tuesday 1/23 report no bubble

[Grmmtnhkr34]

Yep, Dopp is blowing LP out of the water on install performance and post startup reliability. No comparison...

That being said the new sunbrook Express installed last year at mt snow has been down for the better part of a week. That was installed last year.

[Atomic1]

Northway - DreamMaker - Grizzly, under the guns a dozen times and nobody else on it all day and now I know why .. RustyK and the Group aren’t here !

[twilkas]

IMG_0686.jpegSnowbird report. Lots of great pow in the back chutes and in the trees with Liv4ski and Powday. Seeing lots of zoners and K peeps out here this week. Wrapping up the trip with one last bird day. Tricks was here earlier. Pic is from the flying squirrel at Solitude. Saw Amy from the B Haus in the tram Tuesday. See u all soon.

the flying AND Thirsty Squirrel! nice shot.

[twilkas]

must be a chair lift virus spreading on the Green Mountain Spine. Sugarbush has been having issues.

okemo shut down the evergreen bubble early yesterday for maintenance and it did not run today - not sure why.

since we knew about the bubble being down today at K, decided to exercise our epic passes and go to okemo. despite having gone a bunch of times pre WC when there were only a handful of trails, 1st time really skiing there in maybe 30 yrs. surprisingly crowded early.

started in jackson gore. skied most everything open there including a couple nats that needed more snow. oogled a tree run but it was closed. nice pitch but probably doesn't warrant the black designation.

the main mtn from sunburst, evergreen to solitude couldn't be more vanilla. not to say we didnt enjoy ripping some (compared to K) very long runs on nicely groomed snow. probably the most "interesting" area was the south face. found one nat that for some reason had hardly been skied and was good. hit some trees up there. one was more of an open glade that i'd like to hit when it has more snow. again more on the boney side.

people complain about highline being closed for racing at K. okemo had 7 trails closed for racing. the main race trail dropped almost 1700 vert ft. looks great. would love to race on it. also a couple closed for snowmaking. unlike k they apparently close trails for snowmaking. fun day. nice to get away. too bad the place doesn't have more pitch and variety. and yes heard today was another bad day for lifts at K.

I could always manage some fun most anywhere too. Okemo, much like Stratton? not much in the way of pitch. fun nevertheless. Always
why K was the 'go to' though. appreciate the O report skiadikt!

[Grmmtnhkr34]

must be a chair lift virus spreading on the Green Mountain Spine. Sugarbush has been having issues.

okemo shut down the evergreen bubble early yesterday for maintenance and it did not run today - not sure why.

since we knew about the bubble being down today at K, decided to exercise our epic passes and go to okemo. despite having gone a bunch of times pre WC when there were only a handful of trails, 1st time really skiing there in maybe 30 yrs. surprisingly crowded early.

started in jackson gore. skied most everything open there including a couple nats that needed more snow. oogled a tree run but it was closed. nice pitch but probably doesn't warrant the black designation.

the main mtn from sunburst, evergreen to solitude couldn't be more vanilla. not to say we didnt enjoy ripping some (compared to K) very long runs on nicely groomed snow. probably the most "interesting" area was the south face. found one nat that for some reason had hardly been skied and was good. hit some trees up there. one was more of an open glade that i'd like to hit when it has more snow. again more on the boney side.

people complain about highline being closed for racing at K. okemo had 7 trails closed for racing. the main race trail dropped almost 1700 vert ft. looks great. would love to race on it. also a couple closed for snowmaking. unlike k they apparently close trails for snowmaking. fun day. nice to get away. too bad the place doesn't have more pitch and variety. and yes heard today was another bad day for lifts at K.

The Evergreen doesn't run tues-thurs. The maintence issue with it was a loose PTO belt they had to replace. As it was discovered after 3pm it was decided just to close the lift for the day.
Major race this week on chief, gonna be closed till the weekend.
And ya, south face and j gore are my fav and I consider mid mountain flyover territory generally. Though their are some good local woods around Solitude that are worth a mention.
I work at the big O in lifts and they've had a few issues this year, mainly electrical in the tower circuits, fixed fairly quickly.
K's older poma's are showing their age and should be refurbished like they did the K1. Remember these machines are in the mountain weather 365 days a year.

[wtf021]

Part of the delay in getting new ski lifts back up and running is the troubleshooting process. Ski resorts do not employ engineers to help diagnois the problem. Most resorts are staffed with electricans to work on and troubleshoot lift issues. This makes resorts like Killington more dependent on the manufacturers for troubleshooting. Luckily LP has their northeast operations in Pittsfield. As the lift system is upgraded, they will be more dependent on LP.
Think of it as the difference between bringing your car to the local garage vs the dealer. The local shop can handle basic maintenance. Any type of advanced diagnosis, you are going to the dealer.

[Mister Moose]

Could be worse....

Meanwhile at Vail:
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.

Vail 1 22 24.jpg (111.91 KiB) Viewed 751 times

[Downdraft]

Part of the delay in getting new ski lifts back up and running is the troubleshooting process. Ski resorts do not employ engineers to help diagnois the problem. Most resorts are staffed with electricans to work on and troubleshoot lift issues. This makes resorts like Killington more dependent on the manufacturers for troubleshooting. Luckily LP has their northeast operations in Pittsfield. As the lift system is upgraded, they will be more dependent on LP.
Think of it as the difference between bringing your car to the local garage vs the dealer. The local shop can handle basic maintenance. Any type of advanced diagnosis, you are going to the dealer.

