joshua_segal
newpylong;c-47873 wroteTold ya...
Uh-uh.
Today, Sat., Mar. 27 was superb. About half the mountain was open but primo spring skiing.
We should get most of the morning tomorrow before the rain arrives. Not a perfect end to CM's season, but OK.
Quietman
1st earned turns of the spring this evening. Another nice sunset, and freshly groomed trails for the ride down. Sad to see the snow going so quickly this week after the warmth.
joshua_segal
Mar. 28, 2021 - Sun.
Closing day.
Morning was good until about 10.
Then, it drizzled until noon.
After no guests for over an hour, they shut down the West Double at 1PM.
By 2:15, pretty much every fence, every sign and every rope was off the hill, leaving only bamboo with "trail closed" dots at the tops of closed trails.
I quit around 2:30.
By then, not including Patrol and employees, there were no more than half-a-dozen "real guests" on the mountain.
The skiing was quite good.
Quietman
Are they grooming for us who want to earn turns? From today's cam
tedede
Looks like they are retrieving park features from 1701 and lower CM Park.
It does make for a smoother ride if you need to run a snowmobile up the hill.
lotsoskiing
tedede;c-47914 wroteLooks like they are retrieving park features from 1701 and lower CM Park.
It does make for a smoother ride if you need to run a snowmobile up the hill.
Or pulling b-net from race trail
joshua_segal
lotsoskiing;c-47916 wrotetedede;c-47914 wroteLooks like they are retrieving park features from 1701 and lower CM Park.
It does make for a smoother ride if you need to run a snowmobile up the hill.
Or pulling b-net from race trail
The B-netting was gone a week ago.
lotsoskiing
joshua_segal;c-47919 wrotelotsoskiing;c-47916 wrotetedede;c-47914 wroteLooks like they are retrieving park features from 1701 and lower CM Park.
It does make for a smoother ride if you need to run a snowmobile up the hill.
Or pulling b-net from race trail
The B-netting was gone a week ago.
Thought I saw red along the trail from net flat on the ground.
NELSBEER
Does look like there is something there, but it is probably thin snow. I swept the trail at closing last night and there were no remnants of racing or patrol stuff left.
Interestingly the wind had sucked the moisture out of the surface by 5 pm and the trail, which had been OK earlier, felt (and looked) like a frozen rough sandbar underfoot.
Maybe they were just out joyriding on the groomer, there wasn't much left to clean up.
joshua_segal
Apr. 13, 2021 - Tues.
Last year at this time, there was still T2B on several paths down the mountain. Today, I managed to scrounge (with a little turfing) about 400' of continuous vertical starting at the lower racing shack start on Meteor to the bottom of the Rocket.
If there were no open areas, I suspect I'd make the best of it, but with lift-serviced skiing available at Killington for at least another month, I suspect today was my last CM skiing day of the 2020-1 season.
Quietman
I was up on Friday and it was not great then, and they've lost a lot since then. It will take a decent dump this Friday to convince me to give it another go.
Have fun at K!
joshua_segal
April 17, 2021- Sat.
It appears the the April storm dumped about 8" on CM, which had settled to about 6" by the time I got out on the hill today. It would have been fine had it been groomed or received some traffic. As it was, I rated it as unskiable. Skis sunk in deep and to get them out of the ruts was not easy.
It's melting fast and will probably be completely gone by Tuesday.
joshua_segal
Apr. 19, 2021 - Tues.
To my surprise, Meteor from the racing-start shack to Mountain Rd. was nice buttery snow with a reasonable base remaining. (about 250' of vertical)
But of greater interest to this group might be what I found on the edge of Meteor and I included it
In a bygone era, lights were screwed into trees. The tree this was hanging on died and it was on the ground. It is one of the lights dating back 30+ years prior to the closing of CM in 1990.
NewEnglandSkier13
Interesting find!
Many areas still use lights like these and many areas around here still have lights in trees.
joshua_segal
NewEnglandSkier13;c-48255 wroteInteresting find!
Many areas still use lights like these and many areas around here still have lights in trees.
I know that, but I don't think they are installing new ones on trees.
NewEnglandSkier13
joshua_segal;c-48256 wroteNewEnglandSkier13;c-48255 wroteInteresting find!
Many areas still use lights like these and many areas around here still have lights in trees.
I know that, but I don't think they are installing new ones on trees.
Lost Valley installed new LED lights over the past few years, and most are actually on trees. Here's Big Buck with a lot of the new lights, almost all mounted on trees.
But yes, in most cases new lights are usually installed on poles.
newpylong
Here in NH there is nothing in the electrical code per se that says you can't install them in trees, but it was frowned upon. We didn't really have any other option, we had no funds to have Maine Blasting & Drilling come sink post holes in all the ledge for us, then install poles, and re-wire everything. But, that would be the right way to do it. We wasted a lot of time dealing with relocating broken lights due to tree deterioration. Nearly everyday you would come down the mtn and there would be a light that was laying on the ground, bracket still attached, tree rotted, etc.
That looks identical to a lot of the fixtures still on the hill from when WB put in night skiing in the 80s. They are 277/4801PH Sodium or Metal Halide fixtures, and they weight an absolute ton. We had to rope them up and down trees. Impossible to change out ballast once they're up, if they broke we left them up there and put in an LED right below it.
joshua_segal
I heard from a reliable source that CM was just short of 100K skier visits this season. If true, that's pretty impressive since they lost about 13K skier visits due to the 90% drop in after-school programs. While the 13K visits are a great statistic, the margins on those programs are very small compared with the retail customers that replaced them.
NELSBEER
I heard just short of 100,000 visits as well, might have been over if everyone was scanned on every lift. My grandkids frequently evade 'capture' by skiing carpet and West most of the time.
Losing the school traffic may not seem much of a direct loss but it does help cover weekday operating expenses and what those kids spend in the cafeteria & store is fairly significant. Likewise the adult racing leagues support the food & beverage area disproportionately mid-week.
Next season it will be interesting to see how many people show up weekends with no reservations required. Will they limit 'day of' and on-line ticket sales, maybe give preferred parking to car pools?
rickbolger
NELSBEER;c-48335 wrote
Next season it will be interesting to see how many people show up weekends with no reservations required. Will they limit 'day of' and on-line ticket sales, maybe give preferred parking to car pools?
Curious, was this ever an issue in years past (pre-Epic pass)? Too many people at Crotched?
