Mt Snow Trip Reports 2019-2020

ski_it

Why they close NF in the afternoon today?

Chuckstah

Bluebird was on hold. No way to get there from what I understand. Only heavy metal ran.

DrJeff

Why they close NF in the afternoon today?

From what my friends who were up there yesterday said, icing + wind wasn't mountain ops friends for a good chunk of yesterday...

Some good "base snow" for sure!

Chuckstah

Today was a great late March spring day at Mt Snow. Everything, except a couple of usual spots like upper parts of Cascade and Freefall were prime spring skiing. Nitro is still skiing great and featureless. Wish I could make it again early tomorrow before we have to pay the price for spring in November.

jgreco

Nitro quad broke down after 4 chairs had loaded this morning. They got Heavy Metal open around 9:45. By the time we got over to the main base there were big lines on the bubble and two quads. Quiet on North face in the morning. Nitro reopened around 10:30/11(?). Back to lap Nitro fluffy snow gun snow later in the day. Looked like a mid-winter crowd for most of the day with a lot of lift tickets on jackets.

jgreco

21" settled on the deck in East Dover at noon. Bubble was on wind hold this morning, Canyon and Challenger running (and Nitro). Challenger trail was deep! And, I believe, all natural. Chopped up by the time we got to it but could snag an untracked turn every other turn first run. They dropped some ropes on the North Face this morning, and I assume other areas.

Challenger line was chaotic. No queue... what's Mount Snow got against singles lines? No singles on Canyon or Challenger. Lots of chairs going up with 1 and 2 people.

yardsale

Back today 12/06 for more. Superb day. Light snow in the morning to more steady snow by noon time. One of those days were conditions improved as the time ticked by. Easy enough to praise the North Face trails, Ridge, Snowdance, Long John etc. But some of my favorite natural trails on the main face were in great shape, Uncles, One More Time, Shootout, Hop - plenty of coverage and zero scratch. Classic New England trails skiing them on mother nature's snow on conditions like this is a rarity.

Uncles my wife in pink further down the hill loved Uncles today

One More Time

Shootout - and the dump out into the lower part of SouthBowl was all natural ungroomed goodness too

ski_it

Oh man sounds great

DrJeff

It's like Western style soft pack, but with WAY more Oxygen to breathe at Mount Snow now!!

yardsale

they predicted the crowd apocalypse at Mt Snow today. Close.
The info being bantered about was: new snow of 23" followed by another 4" followed by another 5" yesterday followed by seasonal youth groups starting today, followed by the continued late (9am) early season opening, followed by Epic pass swell, etc etc etc.

I went out at 9am and started at Carinthia. (one gold star for me). Skiing solo this AM logged 6 runs between 9 and 10am, all at Carinthia (2nd gold star). Then as folks began to arrive, another 4 runs between 10ish and 11 - all at Carinthia. Everything was good - until about 11:08am when I swished into the singles line yet again and while waiting watched groups of 3, 2, 3, 1, 2, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1, 3, 2, 4, 2, 3 ride up Nitro while the coral bulged at the seams. My favorite liftie was on break and all hell broke loose. It all came to a crashing halt. Bummer.

Why did I stay at Carinthia all morning (and into afternoon)? Upper Fools Gold with the new snow making on it - sking some whales in the bright morning sun - check. Inferno - no features on it, new snowmaking over cord and no one it - check. Open Mineshaft late morning to nice light powder over man made - check. Prospector Park (skiers left) to Iron Run with no traffic - check. ROTD Mineshaft to Inferno for 1000 vert of fun with light skier traffic on a busy Mt Snow saturday. What a contrast to yesterday when I was enjoying the natural trails on the main face. C'est la vie.

My wife joined me at 11:30 for what ended up being only a couple of runs. Only one of which we ventured away from Carinthia. Called it a day just before 1pm.

This was bit of an experiment today for me - skiing almost exclusively at Carinthia. It worked, but mainly (for me) because they had multiple runs with no features (Inferno, mineshaft, upper fools golds). BTW, Narrow Gauge and Rusty Nail looked completely skiable. I don't poach anymore. I should reconsider.

"upper" Inferno

"lower" inferno

mine shaft

newpylong

I used to spend a lot of time at Carinthia pre-park. Iron Run is one of my favorites.

DrJeff

they predicted the crowd apocalypse at Mt Snow today. Close.
The info being bantered about was: new snow of 23" followed by another 4" followed by another 5" yesterday followed by seasonal youth groups starting today, followed by the continued late (9am) early season opening, followed by Epic pass swell, etc etc etc.

I went out at 9am and started at Carinthia. (one gold star for me). Skiing solo this AM logged 6 runs between 9 and 10am, all at Carinthia (2nd gold star). Then as folks began to arrive, another 4 runs between 10ish and 11 - all at Carinthia. Everything was good - until about 11:08am when I swished into the singles line yet again and while waiting watched groups of 3, 2, 3, 1, 2, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1, 3, 2, 4, 2, 3 ride up Nitro while the coral bulged at the seams. My favorite liftie was on break and all hell broke loose. It all came to a crashing halt. Bummer.

