Mt Snow Trip Reports 2020-2021

yardsale

01/03/2021 , a better day lift-wise. The Holiday crowds went home. The snow set up. New snow tonight.

inversion at Northface this morning

yardsale

1/4/2021 A couple of inches of light snow over the groom made for a nice day. No wind - super comfy temps - holiday crowds gone.

NE Time

yardsale

1/7/2021 Another cool and breezy day in So VT. I was dressed appropriately today. Today, there was on going snow making all over.
At Carinthia, The Farm and Upper Fools Gold all day - they must have plans for a significant park build on Fools Gold. They also had one gun going at the top of the superpipe frame. If they are planning another wavy pipe, I call stupid. If they are so understaffed, the hours needed for that would be a resource suck.

On main face, day 3 or so of making snow on Committed. Also around 24+ hours ongoing on Ego Alley with 3 guns going at the race barn - one down Link, one angle pointed at Exhibition and the one fixed gun left on Upper Exhibition pointing up the hill. The strange snow making call is Upper Exhibition with 3 or 4 guns positioned just after the Lodge/Upper Ex junction with High Traverse and South Bowl... then with guns going down the skiers right of of Upper Lodge from the summit to that Upper Exhibition fork. Why? Why not just get South Bowl going? Is their plan to push snow down Upper Exhibition? Seems like another labor resource suck for a crappy upper exhibition trail option.

For today, conditions held up throughout the day. Fallen Timbers and Chute were my best choices. Lodge was also very good all day. I like how they are running Blue Bird with Grand Summit instead of Canyon - it spreads everyone out who are wanting to get to the same place.

Summit - with snow making down Lodge

Reservoir from Fallen Timbers

Milky Way

Ego Alley

newpylong

Upper Ex. is the same line as Ego that's why. They did have a "no more snowmaking on Upper Ex" (for largely fabricated reasons) for several years glad to see that changed. At least that run has character unlike most of the others on the front with snowmaking.

yardsale

newpylong;c-46045 wroteUpper Ex. is the same line as Ego that's why. They did have a "no more snowmaking on Upper Ex" (for largely fabricated reasons) for several years glad to see that changed. At least that run has character unlike most of the others on the front with snowmaking.

I was actually thinking of you as I looked at this because I remember you mentioning that they re/moved the fixed guns from Upper Ex to one of the Dippers (I think) after the installed pipes over there. So how do you think they fill in the portion of Upper Ex from High Traverse down to Link? Nothing is happening now. If Upper Ex was the goal, wouldn't they hook up guns the whole length without that gap?

newpylong

You would think so yep.

DrJeff

They're trying to get Ego, both the trail and potentially the lift, and Charlie's Chase ready for the race team for hopefully this weekend, atleast that was the impression I got from the weekend training plan e-mail that the Mount Snow Training Center sends out to it's athlete's/parents of athlete's each Wednesday.

And blowing snow around the top of Ego and Link, I think that maybe the primary motive, isn't the race kids, but getting the Ego lift in play, should we have another weekend high-speeds on hold for de-icing event like we had last week on multiple days, and they sure could of used the extra capacity in the main base area that Ego gives, as well as Ego makes it easier to move all around the mountain when the high-speeds are on hold. The start house at the top of Ego actually hasn't been allowed for use in 2 or 3 seasons, nor will it likely ever be used as that's no longer a trail they use for timed race events

Southbowl, even with all of the low E guns, is a still a significant resource effort snowmaking wise, especially in the mid section where they're using the ground base, tripod/sled mount Snowlogic guns, as those require some regular attention to make sure that they don't burry themselves.

Seems like a bunch of patching together pods (one often forgets that while some connector trails may not be the most exciting to ski/ride, they certainly have a significant purpose in moving one easier all around the mountain), ahead of MLK weekend next weekend is going on, with some targeted expansion. If the weather is favorable, will be interesting to see if they switch into more dedicated expansion mode and start working on the now relative few, snowmaking trails that have thus far seen little to no gun time this season, or keep doing to top dressing and base building on the core trails?

We could use another decent snowstorm or 2, and not have a monsoon soon there after!!

yardsale

Ego and Charlies should be ready for tomorrow if they groom it tonight without letting it sit. Snowmaking is still going on those today. Here is the snow making I'm talking about on Upper Ex. No snowmaking at all between tower 21 of GS and Link. Just this 100 yard portion of Upper Ex.

DrJeff

yardsale;c-46051 wroteEgo and Charlies should be ready for tomorrow if they groom it tonight without letting it sit. Snowmaking is still going on those today. Here is the snow making I'm talking about on Upper Ex. No snowmaking at all between tower 21 of GS and Link. Just this 100 yard portion of Upper Ex.

I can just about guarantee that the lift mechanics and lift ops folks are THRILLED that the that pipe along skiers left of that part of EX doesn't have running guns hooked up to it! Especially when they had the HKD towers set up there are few seasons ago. No way not to completely plaster the GSE when those were running ;)

lotsoskiing

It's been a loooong time since I skied the front side of MS. In the days of the Mt Snow downhill, South Bowl had two entrances. Looks like from this pic they let the east one grow in?

