Mt Snow Trip Reports 2019-2020

rickbolger

in my brief opportunity to ski on Sunday I saw what appeared to be a major malfunction with the Sunbrook lift. Entered the area from Outpost lift and the liftie was up top firing up some kind of diesel engine which blew out black smoke like those "rolling coal" rednecks.

By the time we got to the bottom it was still not moving, jumped on Beartrap. any news on that?

DrJeff

in my brief opportunity to ski on Sunday I saw what appeared to be a major malfunction with the Sunbrook lift. Entered the area from Outpost lift and the liftie was up top firing up some kind of diesel engine which blew out black smoke like those "rolling coal" rednecks.

By the time we got to the bottom it was still not moving, jumped on Beartrap. any news on that?

Multiple lifts were running, at least at times, on their diesel's, on Sunday, I know I heard the Bluebird and the Grand Summit's diesel's running. Pretty sure I remember hearing the diesel on the Challenger lift running as well.

Not sure if it was because of some power delivery issues with Green Mountain Power, or a planned event, as sometimes they will run the lifts on the diesel's for a while, just like you need to run any gas/diesel engine from time to time for the betterment of it's function....

rickbolger

while people sit and stew for 20 mins on the lift? I heard one patron at Sundance later who definitely did not enjoy the betterment!

DrJeff

while people sit and stew for 20 mins on the lift? I heard one patron at Sundance later who definitely did not enjoy the betterment!

Sunbrook may have been a mechanical situation (no idea honestly) The fact that they had multiple lifts running on diesel, was something that I noticed, to the point where it stuck in my head. Line speed on everything I rode on Sunday seemed normal to me. I'll let the lift mechanics and mountain ops do their thing, since they know what's going on, and how to run a lift in a safe fashion 1001 times than I do! ;)

rickbolger

FWIW I felt like Outpost, Beartrap, Tumbleweed running faster than normal, while Grand Summit seemed slooow as I watched the bluebird chairs moving noticeably past me

For whatever problems Mount Snow is having, their lift set up (usually) allows someone familiar with the hill to move around nicely and rapidly even on busy days. I noticed this in particular as I compared a very busy MLK Sunday at Mount Snow to a pretty busy Saturday (Feb 1st) at Okemo.

You get to the bottom of most places at MS, you have a choice. You get to the bottom of most places at Okemo and you're stuck.

DrJeff

FWIW I felt like Outpost, Beartrap, Tumbleweed running faster than normal, while Grand Summit seemed slooow as I watched the bluebird chairs moving noticeably past me

For whatever problems Mount Snow is having, their lift set up (usually) allows someone familiar with the hill to move around nicely and rapidly even on busy days. I noticed this in particular as I compared a very busy MLK Sunday at Mount Snow to a pretty busy Saturday (Feb 1st) at Okemo.

You get to the bottom of most places at MS, you have a choice. You get to the bottom of most places at Okemo and you're stuck.

As a Bluebird vs Grand Summit reference, the line speed on the Bluebird is about 100 feet/minute quicker than the line speed on the GSE, so if one is "lucky" enough to get a non stop ride on both, the Bluebird will get you to the top just under a minute quicker

jgreco

Got five runs between 3 and 4 yesterday. It was... quite firm. Firm enough that there were groomer tracks leftover at 3 and even after I skied over them. Looked like wet snow had been groomed early then set up hard. May have been better in the morning, IDK. We thought Beartrap may have softened with the sun on it all day, but no dice. Snowdancer was closed? Heard on the lift that North was even firmerererer.

Thursday morning report from 1800 ft: 3" of snow but sleeting when I left for the office at 6. Rain at the top of Woodford at 6:30.

DrJeff

Got five runs between 3 and 4 yesterday. It was... quite firm. Firm enough that there were groomer tracks leftover at 3 and even after I skied over them. Looked like wet snow had been groomed early then set up hard. May have been better in the morning, IDK. We thought Beartrap may have softened with the sun on it all day, but no dice. Snowdancer was closed? Heard on the lift that North was even firmerererer.

Thursday morning report from 1800 ft: 3" of snow but sleeting when I left for the office at 6. Rain at the top of Woodford at 6:30.

