in the past on occasion) to a strategy where they're putting down a greater amount of snow on a trail before moving to another trail, so that it seems like now WHEN, not IF, a warm stretch shows up, they have the base to make it through it, so it's a quicker recovery before moving back into expansion mode.

I think there is a lot to this argument. The likelihood of a near total meltdown between Thanksgiving and mid-January is almost a certainty these days. Does that lead them to limit their production somewhat knowing that all that money will likely be washing down the Attaquechee River in a matter of weeks? It does seem like more snow on fewer trails is a new strategy to cope. Regardless of what the reason is, the snowmaking doesn't seem as relentless as it once was but I was starting to think it was just my nostalgic memory until others mentioned it here.

[Mister Moose]

To a large extent, they are a victim of their own success. November didn't used to be ski season. Now it's having oodles of man made terrain open by Thanksgiving. Well, the people are now used to it, are coming in large numbers, and it turns out to be pretty challenging to make enough snow in spite of the predictable warm ups to handle those crowds. Snowmaking technology has improved tremendously, but cyclic warm ups have always happened early season. A "Brown Christmas" was a thing in New England long before anyone ever even thought of climate change.

We live at the confluence of western cold fronts, Canadian highs, and southeastern warm air driven by inside runners. We get a lot of inside runners.

As far as being competitive with other resorts for early season coverage... you guys may have a point. I'm still not mooved to buy a season pass at Okemo, Loon, Stratton, or Sunday River. It's a season pass. I'm in for the whole season, and here it's the longest, and the guns don't stop until March. Who else can say that?

But since I want to keep Rogman and Big Bob happy, here's my suggestions.

Pay front line snowmakers more. (The website says starting wage is now $19) It's cold hard dark work. Killington has nearly unlimited water, they should have on tap nearly unlimited labor to run it.

Let's see, a crew of 20 snow makers working 50 hours in November, 170 hours a month in Dec, Jan, Feb... let's call that 500 hours with time off for, you know, the warm ups. 500 hours for 20 guys is 10,000 man hours. Bump the pay until you have a line out the door. Each dollar an hour is 10k plus overhead, not a terribly big number if it's holding back production of the very product you live on.

Next, devise a trail rollout that will perform in average late Fall weather windows. Have the equipment and logistics in place. The goal is to be first and most. Do both. Be Beastly.

[winter]

This year is unfortunately not off to a good start,

Oh you think so doctor?

Temps averaging in the 50's and 60's the first two weeks of the month? Tough to make snow when it is above freezing.

Granted this is Rutland but look at the freeze and thaw events for last year:

December '21: https://www.wunderground.com/history/mo ... te/2021-12

January '22: https://www.wunderground.com/history/mo ... ate/2022-1

A lot of resurfacing and starting and stopping it would appear.

[Mister Moose]

This just in from Sugarbush:

Big News: Valley House Opens Today At 10AM! Snowball & Spring Fling join the roster thanks to a big push from our hardworking snowmakers. The Swiss World Cup Ski Team is up there right now training for the FIS Alpine World Cup Tour race at Killington Resort this weekend, then it’s all yours! #thankasnowmaker

What's that? A trail pod that diverted resources that's not open to the public???