Lack of expert terrain

[Dickc]

Their number requirements have not changed substantially in the past decade. There has been no investment in automation and very little on fixed gear. Even where there is fixed gear they continue using land guns sometimes. Old habits die hard.

Moving to fixed gear on the runs that lack them now would really change those staffing levels. Lugging tripods and hoses around across the resort is time consuming and labor intensive.

I guess then that until this year paying people to lug around guns was cheaper than investing in automation. Hopefully one positive from Covid is that they invest more into automation. I would love to see them put up more of those fixed low-e guns.

Automation on the trails that are resurfaced the most may make sense, and Superstar. For the rest, just getting fixed gear in and USING it would be leaps and bounds ahead. I cringe every time I see one of their utility cats moving around 20 guns and hoses at a time from one end of the mountain to the other. Doesn't get any less efficient than that. One of the contributing factors is when the posts were put in on some trails they were put in in the wrong locations and can't reach onto the trail. Wildfire, Skyeburst (what was lower Bear Claw) are good current examples. They need to use ground guns to reach further out. So they really need to take inventory everywhere and relocate the posts to where they will be useful prior to spending money on new gear.

Look at what Sunday River was able to do this year... They're on their last handful of trails now already. Their temps were no better, usually worse. No more staff than Killington... nearly everything had fixed gear though that's been covered as of now.

This year is a perfect storm, but I think for the future K has to do something. They have far more water and air than is being utilized right now.

One thing Sunday River does is have the ground posts movable. They do this on middle Sunday Punch. The HKD towers will not cover across that trail, so they move the posts out and run the guns in mid trail. Once its well covered, they pull the posts back to the wood line to finish cowering, and for all resurfacing. If you ran these guns on Outer limits, the same complains of half coverage would occur, but if they mounted the guns and posts mid trail they could cover the far half, them move back to the edge of the lift line to complete the build. All resurfacing could them occur from the edge of the lift line. Just a thought.

[iRock]

I never "got" the argument of adding more fixed equipment from an ROI perspective. To cover 90% of pipe with permanent snow guns would be hundreds and hundreds of guns and millions of $$$. And so much of it would be used once, twice, or never in a season. Like those snow guns on Vertigo. Why put guns on Pipe Dream or the trails down to Skyeship base? Both those areas see one big push and then one or two base-builds as needed. The stuff that should have fixed equipment is the stuff that gets a ton of snow made regularly through the season....Cruise, Bunny, Supe, OL etc. The only terrain that, in my opinion, should have fixed guns but currently does not is Skyeburst.

[Mister Moose]

Any of you snowmaking followers know why you hardly ever see those portable 10 foot high mini tower guns on sleds anymore? There used to be dozens of them getting towed around, lately I don't think I've seen any.

[newpylong1]

I never "got" the argument of adding more fixed equipment from an ROI perspective. To cover 90% of pipe with permanent snow guns would be hundreds and hundreds of guns and millions of $$$. And so much of it would be used once, twice, or never in a season. Like those snow guns on Vertigo. Why put guns on Pipe Dream or the trails down to Skyeship base? Both those areas see one big push and then one or two base-builds as needed. The stuff that should have fixed equipment is the stuff that gets a ton of snow made regularly through the season....Cruise, Bunny, Supe, OL etc. The only terrain that, in my opinion, should have fixed guns but currently does not is Skyeburst.

Yes it would be, but it's a one time cost (or likely spread over numerous years due to the size of K). What's the labor line in the budget yearly? An HKD Impulse is between $3-4K plus we'll say a hundred bucks to drill and place the pedestal for it. You can get a ton of them deployed for a cool mill. Obviously the rest of the industry is onboard, but someone has decided it does not make sense for Killington. That's being felt this year pretty bad, and may into the foreseeable future if the labor market remains as is.

Why put fixed equipment on Pipe Dream or down to the Skyeship base? Because they are covered yearly and someone (ie lots of someones) has to haul all of that sh*t over and down there, set it up, then break it down, and move it away again when done. If you've got the gear there, two guys walk from the top down and they're done with it. How about being able to getting going with a resurface normally or after a blow torch within an hour vs a shift?

The snow guns on Vertigo make/made sense because they were used yearly when ASC put them in, and that trail is steep. No thanks on muscling gear around on it.

[Stormchaser]

If the guns are automated, you've got way more than a hundred bucks installing permanent water and air connections to the existing lines. If the guns aren't automated, you still have crews hooking up hoses, thawing hydrants, adjusting guns. You might stretch crews abilities to get more done in less time, but they don't go away.

[Heywood jablowmee]

Boomers!.........never fails to make me...smirk....