Yup, Snowdance, Snowdance Pitch and N.E. Time were listed in the snow report yesterday morning as going to be closed for the day for some grooming work.

Typically means that they were going to REALLY take the snow pack "apart" to get down past the what I'm guessing was a fairly significant frozen layer, push out some of the sizable whales that they made last week, and get the overall surface more consistent. When you're talking about a trail of that many acres, that's not a quick task, even for the group of 4 snowcats that typically do the majority of the grooming passes on the most main face trails each day

yardsale

2/9 afternoon shift. A tad icy.

Dipper

jgreco

5" of fluff in East Dover between 3 pm yesterday and 6 am this morning. Was still snowing when I left for the office :( Raining down in the valley.

yardsale

The thermometer caught up at the Mt. by 9:30. The top 2/3 stayed light enough - the bottom 1/3 did become sticky in the high traffic areas. The worst was the last 200 yds tracking to the main face lifts. North Face stayed lighter... but the best stuff was on the less traveled Main Face routes. The lifties at Carinthia kicked off the day almost a full 5 minutes early - nice gesture. My guess was 5" down low - which ended up as a compacted 3 - but seemed more like 7-8 higher up

Choke 9:15

Rope dropped on Cut Off around 11am. This trail section connecting Long John to Deer Run is almost never open - note it was the cut off on the "all" deer run before they eliminated the old Long John.. and most of the current long john above the nitro lift was deer run.

Uncles @ noon

Finished cooking the legs around 1pm. Too heavy below the South Bowl race shack. Currently 36(f) at 1900ft.

slatham

I'd call that score, especially this winter. Also another base builder. Hope p-type stays friendly on Thursday......

yardsale

I'd call that score, especially this winter. Also another base builder. Hope p-type stays friendly on Thursday......

agree - you called the earlier fri/sat event which was a net positive and this was some frosting on top. Here's for staying optimistic.

sugarloaf

I'm heading up there tomorrow with my son. Looks like a nice sunny day forecast for Wednesday.

yardsale

Perhaps stick to the groomed at first tomorrow. At 8:30pm it is currently 32(f) at the base and it got really warm today - even almost all they way up to the summit. It was 38(f) at the base when I quit around 2:30 today. They have already announced that Ridge, Uncles and Fallen Timbers will start the day closed. Not sure why on Ridge as that finally got fixed after days of death cookies? Fallen Timbers makes sense - that received a lot of snow blown in yesterday - more than any other trail I skied and they didn't groom it today. Yesterday, fallen timbers skied like a foot of snow had fallen on it.
Uncles makes a little sense, but the crust/pack on that usually breaks up quick. Coverage is real good now - but timing on the grooming overnight may be at play for tomorrow morning. At least the sun is supposed to be out tomorrow. Visibility has been tough the last couple of days. I'm heading away from the Mt tomorrow morning. Hope you have a good day with your son.

sugarloaf

Any idea what's wrong with the Canyon Quad. It's on mechanical hold tomorrow morning.

DrJeff

Any idea what's wrong with the Canyon Quad. It's on mechanical hold tomorrow morning.

Mechanical objects need maintenance from time to time is my hunch

Probably found something earlier this week they want 100% fixed before the probable BIG crowds this weekend

Sully

Any idea what's wrong with the Canyon Quad. It's on mechanical hold tomorrow morning.
Mechanical objects need maintenance from time to time is my hunch

Probably found something earlier this week they want 100% fixed before the probable BIG crowds this weekend

This is most likely, BUT it has been 9 years since the last lift was installed (Bluebird). Canyon and Nitro are both approaching 25 years old and Canyon has some high hours on it with bike park summer operations as well. Grand Summit is a 33 year old Yan rebuilt twice by Poma and suffering fairly long down times midseason since the last rebuild in 11/12. It’ll be interesting to see how that situation unfolds over the next five years. The day when you got a 40 year old detach quad next to an almost 20 year old bubble next to another 30 year old detach quad at one base area and yet another 30 year old detach quad over at Carinthia is not that far away.

sugarloaf

Packed powder conditions here today on Long John/Deer Run. 26F this morning at the base.

sugarloaf

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