Winter

There is no doubt they needed to open asap, and no doubt their intentions were good. But the bottom line is they again F-ed up in taking a huge chance in trying to knock it out of the park by opening most of the trails at once. The season pass holder gets screwed again. I hit Elk Sunday and the three runs they had open were stellar and deep because they blew hard on them and didn't shoot for a big opening. Sorry, but with BC's smart guns and firepower, there could have been 2-3 trails with 2 feet on em. Nearing mid 50's and lots of rain tomorrow, they'll need to start from scratch.

BC is an entirely different world than what Doe was and you're right, it's knocked out of the park what one would expect of such a small hill. The hotel is top notch as well. My criticism of any business is based on how I've acquired and run mine. In my case there is luck and hard work to be successful, and then there is luck and deceit as to how BC did it. But whatever. Heck, Frost nearly went down with some bad real estate investments, Elk has some hard nosed owners who are sparring with the hard nosed owners of local real estate to the detriment of the skiing customers, Montage/Sno transition was a catastrophy because the county had special perks when it ran the ski area that the new owners weren't privy too... oh the list goes on and on, but hey, I'll be skiing in a day so i could care less. Just get the dern snow down, bring out the sun and proper adult beverage afterwards.

The reason i despise is that i know so much i guess, to answer your question. But to be a bit more specific i have gripes with a lot of ski areas, not so much in the snow sucks here or the park is lame there, but how things are run internally. I wont bore the list with details, but BC was taken over by the current owner through an un-ethical (but legal) coup back in 99. And while previous owner Bill 'B' (cant recall his exact name at this point) was no nice guy, he was desperate and looked towards BC's current owners for help which ended up quickly with a take-over. Hey, I still enjoy making a few turns there, but my home area has been Elk, and beleive me, they have their own list of faults internally.

I suspect most of the snowmakers are in bed by lunch time, but sure, news gets around. Head chef in the cafe? If that's true, he must have survived a few turbulent years of the food service chaos, and that's quite an accomplishment! Word has it they are trying to round up all outside entities and bring them in-house. The last culinary group was booted this year and is now supposedly being run by BC themselves. Same goes for the Pinnacle sports, now run by BC as well. Again, good luck to 'em!

I appreciate you sticking up for your employer, it's a noble cause and quite frankly, I hope the best for BC and an expedient opening. But I know a bit more about mountain ops that most people in that I've been there and know a good deal about snow making, slope layout and prep and even details of the inner workings of several ski areas in the region. Many of your guns tune on the fly depending on temps and humidity, as you know which can change drastically in the course of a few hours. How can you expect a few snow makers to makes adjustments manually all night long on 80+ guns? And unless snowmaking has changed in the last 25 years, yes, you put down a wetter layer so it freezes and creates a hard insulating base before putting down the better snow to ride on. I'm not sure what your position is at BC nor do I care. Do a little research of your own and you'll find I'm right. Having said that, I will clarify that I believe everyone at BC is working towards the quickest opening possible but i think they could have been open at least partially by now, even if it was just a few slopes. Sometimes i think they operate like a nascar crew chief who takes a gamble on pitstops. They could pit for fuel so as to not run out but finish out of the top 10, or gamble they wont and win (or come in last). With the power of the BC guns, i would have gambled on the 'win'.

Former BC racers are mostly heading to Blue and Frost,, about 5 familes to Elk, a few to roundtop but sadly many just quite the sport. Plenty of power unless something drastically changed since the re-building of the snow making system int he early 2000's. They lit off every gun they had one night and popped a transformer. The electric company was pissed (obviously), gave BC some grief and BC responded by threatening to install their own substation. The electric co. gave in a bit and allowed more usage via upgardes to their system in that area so as not to lose any money if BC put a substation in.

Well, it's no secret there has been a major cleaning out in the offices and elsewhere recently and some of the smarter people were left go. The manager (with a degree in zoology i might add) seems to not be steering the boat in the right direction at times but his inner staff of managers is affraid to go against his grain. It's getting to be a soft dictatorship there. Good luck to 'em, with all that $$$ behind them though, they don't necessarily wince at a bad opening or early closing.

Allow me to educate, as an accomplished snow maker myself... Humidity at or below 27 degrees is much less an issue than closer to 32 degrees. Even at 70% RH and 27 degrees, snow can easily be put down, and remember, early season blowing is not being made entirely for perfect ski conditions, but rather for getting down a firm base that will freeze hard and provide a longer lasting surface during mid-winter warm-ups. Yes, water temps are important here and if the temps were a bit warm, they hopefully were aerating the pinds to drop the temps. Bear creeks guns are very intelligent and can fine tune pressures and air speed (among other factors) while the addition of Snomax extends the range at which good snow can be produced. The bottom line is Bear opened up last year, 100%, though VERY thin cover, within 60 hours . If they are trying to accomplish that this year, they goofed again. Like someone said, better to open half way and with good base than to open 100% and ride on near-dirt.

X2 on that. Frequent web updates just aint their thing. They are still trying to get over the fact they put a webcam in!

Good try BB, good luck for tomorrow. Keep the park help out all night to get it done! Bring the cases of Red Bull though.

If they don't, they must have not paid their electric bill. That or they own the best weather station on earth and can see 70's in 2 weeks.

opening Wednesday is the word!

Water temp too high is a fancy excuse. The first day of snow making is usually done with a heavy mixture of water in order to put a more solid base down (closer to ice) and then they lean out the mixture to make better snow on top. Higher water temp might be bad for good snow, but it would have been just fine for the base layer. Anyway, Elk's scheduled to open Wednesday.

Bears Manager must be asleep at the wheel again.

Here we go! All a good few nights to see who's gonna make some pow and actually keep it. Hoping this balmy crap is behind us.

I try not to pay much attention to those aspen-wanna-be's down there but what were the numbers they were claiming the first day last year?

Every ski area embellishes the base depth, but Bear took it to a new level last year. Blue's manager(s) supposedly was really pissed but who can really enforce it? Thank goodness government hasn't decided to come in a regulate base depth statistics ;-)

Yup, pretty acurrate. The real pisser last year was closing with 100% of the slopes still open, with no bare spots on the front that i could see. We closed up the house first week in April and it looked so skiable. I think a lot of pass holders were tweeked bigtime because they closed early. But business is business i guess.

Lastest for there is the owner is trying to coax his son back from Stratton to run the place. They decided to hold off until next season now but have shown some gathering of equipment necessary to make this happen. They are talking 10 lane tubing with as good of a snow board park as is possible. Still hoping they bring it back, if for nothing else, an alternative to the mighty and pricey Bear.

Def. had a bit of snow on the slope when i was up sunday. don't think they are shooting for this weekend, but haven't heard anything as of yet. Cold temps coming!

Bear opened nearly 100% last year within 3 days though the cover was awful thin and then they got in a bit of trouble when the resevoir dropped real low and a warm spell hit for a week. But yeh, it can be done there. Sno didn't change much and yeah it is an unusual layout. Some love it, other don't.

Ya think? Dunno, they had the best man made snow during the lean times the last few years. I'd put their snow making up against anyones in the eastern Pa area. They have some other issues, but as far as snow making goes, they aint all that bad!

Looks like a pretty good split in temps and precip between north and south Pa next week. Test fire them guns BC, but doesn't look like next week will be any good. Sno/Elk, maybe!?

Looks like a slight break in the weather mid-week, with cold enough temps but barely, which Bear and blue will see warmer with rain.

Iron it is!