[newpylong1]

I didn't say anything about automation with all that fixed gear except possibly those few core trails. In actuality, I am not an overly big fan of it, lots of upkeep after huge upfront installation costs. There could be a case made on SS and select high traffic trails though (BB, Chute, etc). That would be a huge step for K though, there is very little automation where most have moved there already (VFD and actuators on the water side and PLC on the air houses), They do everything manually.

There is simply no comparison between starting at the top (even with a 10 # LP tank and torch) and walking the line attaching two hoses (which are already hanging there from last use) to setting it all up from scratch. Take it from someone who's done it - a lot.

Of course the crews won't go away, we aren't talking about doing away with crews. We're talking about being more efficient with the staff that is available. Making their job about ten fold easier as well. And being able to put snow on the trail quicker...

[Southside_Bobby]

I actually think it is refreshing to see a discussion on here about K's snowmaking infrastructure, without too much knee-jerk backlash to any criticism. The current labor situation is revealing the cracks we all knew were there.

In general, if anybody dare suggest on this forum that another mountain is superior in some way regarding snowmaking (or grooming, or lifts, or anything) they are usually quickly met with the snarky "then go ski there" responses. A retort I have always found to be fairly juvenile.

The status of Killington's snowmaking infrastructure is worthy of criticism. They need to start making real investments in it.

When I go to little Catamount, and I see fan guns lining every trail on the mountain top to bottom, I don't want to hear that Killington is so big and spread out, as an excuse to have hardly any. The size of the resort is a poor reason to give as to why investments are not made.

The first thing Peak did when they acquired Mt. Snow, which had severely deteriorated under ASC, was install over 100 fan guns. You can't overstate how much the place instantly improved. And that was just the beginning. Mt. Snow's operation may not be literally as simple as flipping a switch. But compared to having to continually haul around tripods and hoses across a huge resort all season, it kind of is.

Hunter went with fan guns years ago, even if it meant having to attach a propane tank to each and every one of them.

I personally think Powdr should start by making the investment in a few high traffic fan gun routes at K, including Great Northern, most of the Snowdon trails, and trails like Bittersweet.

I know there are plenty of areas that haven't gone with fan guns, but they at least have almost completely fixed infrastructure.

While we can hope that Powdr will now make some kind of investment in K's future in this regard, they may not. They may just see this labor shortage as a temporary situation.

[skiadikt]

Their number requirements have not changed substantially in the past decade. There has been no investment in automation and very little on fixed gear. Even where there is fixed gear they continue using land guns sometimes. Old habits die hard.

Moving to fixed gear on the runs that lack them now would really change those staffing levels. Lugging tripods and hoses around across the resort is time consuming and labor intensive.

I guess then that until this year paying people to lug around guns was cheaper than investing in automation. Hopefully one positive from Covid is that they invest more into automation. I would love to see them put up more of those fixed low-e guns.

Automation on the trails that are resurfaced the most may make sense, and Superstar. For the rest, just getting fixed gear in and USING it would be leaps and bounds ahead. I cringe every time I see one of their utility cats moving around 20 guns and hoses at a time from one end of the mountain to the other. Doesn't get any less efficient than that. One of the contributing factors is when the posts were put in on some trails they were put in in the wrong locations and can't reach onto the trail. Wildfire, Skyeburst (what was lower Bear Claw) are good current examples. They need to use ground guns to reach further out. So they really need to take inventory everywhere and relocate the posts to where they will be useful prior to spending money on new gear.

Look at what Sunday River was able to do this year... They're on their last handful of trails now already. Their temps were no better, usually worse. No more staff than Killington... nearly everything had fixed gear though that's been covered as of now.

This year is a perfect storm, but I think for the future K has to do something. They have far more water and air than is being utilized right now.

One thing Sunday River does is have the ground posts movable. They do this on middle Sunday Punch. The HKD towers will not cover across that trail, so they move the posts out and run the guns in mid trail. Once its well covered, they pull the posts back to the wood line to finish cowering, and for all resurfacing. If you ran these guns on Outer limits, the same complains of half coverage would occur, but if they mounted the guns and posts mid trail they could cover the far half, them move back to the edge of the lift line to complete the build. All resurfacing could them occur from the edge of the lift line. Just a thought.

at one time, k did have the movable post thing. remember them on OL. they would first make snow on skier's right of OL before pulling the guns back. also remember them on needles & pipedream.

[newpylong1]

I find that always looking through Rose colored glasses isn't always wise to do.

The fact that they are only making snow on 1(Timberline) trail in the Basin and 1.5 (Wildfire/Northway) in the East in these temps is not indicative of a well performing system. Not when Mount Snow (for comparison) charges and can light up 2 full North Face Runs and 3 on the front simultaneously top to bottom, 250 guns. A lot of pumping capacity, properly sized feeds with an efficient topology, and fixed gear. I am a staunch K supporter but I rather see some serious coin be put into that system vs another lift as the next investment. I think it's turning into quite the Achilles heel, as evident from what we see and what I am hearing from the inside.