DrJeff

lotsoskiing;c-46053 wroteIt's been a loooong time since I skied the front side of MS. In the days of the Mt Snow downhill, South Bowl had two entrances. Looks like from this pic they let the east one grow in?

Yup, they had to let that grow in, in a swap with the USFS, for when they widened a trail (I believe it was when they combined the old Upper Canyon and Upper Overbrook to form what is now know as Cascade), although I could be wrong with where that land swap agreement with the USFS was for trail wise. Definitely was a "we'll give you back 2 acres if you allow us to cut down 2 acres" agreement type of thing in the past

ski_it

People still ski that "gladed" loop you can see when there is a lot of snow but it comes in from South Bowl.
That is strange why they are blowing that section below Lodge of Upper Ex. They didn't care about that trail last season and they never let you go to South Bowl that way because of the pipes. Maybe a stockpile to repair Lodge whenever?

newpylong

Jeff, you are one trail over. Upper Overbrook was not merged, it was abandoned in its entirely. The entrance was at the end of Committed on the left just before it merges with Cascade, you used to be able to notice the new tree growth. You likely can still see it on Google Earth. Sometime after the Canyon Quad went in and they merged Upper Choke and Upper Canyon - which is todays Cascade. They swapped Upper Overbrook along with the other side of the entrance of South Bowl witht he USFS.

Re: Upper Ex, that is odd if they don't finish it. Do they have no equipment running down lower? Re: the HKD towers, those were the wrong tool for the job. Vipers (tripods) are better suited for that trail due to the lift proximity. I believe that's in the picture but the pile is blocking it partially. That trail was one of my favorites, when it has snow that is.

DrJeff

newpylong;c-46072 wroteJeff, you are one trail over. Upper Overbrook was not merged, it was abandoned in its entirely. The entrance was at the end of Committed on the left just before it merges with Cascade, you used to be able to notice the new tree growth. You likely can still see it on Google Earth. Sometime after the Canyon Quad went in and they merged Upper Choke and Upper Canyon - which is todays Cascade. They swapped Upper Overbrook along with the other side of the entrance of South Bowl witht he USFS.

Re: Upper Ex, that is odd if they don't finish it. Do they have no equipment running down lower? Re: the HKD towers, those were the wrong tool for the job. Vipers (tripods) are better suited for that trail due to the lift proximity. I believe that's in the picture but the pile is blocking it partially. That trail was one of my favorites, when it has snow that is.

Heck, somedays I'm just lucky I can remember my own name, let alone the details of that swap now probably a good decade plus ago! :D

newpylong

One issue with working in ski area management is sometimes you pay more attention to useless stuff than skiing lol.

yardsale

1/8/2021 - I'm back in after a nice day. Bright blue sky, crisp with a little breeze in your face on GSE - no wind over on Northface. The wind over the last couple of days blew the snow off the hardwood trees leaving the icy coating from last Sat's ice event glistening in the bright sun.

As for snowmaking - South Bowl got turned on around noon time. Ego/Link and Charlies continue. One gun going on Yardsale for the past 36 hrs has a huge whale right in the middle of that. Guns as mentioned continuing on skiers right of Upper Lodge down to the 1st 100 yards of Upper Ex. Committed has been going 4 days now. There are guns going at the top and bottom of Ripcord. Guns turned off on Roller Coaster for a day now - I'm thinking they build that tonight for tomorrow opening. Not sure of the snowmaking over at Carinthia as I only skied Mineshaft - there was no snowmaking I could see on the upper parts of Carinthia so I suspect Fools Gold will be good to go. There also making snow on the tubing hill.

EDIT - I forgot - Little Dipper top to bottom snowmaking..

The conditions continue to improve and they are well positioned for a busy weekend with cooperating weather.

Icy trees off the GSE

Icy trees on the Northface

Snowmaking on Ripcord

Snowmaking on South Bowl

yardsale

I think this is a link to quick 16 sec vid on South Bowl / Upper Ex snow making

https://imgur.com/nhz4V4D

ciscokid

Very nice pictures yardsale

yardsale

1/9/2021 - AM Express allows me to get out on a busy Saturday for a spell. I went 7:30am until 10AM and really only waited once for 5 minutes on Bluebird at 8:10am and that was only because GSE opened 15 minutes late due to a tower sensor that went off. I then headed over to Northface and stayed there until I was ready to quit - both triples were ski on over there - and then opted for a Sunbrook / Bear Trap exit. Around 13,000 vert in 2 and 1/2 hours at Mt. Snow on a Saturday!

There was some sun early on - it disappeared - and then came back as I was wrapping it up:

They made an insane amount of snow on Committed. I think guns ran straight for 4 days plus on that. They must have a snow management plan for all that snow on that short trail section:

jgreco

Basically, ditto: 7:30-10. 2 front side laps then to north face until people trickled over there. Down to Bear Trap, grabbed a ride on Tumbleweed, then left. Run of the day, in my opinion, was Plummet, which we lapped a few times.

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