method9455

Yea, and Blue installed anti-gravity devices under the 'big mo-fo booters' so it throws you higher. I wish they had put them in those tiny ass landings though, so fewer people break their back when they land a "70 foot" jump on a 20 foot landing.

Check this out: Storing solar power for night time use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity Instead of solar cells, using a mirror to heat a liquid, to power a turbine at night http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_tower I also found that current commercial systems run at 7-15% convergance rate, meaning they turn 7-15% of the sunlight's potential energy into electricty. The current highest output is 45% in the lab. The solar tower is also under development. Bottom line, give it a decade and solar power will be come a lot more feasible.

I wouldn't hold your breath on current solar power output. As you said with the 30 year return on investment, they aren't all that practical at the large scale commercial level in our area right now. In the desert of Arizona, current commercial output is feasible but here not quite. On the plus side, the bleeding edge of performance in solar technology is orders of magnitude higher than what is available right now. Give it a decade and solar power will be much more feasible for applications like this. It really is great to see that you recognize the problems your mountain has, and that you are addressing them. Marginal temperatures are a fact of life, and you can't miss the Christmas week, no matter what the cost of snowmaking prior. At our shop, 90% of people ski their first day during that week. The impression of the conditions up there basically sets their mind as to what kind of winter it is. I find almost every person I talk to has no idea what the actual conditions are like at the local mountains, but an impression based on what the weather is here and what their first day was like. Even if there is significant melting, every snowmaking window has to be taken advantage of early - even if it means less snowmaking budget come february and march. Truthfully this isn't what we all want to hear, because it means less snow in the end. But by giving the majority of customers the impression that it is a cold winter on their first day out, many more lift tickets (and gear) will be sold, which allows the mountain to turn a profit. If they turn a profit, they can invest in more of this technology we are talking about, to make it better for everyone. Lets just be glad that there BC, BB, and Blue are dumping the money into snowmaking that is necessary to work with the current warm winters we are getting. I feel like Mountain Creek might succumb to the VV/GG problems in the 80's with poor snowmaking, Shawnee dropped the ball this year, and Camelback didn't sound too hot either. I don't think this year will bankrupt anyone, but the last two years have shown that any mountain serious about being fully open has to make snow early and often. Once you have trails open it is easier to maintain than trying to open them from scratch. I just can't believe we haven't had any snow at all yet, a foot of snow on the region would do a lot for conditions and the publics impression of what this year is at the mountains.

I agree with you on the power thing, it would be nice if it COULD be solar or wind powered, but thats not really possible right now. When all those western resorts say they are totally Wind Powered, it means they bought wind power credits, but in reality their power still comes from the main grid that is being generated by hydro, coal, fossil fuel, nuclear, whatever. Wind generation on site wouldn't be large enough, plus the times when you get maximum energy production (high wind) is when you have lowest snow making efficiency (snow blowing into the woods). Solar would work, except there is no technology that stores energy efficiently enough so that you can make power in the day and use it at night, battery technology just isn't there. I agree with Yummerz, there is definitely a lot of potential energy being lost when the water rolls down the hill (melting) and the extra water that is dumped out the bottom of the pipes the whole time. Also, it wouldn't work for most mountains, but if they had a reservoir at the top of the mountain big enough to hold the water for the night, you could have solar panels pump water up during the day to refill it, saving energy costs because the guns would be gravity fed. Combine that with the more efficient fan guns, and you could save a lot of money so that you could spend more hours making snow per year. (Although it looks like we're short on hours not budget this year.)

I actually like the Anon's better. Optics wise, the oakleys might be slightly better, but I find visibility to be more of an issue to me. That means field of view and fogging. I find my Anon's never fog, where as the oakleys do once in a while for me, and I find the Anon's have a wider field of view. It helps that they fit tighter with my helmet than oakleys, so the fit is more comfortable. Not saying Oakleys are bad, but for me, I like the Anon's.

No problem, I find the engineering behind it all very interesting. I was just up at Mount Snow and they have quite a few diesel powered Ingersol Rand air compressors, bypassing the electricity problem. Not sure if that is a great solution considering the price of fuel is ever increasing. Forty hours would be an incredibly short amount of time. If the wetbulb goes down to say 25, how much faster does production go?

if there is boardercross, I'm so in. What day is that originally scheduled for?

Oh man I remember Split Rock, learning to ski there with their T-Bar. And Craigmeur in NJ, both now gone.

No snow = No half pipe = no Grand Prix

Doug is right though, aside from JF/BB the mountains are basically starting from nothing anyway. A huge amount of rain will fill up the ponds a bit, and it might turn to freezing rain at the tail end which will make the ground cold so, it doesn't matter much so long as the temperatures come back.

