millerm277

Well, assuming they were to actually maintain the pipe well, the tow wouldn't be much of a waste, even if it were only used a few days a year. A couple hundred foot handle tow, is cheap. Even with installation, it's probably less than the cost of one of the Polecats/Wizzards.

Of course...for the 4 hours that'd take, he could be in the Catskills, at...say, Plattekill, and have even more real snow and no lines as well.

That's true...HOWEVER, updating ONE page of the website with basic stuff is not hard, hell, you could probably train the person at the ticket counter to do it in their spare time. It is not rocket science, and once they learn how to do it, there is nothing "new" to learn, just change the same stuff every day...

An odd layout, and slow lifts....but very good (and in the past couple years, generous) snowmaking, and some great terrain.

From the blog... And of course... http://www.huntermtn.com/huntermtn/SiteBas...6.jpg&w=500

Looking like they're lit up T2B now. I'd expect they'll branch out tomorrow or thursday onto additional trails once the mainline has a good base...

From the Hunterblog....this morning at Hunter... By the way, the trail in the first image has had guns on it for a bit less than a day.

Definitely. Personal opinion, but I like it. More people=more money=maybe I'll see the West Side expansion in the next 10 years. Anyway, rumor has it that Hunter will have 10+ Trails for opening day on saturday. (Figure 3-5 completely separate routes down the mountain). My guesses would be: Hellgate, Broadway, Kennedy, Belt Pkwy, 5th Ave, 7th Ave, Minya Konka, Lower Crossover, Ike, and East Side drive. (Assuming 10 trails).

NYS Budget cut. I believe their operations are going to be pretty significantly curtailed. (Less snowmaking, less lift operations.)

Bumped, or not bumped? It almost never sees a groomer.

Real intermediate. Obviously, depends on the area....since you say you ski Sno, if you are comfortable on the all the lower mountain trails (not necessarily White Lightening), you are good enough to enjoy yourself at Hunter I'd say. Guns started to fire up on Hellgate this morning there, I'd guess that it will probably expand to the entire rest of Hellgate>Broadway>Kennedy, and Belt Pkwy>5th Ave by tomorrow morning.

Midweek-Okay. Weekend-Crap. Vernon: -Horizon kind of kills everything, but if you can avoid the people, Zero G to Opossum (if they let it open this year), is a nice run. -The intermediate trails are okay. -Even though it stops every 5 seconds and is slow, I'd still suggest the triple. The Cabriolet is horrible, you have to take your gear off, get crammed into the "car" with a bunch of other people and freeze...and not get to sit. Then you get to walk about 100ft to the snow at the top. Granite: -The best part of the mountain. -Pipeline, if opened, has a very short, but steep section, that is kind of ruined by the sharp turn right after it. On a weekend, parking yourself to the left at the bottom of the steep section can be fun, as you watch people slam into the orange fence at the turn. -Devil's Bit is a pretty good trail, as is the intermediate one. Sojourn: -The double is slow, and gives you a sense that it may collapse soon. -Southern Sojourn is painfully flat. Snowboarders, be prepared to hop/walk for a LONG distance. South: -The HSQ is nice. -The flat part in the middle is annoying. -The trails are all low intermediate, but not boring. Bear: -HSQ -Short, moderately steep. -Nice trails though, wish it was longer.

Hunter is great for Experts and Beginners. Intermediates should go to Windham. Pros- -They have the best snowmaking by a huge margin over anywhere else. Both in concentrated firepower, and in terms of how much of the mountain they can blow snow on at once, I have seen trails go from bare to open edge-to-edge in less than a day. -K-27, Clair's, 44, and Annapurna, are "real" double-diamond trails. -They typically have good bump runs in addition to groomers. -Mountain faces all directions, so a really sunny day or a really cold day, doesn't mean that everything is soft or solid. Cons- -Susceptible to wind. -The West Side lift is sloww. Other stuff: -The people are NOT like at Mountain Creek. Probably more along the lines of the same crowd you'd find at Killington. The mountain has a bit of an odd layout, but it'll grow on you quickly. The West Side has plenty of vert, ski it and you certainly won't be complaining that the runs are too short. -The lodge is old, but other than the bathrooms being a bit of a walk, seems fine to me. Then again, I'm not really too concerned about it, the food is pretty good and there's plenty of room to sit, which is all I care about. The learning center lodge is very nice, and also has good food. Summit lodge has snacks and soup, and is a really neat building, although it looks like crap from the outside. Nice (real) fireplaces and stuff, lots of historical equipment on the walls. -I don't know about their park, but considering they lined both of them with around 40 new guns this year, in addition to what was already there, I think you can expect something good out of it this year. -There are really not that much in crowds anymore. You will never see a liftline on a weekday, or before Christmas, and on the weekend they're not very long either. -Hellgate and Belt Parkway are the only two trails that ever see "too much" traffic. Edit: Since you're from Sno....if you spend most of your time skiing off the Phoebe Snow, you'll be fine at Hunter.