Except the dealer has limited personal, parts are not always readily available, the complexity of issues and trouble shooting takes time and knowledge.

But hey, we still charge you $10m+ for them and you will keep buying them

[SPORE]

Could be worse....

Meanwhile at Vail:
.
.
Vail 1 22 24.jpg

Chair 5 at Vail on a Powder day - not sure it could be worse.

At least the chair is running, same can’t be said for Taits lift department.

[Captain Hafski]

Quoting Monty Python: And now, for something completely different - An actual report for today !

Afternoon Report: Another good day all in all. Butt, lets start with my personal issues.

No Canyon Quad [OK, wasn't expecting it]. No South Ridge Chair [as promised early season] - WTF. No SD6 although I didnt get this report until 3:00, reportedly due to snowmaking. I am skeptical of this after riding it late yesterday on diesel and lurching heavily like it was.

WORST OF ALL FOR ME IS THE CONTINUING INACCURACY WITH K'S REPORTING OF LIFT/TRAIL STATUS - WHEN ARE THEY GONNA FIX THIS. THE ICING ON THE CAKE TODAY WAS WHEN I WENT TO SNOWDON TO SKI, REPORTEDLY OPEN, CHUTE GREAT BEAR THAT I KNEW HAD SNOWMAKING ON IT AND WAS HOPING TO FIND SOMETHING DECENT THERE. TOTALLY CLOSED, AND BELIEVE IT WAS CLOSED ALL DAY. SO NOW I HAD TO CONTINUE ON FROLIC AND FIND SOMETHING TO SKI. GOOD THING I DIDN'T DUCK THAT ROPE AS WHEN I WENT PAST THE BOTTOM OF GB IT WAS NOT SKIED IN AT ALL AND WOULDA SUCKED. BUTT, MY POINT IS, WHY DID THE APP SHOW IT AS OPEN ALL DAY. ALSO, I WENT TO THE K WEBSITE ON MY WAY BACK UP THE CHAIR AND SHOWING AS OPEN THERE AS WELL. I'M GETTING TIRED OF THIS [and can believe some of you getting tired with my complaining about it].

Warmup Stash -> Dream Maker "park" very good. Lower section of DM was open into the pipe. As someone else posted, guns not putting out much and thankfully, were able to "avoid" staying left as they were not putting out blower manmade pow. Ran into same friends as yesterday so was able to find someone to ski Stash -> Fiddle again; not quite as good as yesterday but still a great run.

Skyelark flat, fast, and OK.

At Snowdon, skied Vagabond after finding Chute / Great Bear closed. Vagabond was very good. Then, my ROTD was Bunny -> Conclusion. If nothing else, claiming I was on my game skiing an old line I used to ski all the time on Conclusion. Good Eastern Technical Skiing and it was very good.

Upper Pipe Dream boring. Lower Pipe Dream still very good. Final run Upper / Lower Wildfire very good as well [GETS]. Had looked decent from the chair so just had to try it.

[KingsFourMan]

must be a chair lift virus spreading on the Green Mountain Spine. Sugarbush has been having issues.

okemo shut down the evergreen bubble early yesterday for maintenance and it did not run today - not sure why.

since we knew about the bubble being down today at K, decided to exercise our epic passes and go to okemo. despite having gone a bunch of times pre WC when there were only a handful of trails, 1st time really skiing there in maybe 30 yrs. surprisingly crowded early.

started in jackson gore. skied most everything open there including a couple nats that needed more snow. oogled a tree run but it was closed. nice pitch but probably doesn't warrant the black designation.

the main mtn from sunburst, evergreen to solitude couldn't be more vanilla. not to say we didnt enjoy ripping some (compared to K) very long runs on nicely groomed snow. probably the most "interesting" area was the south face. found one nat that for some reason had hardly been skied and was good. hit some trees up there. one was more of an open glade that i'd like to hit when it has more snow. again more on the boney side.

people complain about highline being closed for racing at K. okemo had 7 trails closed for racing. the main race trail dropped almost 1700 vert ft. looks great. would love to race on it. also a couple closed for snowmaking. unlike k they apparently close trails for snowmaking. fun day. nice to get away. too bad the place doesn't have more pitch and variety. and yes heard today was another bad day for lifts at K.

I could always manage some fun most anywhere too. Okemo, much like Stratton? not much in the way of pitch. fun nevertheless. Always
why K was the 'go to' though. appreciate the O report skiadikt!

We were on the Epic Pass 3 years ago and skied Okemo several times that year. It was a complete and total zoo every time we skied which included some Fridays. And unlike Killington, it was always crowded right from the bell. Prior to the Epic Pass, we skied it a few times over the years and enjoyed skiing something different for a change. Since the Epic pass, we've vowed to never ski it ever again. Very boring terrain and way too overcrowded. Now that we are on the Ikon Pass, we ski Stratton several times a year and much prefer it over Okemo.

[DES]

Could be worse....

It’s funny to me to see the long line pictures, after opening chair, I didn’t ride with another chair partner yesterday at Cannon until around 2:00. (and the next run I hiked the saddle to Mittersill for a solo mountain)