If we remember back to the start of the season, one of the reasons BC didn't make snow early was the temperature of their water. That turned out to be a costly problem, because they couldn't get enough down to be open for the season. A lot of places have water cooling towers and pumps for this purpose. I have no idea about the system at Bear Creek, but a water cooler might be a worthwhile investment this summer. All those new guns are worthless if you have to wait for the water to cool. http://www.ratnik.com/wcs.html I'm not even sure if a snowmaking specific one would be necessary. At a lot of the large condo complexes they build in Florida now, the ponds have these huge fountains almost everywhere. Put a few of those in the pond and run them during the cold temperatures, it would cool the water down a lot more than just having it sit there. It would also prevent ice from building if the winter where actually cold, which would help cool the water since ice is like an insolating blanket on the water once it forms.

Mountain Creek & Hunter have a deal right now for season pass holders, which is strange since they are not owned by the same company. Maybe Bear Creek can make the same deal. (It is a discounted ticket). I agree, gondola = money making opportunities, the gondola at MC has more to do with downhill biking, the water park, and fall hiking, than the best way to move skiers. I think the most likely compensation will be a discount on next years pass. Thats what Park City did last year after all their lifts had such horrible maintenance issues half the mountain was closed for a long time.

Yea thats just painful. So now that all the trails have lights, and snowmaking, how long before they get baseball stadium type tarps to protect the snow during bad weather? Give it 80 years and we'll just have inflatable domes over the ski areas to keep them cold, forget natural snow (around here).

At this very moment, JFBB has the best park in our region, Mountain & Bear Creek are closed, Blue is closed, Camelback and Shawnee I don't even know if they are open, but they don't have parks worth thinking about. Hunter's park is worthless all the time. I was just in Mount Snow, it isn't half as good as JFBB was when I left and now I hear they are building on Boulder Park? Word is Killington isn't as good as JFBB either, we'll see what Papasteeze says when he heads up to VT and NH this weekend, but I think the best on the East title might stand for this week at least. Obviously when the cold comes back VT will top it, but right now, I can see that claim holding water.

JFBB > Mount Snow for sure. Quantity of features and quality of features. There are bigger and smaller features than the ones at Mount Snow, as well as similar sized ones. Coverage is the same. Flow is better at JFBB, and jib quality is higher at JFBB.

I agree the idea is a good one. In my opinion the wood is a good option. I think in our areas the trough for the snow would have to be deeper than that one because it gets tracked out over the course of a day. Plus it would cut down on the number of people riding over it, if the front is fully vertical that is a hard fall, a lot of people now ride over the lip because the other side is a ramp and they can ski down it. Plus, you could possible have the wood on the sides extend up beyond the snow level, which would prevent people from using them to go off the sides. If they are worried about the snow melting faster because can go under it, just make the wood part waterproof and fill it with water on snowmaking nights, it would freeze into an ice block with snow on top, keeping the snow cold. BUT, it wouldn't take compressed air, and it would take less grooming, meaning less energy costs, less grooming time, less reliance on weather. I don't see any disadvantage other than that it isn't as easy to take down if you have to regroom the park or plow out a jump.