I didn't say mainline is a good place for a park either, but....Cannonball is much narrower, and you wouldn't be able to place anything on the final drop because of the intersection with the bottom of Smoke. That would leave you with one steep pitch, and some pretty flat sections. I think Spike and Lower Runaway would be a good choice for parks if the mainline one was to move.

Uhh...think about how much traffic it gets. That is the most heavily traveled trail on the NF. Upon thinking about it some more, Lower Runaway might not be too bad for a park. Whistler might be good as well if they were to install lights on it, as it's wide enough that you could share the trail between skiers/riders.

Where would they put it? Spike already has a park on it, Switch is used for racing, Whistler has no lights. The NF trails would be suicidal, and Runaway/Fast Track are too valuable IMO. (and, their upper sections aren't too much steeper than mainline).

The site is correct today. I suspect that they were hoping to open those trails but weren't able to.

It is technically open. Where it splits near the top, the right side is considered to be Upper Taylor's, and the left side is considered to be Clair's

That's what I heard as well. They were blowing snow on them yesterday, and it looked like they were pretty well covered from what I could see.

There were only a couple spots when you had to keep your head down, most of the guns were pointed up, which made it not too bad to ski through. And, I much rather skiing through the guns than skiing hardpack bumps.

Got out at about 9:30AM, started the day with a run down the very firm Whistler, not their fault, as I could see the snow flying up and off the trail, very windy up there today. After that, I moved down to the North Face area where I spent the rest of the day, which was much nicer. Cannonball was great for speed runs in the morning, and pretty good all day. Boomer was tied with White Lightening for the best run of the day. Far left was soft snow you could really go fast on, middle had some large bumps, and the right had a very nice line of medium sized bumps. White Lightening...had large moguls, with a couple of good lines...and the entire steep section of trail was covered in deep man-made powder. Smoke had J3 races going on until about 2PM, was (as expected), pretty skied off by the time it opened to the public, although they were starting up the guns as I was leaving at 5PM. Started to get a bit more crowded around noon. (By crowded, I mean I could see other people were actually on the mountain). Liftlines were non-existant, and in the morning and late afternoon, it seemed like we were the only ones there. Snowguns were blasting all day. Probably at least 100 SMI Polecats and Vikings running all day (and night it looked like), it was actually hard to see on White Lightening and Boomer from all the snow being made. Fasttrack and Runaway look like they should be open soon. Another great day. Was anyone else out there? I was wearing mostly black, with red Nordica boots, and rossignol skis. (My Bandit BX's are currently getting bindings mounted.)

I consider that a good thing, not bad. (I'm used to it from skiing Hunter midweek...). Any chance of Runaway or Fast Track being open tomorrow you think?

Anyone out there today? I'm going up tomorrow, and am wondering what the conditions were like.

I agree, and Intrawest seems to have forgotten what makes a destination resort. It isn't villages, stores or other garbage like that, although they make a destination resort better. (In some people's eyes at least). It's the mountain, if the mountain sucks...it doesn't matter how many shops and condos you've built, people aren't going to show up. I'm not talking about difficult terrain, or anything like that. I'm talking about the basics, like opening terrain reasonably quickly. Why is it that it takes MC months to open their terrain, yet most of the PA ski areas could go from 0-100% with a week or two of cold weather? They need to drastically improve the snowmaking, do something with the cab (Would it be possible to convert to a 6-pack or the like?), and actually put the original master plan with the additional terrain between Granite and South into action. I doubt any of that will happen unless Intrawest has trouble selling real estate.

Looking at Mountain Creek's trail report today, I was almost laughing. Why on earth does it show snowmaking as ongoing on multiple trails? (If they've invented a way to make snow in 65F temps cost-effectively...let me know. )