[snoloco]

They seemed to be running on more than 2 trails last week when they resurfaced most of their terrain. I have no idea what the deal is now.

[asher2789]

yeah, the FrEe MaRkEt is at work right now, cant you see? cascade? closed. highline? closed. downdraft? closed. ovation? closed. dreammaker? closed.

..... <Lengthy asher rant>

I think I agree with most of this, except time. You aren't giving the marketplace enough time to recognize change and adapt. That plus COVID uncertainty. And a bad winter so far. Not the best mix lately.

Little did we know 2018 was the good old days.

the marketplace has had plenty of time. if wages kept up with inflation and productivity since 1971 the minimum wage would be $24 an hour today. the math doesnt work out anymore. why work when working doesnt pay? why try at all when you're shut out of the housing market (even to rent!), cant afford to have kids unlike every generation prior to yours in the history of mankind, and will be an indentured servant for the rest of your life?

we're on the cusp of a revolution and the intellectually lazy and brainwashed continue to repeat the line nObOdY wAnTs To WoRk. no, nobody wants to be a slave.

case in point: i have a friend, not a skier or snowboarder, who lost their housing through illegal means last year. they lived there for years, renting from a "friend" who owned the property, and they started a small organic market garden and small CSA (they worked for years in various farm positions), built their own tiny house for self sufficiency, etc, and COVID turned their life upside down when their greedy "friends" decided to cash in on the housing bubble. "friends" illegally kicked them out, got them committed to a psych ward under false pretenses, all sorts of crazy sh*t. my friend ended up homeless this past summer, worked his entire life, now he was living in his car. he managed to find some temporary farming positions during harvest season and a place to stay, but is once again on the cusp of homelessness.

low and behold a seemingly amazing job opening pops up on the local FPF. run a 25 acre organic farm, includes housing, next town over. a dream job for my friend. the catch? NO WAGE! nothing. no stipend. just housing.

do you know what that's called? slavery, sharecropping, indentured servitude. oh, its also extremely incredibly illegal. my friend is ripe for exploitation right now, and when he told me that i couldn't believe the audacity that someone would say the quiet part out loud: that they were looking for slaves. and yes, i checked vermont and federal labor laws, completely illegal. there is a small housing allowance deduction allowed for employers, but even agricultural businesses have to pay the minimum wage.

sorry to go off topic but this is the reality that those privileged to live a life of leisure are not seeing and i feel compelled to share what's really going on amongst the dOeSnT wAnT tO wOrK working class.

[asher2789]

I think for VT, it was this fall. However, the consequences are still being felt.

It's tough for businesses to absorb labor cost doubling. Bernie followers have a tough time understanding economics.

the $300 extra benefit on top of maybe... $250-300 in normal benefits ended on september 4th in VT. wow, these "irresponsible" people are amazing at saving. other states ended their benefits months prior, and no change in the unemployment rate. funny how that works. what's the average rent in vermont? $1000 a month? so these unemployed people are choosing to make so little money that half of it goes to rent? sounds like thats totally the problem! those damn entitled children wanting a fair wage how dare they! lazy millennials! participation trophies!!

f*** boomers.

Stop freaking out. The market place will find what the price of this type of work is worth. Nothing more

yeah, the FrEe MaRkEt is at work right now, cant you see? cascade? closed. highline? closed. downdraft? closed. ovation? closed. dreammaker? closed. and that's just the steep trails with snowmaking off the top of my head, there's many more trails im not thinking of. timberline (where the "peace park" goes)? closed, and IMO probably wont even be built at the rate we are going. same with the dreammaker park. and the stash.

unlike 2015/2016, despite having awful snow conditions and thaws we have had plenty of freezing conditions to make snow. it takes ~36 hours of continuous blowing to create a deep enough base for grooming to allow most trails to open. instead of opening new trails, they're running a skeleton crew who are only capable of resurfacing trails that are already open.

its not a lack of water, air compressors, or temperatures. its a lack of labor, caused by a WAGE SHORTAGE. why the f*** would anyone want to work for $15 an hour, overnight in the wet freezing cold doing strenuous hard physical labor walking up and down frozen icy slopes with snowmaking equipment, when down the road you can make coffee and donuts for $14 an hour in a nice warm space? its not like labor lives in wealthy killington - no - they live in rutland and other cheaper commuter towns where there's plenty of jobs much closer that pay roughly the same or even better for way better work. if they don't ski or snowboard they have absolutely no reason to want to work for killington, which pays the lowest possible wages the market will allow (actually lower, which is why there's no workers!), there's no benefits, and often there's no set schedule. the only thing that makes killington an attractive place to work for most of the seasonal labor is the expensive, out of reach for the working class season pass and 50% off F&B and 20-30% off retail and industry discounts. even so, a season pass doesnt pay the bills. and the discounts dont matter if you need to save every penny to pay the bills. and the season pass doesnt matter if you have no free time / energy to use it.

