Mt Snow Trip Reports 2020-2021

yardsale

I'm not in the club, clearly. Can you mention to your Mt Op's friend that some others who have some investments here in the valley wouldn't mind a little tickle on the @MountSnowOps thing. Right now, they have 846 followers, including me who wouldn't mind a heads up now and then. (of course, please don't mention the vail stinks thread - that may not help me out at all... or maybe it would). :)

ski_it

You catch more flies..er..pow.. with honey than vinegar ;)

DrJeff

yardsale;c-45285 wroteI'm not in the club, clearly. Can you mention to your Mt Op's friend that some others who have some investments here in the valley wouldn't mind a little tickle on the @MountSnowOps thing. Right now, they have 846 followers, including me who wouldn't mind a heads up now and then. (of course, please don't mention the vail stinks thread - that may not help me out at all... or maybe it would). :)

That Twitter feed is all run through the communications folks. Apparently the mountain ops folks are more than happy, and DO give the communications folks way more info than they put out there. However, for now at least, all of the communications about conditions/ops/etc, have to be run through the corporate communications designee, and not just posted up by those on the ground in mtn ops.

VERY frustrating for sure!

slatham

You guys do realize Mount Snow is now owned by a large bureacratic organization with centralized departments in Colorado?

yardsale

ski_it;c-45290 wroteYou catch more flies..er..pow.. with honey than vinegar ;)

12/10

So true ski_it. And, I have decided to take the attitude adjustment vaccine while I await that other vaccine.

Vail is good. They've done a good job in the lift corals. They are giving us skiing. They are making lots of snow. The views off the mountain top are still beautiful. The crisp air feels good to breath thru my mask that I've now used 5 days in a row. You contemplate during your lift ride because no one talks to you (if your skiing single)

Dr. Jeff had his mountain-op guy leave Chute whaled up for me. Not sure why I love to ski whales, but it is exhilarating for me. Maybe cause it is one of those rare runs in a season. So that was super fun and it skied well. Ridge rope drop at 10:45 was anticlimactic - chunky icy - but it was terrain expansion and that is good. Vail is good. Gulch used to give skiers a nice groomed lane skiers left but today it wasn't quite a lane - but certainly doable - so Vail is good there too. Not sure about MTN stock though.

Whales on Chute:

View that Vail bought:

DrJeff

For some water perspective with those whales. Let's say they were running the guns at a moderate flow rate of about 75 gallons a minute. Over the 100ish hour run they gave Chute, each of those whales has over 400k gallons of water in them!

Kind of gives some perspective about why if mtn ops can leave the whales alone to let some of the moisture in them drain/evaporate before pushing them out, and often then compacting all of that water content down into a more condensed mass, that you end up with a more enjoyable surface to ski/ride on!

yardsale

DrJeff;c-45331 wroteFor some water perspective with those whales. Let's say they were running the guns at a moderate flow rate of about 75 gallons a minute. Over the 100ish hour run they gave Chute, each of those whales has over 400k gallons of water in them!

Kind of gives some perspective about why if mtn ops can leave the whales alone to let some of the moisture in them drain/evaporate before pushing them out, and often then compacting all of that water content down into a more condensed mass, that you end up with a more enjoyable surface to ski/ride on!

Chute needed to drain. They were correct to let it sit and cure until noon yesterday. They were just wrong not to let me know the plan!

Kidding, obviously. I took the attitude adjustment vaccine. And in all honesty, the 3 whale runs I took today on Chute were some of my favorite east coast ski runs over the past 5 years or so. I'm a sad sack, I know.

yardsale

anatomy of 3 whale runs down Chute.

run 1 - ski the crest of the big whales and fill in the middles - vail helps you with the neon bamboo at the crest of each whale. These are like GS gates and you carve into the 60-70 degree downhill side of the whale. Secondary baby whales seem to fill in the middle and these are mere safety bumps helping to steer you into the next papa whale. This is the natural path to take.

run 2 - ski the far side of the whales - skiers right - powdery, but the natural flow tries to bring you back into the big whales. Simply a physics problem, you want to stay far skiers right but the slope and make up of the whales in the middle draw you back to the crests of them. You fight it - trying to stay along the far right tree line, but you realize it's better to just give in.

run 3- ski the near side of the whales - skiers left - like you do when a gun is running and you know it is a wet gun, you ski closest to it. But now, the guns are off and everyone else is skiing 20 feet above you. And, all those folks carving the actual whale above you are depositing shaved powder into your domain. This is the best, but is not sustainable... because Outpost lift towers and other things get in way here and there and you have to pull back up onto to the whale or go into the trees. You can lean back for a spell on this line but this one requires more attention than the other two. I think it might be the most rewarding, however.

yardsale

took the weekend off. Bar was set low today 12/14. But is was better than I thought. Run of the day... That lane skiers left down Gulch - tilled up sugar snow.