Why did I stay at Carinthia all morning (and into afternoon)? Upper Fools Gold with the new snow making on it - sking some whales in the bright morning sun - check. Inferno - no features on it, new snowmaking over cord and no one it - check. Open Mineshaft late morning to nice light powder over man made - check. Prospector Park (skiers left) to Iron Run with no traffic - check. ROTD Mineshaft to Inferno for 1000 vert of fun with light skier traffic on a busy Mt Snow saturday. What a contrast to yesterday when I was enjoying the natural trails on the main face. C'est la vie.

My wife joined me at 11:30 for what ended up being only a couple of runs. Only one of which we ventured away from Carinthia. Called it a day just before 1pm.

This was bit of an experiment today for me - skiing almost exclusively at Carinthia. It worked, but mainly (for me) because they had multiple runs with no features (Inferno, mineshaft, upper fools golds). BTW, Narrow Gauge and Rusty Nail looked completely skiable. I don't poach anymore. I should reconsider.

"upper" Inferno

"lower" inferno

mine shaft

Just wait until next weekend when ALL of the seasonal programs start!! Today was just the Alpine race and snowboard and park skiing and mogul groups.. next week the typically 150+ kids development program (Devo) starts!!

8AM next week will be nice. The Moover I was on hit a line of traffic at the North entrance at 8:30 that was all the way out to route 100 waiting for parking spaces!!

Bluebird all morning actually wasn't nearly as crazy as I thought it would be. Had 1 person in my group of friends who was on her 2nd day out on a new hip, so we were cruising the Bluebird and socializing on this great day! Never had more than a 10 minute line on the BB, having both Canyon and GSE spinning at the opening bell helped get people up and out of the base area onto all of that soft snow spread out over all the open acreage!

yardsale

DrJ, any thoughts on the retry/relaunch of the reconfig of the Bluebird coral. They tied it last year a couple of times. Didn't it back up into the Canyon coral with this setup? If it failed last year, not sure why they think it will be any different now.

DrJeff

DrJ, any thoughts on the retry/relaunch of the reconfig of the Bluebird coral. They tied it last year a couple of times. Didn't it back up into the Canyon coral with this setup? If it failed last year, not sure why they think it will be any different now.

No idea as to why they went "Northside only" this weekend.. Seemed to work OK. Biggest lift ops issue I saw was some of the new seasonal workers either taking too long to scan passes and/or not being authoritative/loud enough when pairing folks up and empty/not full chairs going up. Basically the usual thing that happens every year about this time....

Curious to see if it's Northside only next week or North and South sides??

ski_it

I don't like it. The singles enter so close to the U-turn it's hard to see who's with who.

jgreco

while waiting watched groups of 3, 2, 3, 1, 2, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1, 3, 2, 4, 2, 3 ride up Nitro while the coral bulged at the seams.

Why is the line management so bad? Other ski areas with similar lifts don't have a problem. I'm sure the U on BB doesn't help. I saw multiple empty chairs go up on our one Nitro ride Saturday. The ticket scanner/line manager couldnt get people in the main queue fast enough.

They need to draft the guy who was managing the main quad line at Windham a couple years ago. Drill Seargent! That line moved! And every lift was full.

ski_it

I saw like one local liftie the rest were new to me. Jim (I think) when he's out in the queue runs a tight ship. Maybe they were getting a short respite before haut season or letting the new crews figure it out their own or they have the flu or....?
I guess with that configuration it was more of a C-Turn than the normal C-Turn, straightaway to a U-Turn.

I think I got scanned twice. Good thing. We upgraded & no new pass yet. They said 3-4 weeks. So both times it went "BONK-K-K" but the liftie didn't care. Mentioned it to someone on a lift & they said that Peak-Epic expects you to go get a day ticket everyday.

What they need is an attendant at the load point /gates. Not someone who doesn't give two bleeps standing way across the liftline where they can say or do nothing. Then they need an exit line. "What you don't want to load with that other person or group? Then get out of line and go back to the end of the queue & try again."

jgreco

I think I got scanned twice. Good thing. We upgraded & no new pass yet. They said 3-4 weeks. So both times it went "BONK-K-K" but the liftie didn't care. Mentioned it to someone on a lift & they said that Peak-Epic expects you to go get a day ticket everyday.

We ended up making a trip to Sunapee pre-season to get our Epic Passes printed, since when upgrading on the phone, they said it could be mid-December before we got them (this was early-November).

Jim (I think) when he's out in the queue runs a tight ship.

Is he usually on BB? I'm new to Mount Snow. There's a gentleman on BB who does a great job with the queue but then after people get past him, it becomes chaos with the singles jumping in and ticket scanners slowing down individuals from groups. Sorry to complain, I don't have an immediate answer, just that there are places that do it better. They scan on Ursa at Stratton and manage to send up full chairs most of the time. No U in the approach and both singles lines are on the right. They also have more staff working those lines, so it's costly.

ski_it

So Sunapee is printing passes? Good to know. I was thinking of doing same either there or Okemo.

He's been there 365 in past years but in season doesn't work the line all the time. They usually have 3-4 in the queue & one in the pit. You'd think would that be enough.
The rest of the staff should be there next weekend along with everyone else....

jgreco

Sorry, yeh Okemo prints too... and Stowe. When we got ours, Okemo was closed, and Sunapee had a ski swap so their ticket office just happened to be open. Worth the 3 hr round trip (for us to Sunapee) to not have to go to the ticket window every time (we sneak in lunch runs midweek and the ticket office would cut into that time significantly).

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