so entitled whiny skiers will continue to whine about lack of expert terrain yet also whine when labor wants its fair share. or worse, call us workers who make their lives of luxury possible entitled and lazy. f*** sick of the gaslighting. you want open trails? pay for them! or better yet - apply to be a snowmaker - killington is hiring, $15 an hour!

certainly some valid points, but it's not only here at K, it's industry-wide. the vail owned areas are in terrible shape and in addition to poor conditions and lack of terrain are suffering from massive overcrowding.

by contrast we're doing pretty well. better than most areas in the east. the resurfacing before expansion was absolutely necessary. despite your experience, the mtn skied great today. we got a couple new trails the last few days and more are on the way particularly with the arctic blast coming this week. there's still another month of snowmaking coming so while maybe a couple trails don't make the cut, thinking most on the list get done as long as mother nature cooperates.

100%. im not singling out killington although i can see how that could be misread. im criticizing the entire ski industry and the larger power dynamic across the economy between corporate monopolies / near-monopolies and the workers who make their profits possible.

[asher2789]

I think for VT, it was this fall. However, the consequences are still being felt.

It's tough for businesses to absorb labor cost doubling. Bernie followers have a tough time understanding economics.

the $300 extra benefit on top of maybe... $250-300 in normal benefits ended on september 4th in VT. wow, these "irresponsible" people are amazing at saving. other states ended their benefits months prior, and no change in the unemployment rate. funny how that works. what's the average rent in vermont? $1000 a month? so these unemployed people are choosing to make so little money that half of it goes to rent? sounds like thats totally the problem! those damn entitled children wanting a fair wage how dare they! lazy millennials! participation trophies!!

f*** boomers.

Stop freaking out. The market place will find what the price of this type of work is worth. Nothing more

yeah, the FrEe MaRkEt is at work right now, cant you see? cascade? closed. highline? closed. downdraft? closed. ovation? closed. dreammaker? closed. and that's just the steep trails with snowmaking off the top of my head, there's many more trails im not thinking of. timberline (where the "peace park" goes)? closed, and IMO probably wont even be built at the rate we are going. same with the dreammaker park. and the stash.

unlike 2015/2016, despite having awful snow conditions and thaws we have had plenty of freezing conditions to make snow. it takes ~36 hours of continuous blowing to create a deep enough base for grooming to allow most trails to open. instead of opening new trails, they're running a skeleton crew who are only capable of resurfacing trails that are already open.

its not a lack of water, air compressors, or temperatures. its a lack of labor, caused by a WAGE SHORTAGE. why the f*** would anyone want to work for $15 an hour, overnight in the wet freezing cold doing strenuous hard physical labor walking up and down frozen icy slopes with snowmaking equipment, when down the road you can make coffee and donuts for $14 an hour in a nice warm space? its not like labor lives in wealthy killington - no - they live in rutland and other cheaper commuter towns where there's plenty of jobs much closer that pay roughly the same or even better for way better work. if they don't ski or snowboard they have absolutely no reason to want to work for killington, which pays the lowest possible wages the market will allow (actually lower, which is why there's no workers!), there's no benefits, and often there's no set schedule. the only thing that makes killington an attractive place to work for most of the seasonal labor is the expensive, out of reach for the working class season pass and 50% off F&B and 20-30% off retail and industry discounts. even so, a season pass doesnt pay the bills. and the discounts dont matter if you need to save every penny to pay the bills. and the season pass doesnt matter if you have no free time / energy to use it.

so entitled whiny skiers will continue to whine about lack of expert terrain yet also whine when labor wants its fair share. or worse, call us workers who make their lives of luxury possible entitled and lazy. f*** sick of the gaslighting. you want open trails? pay for them! or better yet - apply to be a snowmaker - killington is hiring, $15 an hour!

So much anger. Also a lot of whining. A boomer built this ski area, so lighten up sweetheart

and yours truly put in some of the lifts you enjoy riding. but NoBoDy WaNtS tO wOrK! oh and i did it for a paltry $17 an hour, no benefits, and the risk of dying if the whirly-bird malfunctioned. or the explosives. or flipping the side by side while racing the $10k/hr helicopter down a ski trail. all while being subject to sexist abuse, like "what would your husband think of your job?" *laughs in lesbian*

sorry, just a LaZy millennial ranting at people who ride the lifts i had a hand in building for 70 hours a week in 37* and r*ining but want to gaslight me anyways for not working hard enough.

and btw, this comment just outed who i am.

[TheLurker]

I personally think Powdr should start by making the investment in a few high traffic fan gun routes at K, including Great Northern, most of the Snowdon trails, and trails like Bittersweet.

If fan guns are good enough for the Mighty Gaw, they should be good enough for the Beast.