Hey, I'm back, it was a great trip and I'll post a TR later. I wanted to post a summary of the park at Mount Snow because I know some people are heading up tomorrow and are looking for a park to use. Not sure how Stratton or Okemo are right now. The setup: Un Blanco Gulch is open, but NOT the full trail, there is no snow up top and there is an entrance halfway down, it enters from skiers right on the way down First feature, a mini kinked wall ride on the right hand side. It is basically 4 feet by 4 feet a little bit less than vertical, then another 4 x 4 foot platform at like a 45 degree angle so you can rock in and out. BUT, it is on skiers right, at the entrance. When you enter the park you come basically next to it and drop into the park on its transition. The only way to hit the wallride is to drop in fast, and ski up hill above the entrance as far as you can (which as the snow is melting, is getting lower and lower everyday). Taking a straight line from the highest bit of snow for the wall with speed wax gets you kink, but no more. I saw maybe 1 or 2 people try it other than me, I think everyone else knew it was too high to use. The next feature was a hip on the skiers right, on top of the hip was a picnic table. About 80% of the people were using the picnic table, which had a good setup and landing. The hip itself was kind of small, maybe like 20 feet long. Had ok kick but the ramp was shared with the picnic table so it wasn't nearly the kick you usually get out of a hip. That feature was kind of fun. A battleship box, really fun, good setup. There were 2 rails after that, double barrel about 12-15 feet long, easy. Small ramps. They were too close to the hip and to each other. If you hit it the picnic table you could slow down and do both, but if you hit the hip you had too much speed and had to do the second one only. A small step down jump, smaller than any at JF or BB, like 2 foot drop and 6 foot gap. Lots of people trying to learn spins on them. A tiny rainbow rail, 2 feet high, 8 feet long. A flat rail, 20 feet, double barrel. A propane tank setup on the side, kind of like the log at the Freedom Park at Big Boulder. A flat down rail that was setup kind of bad, the only feature I didn't hit in the park because it just looked sketchy. A table top with a wierd pipe bonk. Looked ok, some people were bonking I was just going over the top and using it as a jump. A step down jump that was like 3 feet step down, 10 foot gap. It was really close to the table but doable if you are comfortable, a big landing so you could launch it nicely, but since it was the only nice feature in the park, lots of bomb holes in the landing from too many people. I saw park crew once, cleaning the ramp on the last jump. Overall, not nearly as good as JFBB's park. I didn't have any urge to ride it since there were trails to be ridden and if I wanted park I wouldn't have driven up 4 hours for that one. A little overcrowded feature wise, they are too close together and I don't like that, and too many people because there is very little setup. Park crew was only visible once, but the maintenance wasn't an issue except the last jump, which is what they were working on. There was also a like mini intro park deal with a few rollers and four of 5 boxes, I didn't bother with that one, it was in their tubing park so it wasn't ride through and wasn't worth the hike over.

I have no doubt when the weather comes back, they will blow a lot of snow and you guys will get a decent park setup. My main question is whether or not Intrawest will blow snow on all the park trails now that hte season is shorter. Since the Grand Prix is gone, at what point do they can the Superpipe and use the snowmaking budget on Independance. If you compare the number of people on the super pipe to hte number of people riding through the main park, the money is much better spent on more snow to make more features in the main park. It takes a massive amount of snow to get open, and when it melts it becomes useless. At least if you build a jump and it melts, you can push it out to cover the trail and put up some rails.

Well whether your going to Quebec City or Tremblant, there will be no back country, there will be no powder, and there won't be a full mountain. Tremblant is doing ok, but realize their snowmaking is slow and steady because they are used to consistant cold temperatures. Southern Vermont mountains are used to making a lot of snow fast because they get smaller snow making windows, so actually Killy, Mount Snow, Stratton, Okemo, are better off than Tremblant. And even in a good season, there isn't much back country at Tremblant (although I found a bit the first week of January last year, don't expect that much this year, they had 3 feet the week before I came last season) Oh, and the girls who speak french are busted, but my hotel had a lot of Penn State coeds last year, and that was nice. But, there will be plenty of groomed trails, plenty of beer, and plenty of American college girls, so shift your expectations a little and you'll have a blast.

Heading up in 5 hours, (damn it I should sleep I'm violating the less sleep than time driving rule), will arrive for first chair, ride till close, check in. I'll post some TRs along the way. I have a camera, a laptop, and should have internet WiFi up there, so there should be a play by play. Too excited to sleep, even if they are only 1/3 open.

Not sure exactly. I'd post the question on Teton Gravity and EpicSki what Tahoe resorts have the best coverage because there is limited coverage this year.

Not exactly sure, I know there is a camp for older guys at Heavenly (South Shore Soldiers), but Tahoe sucks this year, and the vibe probably isn't what you are looking for. I don't know specifics, but in Utah check Brighton and Park City. In CO, Vail, Aspen/Snowmass, Breckenridge, Copper, Keystone are likely to. I'm going to Park City, so I've read a bunch and not seen anything like what you are talking about. I just named the mountains that come to mind when I think good parks. Breckenridge reportedly has the best park in CO.

Mount Snow is claiming the best park in Vermont right now. I'll be up there at 10am tomorrow to check it out, leaving in 7 hours what what. (Get to pick up my new bindings up there too!)

This forum is totally dead. Have all PASRers ditched Shawnee? I know theres basically nothing there open, but still, no one is even bitching about it.

Creek, which has barely been surviving on one trail, closed down today. I guess they wanted to stay open for the holiday week revenue. Right now, not sure when they're going to reopen. Weather doesn't look favorable and I don't believe what their snow report says about reopening thursday. I'm now 100% sure they will not open the whole mountain this year (Same as last year). I'd say its 50/50 if they open all 3 of the main park trails, I wouldn't hold my breath for it. Last season they had snow down on Indian and Khyber at this point in the year, and they were open. And they still didn't open Independence until late Feb.