Guns turned on higher up starting around 1pm. Snowdance Pitch, Lodge, Nitro - probably others.

yardsale

12/15 & 12/16 - grooming improved things and snow making continued. Exception: the resurface and subsequent groom of Freefall was really rough.

Secondary connector trails Link, Somerset Rd, Drop got snowmaking and will be available soon. Sunbrook has snowmaking - Thanks Walt, Beartrap, Bear Paw.. And Plummet snowmaking coming on line tonight with snowmaking on NF.

Here's Lodge 48 hrs from the last pic.

ski_it

Ur killing me yardsale.. keep it coming!!

yardsale

taking up a little more bandwidth today.. 12/17/20

It doesn't really matter what the snowfall total ended at. It was enough.
It was not about laps, vertical or number of runs
It didn't matter that the Mt was understaffed today
It didn't matter that ropes weren't dropping fast enough - ropes were mere suggestions to many today
It didn't matter that the Northface was tracked out super quick.
And, if you remember, I did take my attitude adjustment vaccine, so I was good to go.

So, the Mt. was understaffed but the staff that was there was super friendly and trying their darndest... and it was only an issue at Bluebird and Canyon. Northface was no problem and nice to see snow makers acting as lifties over there. I spent 2 1/2 hours straight on Northface as the low angle terrain couldn't support the amount of snow. When I came back to the main face Uncles, Hop, Shootout had been added. Those runs were less tracked out at 2pm than expected so I beat on my legs a little longer.

Here's the proof.

Fallen Timbers.

Plummet

Challenger

Hop

rickbolger

oh my. thanks for the pics! wow

jgreco

Great recap, Yardsale. Busy today

Line for the ticket window when we bugged out at 10...

The red building is NOT the ticket window :s

jaytrem

OMG!!!!! That's insane!!!

newpylong

Screw that.

yardsale

I did not ski here today... but I heard a good portion of those waiting "thought" they could simply walk up and get a day ticket - so they clogged the process and were then turned away. Not a 1st hand report, so take it for what it is worth.

Chuckstah

yardsale;c-45487 wroteI did not ski here today... but I heard a good portion of those waiting "thought" they could simply walk up and get a day ticket - so they clogged the process and were then turned away. Not a 1st hand report, so take it for what it is worth.

That makes a lot of sense. A friend who skied today said there was basically no parking. Drove in circles for 20 minutes lbefore finally finding a spot around 10.

DrJeff

yardsale;c-45487 wroteI did not ski here today... but I heard a good portion of those waiting "thought" they could simply walk up and get a day ticket - so they clogged the process and were then turned away. Not a 1st hand report, so take it for what it is worth.

Fully believe that.

And my hunch is that between now and say MLK weekend, when the couple of times a year "masses" with their Epic passes just show up and head to the lifts, like they did in previous years, that the buzzer sound from the scanner, and then them having to be removed from the line after the lift queue operators explain things to them, is going to end up causing some empty chairs to go up and longer lines...

Amazingly enough, even with all the notifications around their Epic Passes online and then the numerous signage at the mountain, starting at the outer parking lots, many folks just don't pay any attention to the sizable efforts Vail Resorts have made to inform people of how this season will be with respect to day to day lift access...

ski_it

They probably don’t pay attention to State Quarantine Laws either. What no lit billboards on I-91 or Rt 9 with COVID, reservations, etc. warnings? What’s your guess on the percentage of outta staters that didn’t quarantine in that line?

It looks like most have their boots on so they must of known something? They probably just figured they’d be let on the mountain if they showed up. Who knows maybe they did. I know it’s different but last year they let many a failed Peak pass that went “bonk” get on. Myself included.

Hey you sure that’s not the line for the bathroom?

And on the parking, I thought they reduced the lot sizes to discourage a million people showing up without tickets, no? And there’s no Moover shuttles running, are there?

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