All the Northeast Ski Areas controlled by Vail, with the exception of Crotched & Mount Sunapee, appear on their webcams to be making snow when they can. All are saying "we look forward to seeing you as soon as possible", there is also an undercurrent concerning uphill travel...
- Peak put a reasonably robust snowmaking system into Wildcat a few years ago, based on past performance Wildcat should have enough snow to have one or two trails ready top to bottom by weeks end as well as a few extra segments.
- Last year Mount Snow's recently completed West Lake project showed off its ability to move a lot of product by having about 14 trails open by Thanksgiving. Benefits of humongous new pumping stations and the Peak practice of having at least one Fan Gun trail servicing each main mountain lift.
- Stowe has been making snow for quite a while reportedly but has a somewhat higher standard for trail count & surfaces to open.
- Even Attitash shows signs of snowmaking, it starts later than Wildcat.
It looks like they may be playing their cards close to their chests & planning to open enough terrain at once, at enough areas, to avoid crushing crowds out of the starting gate. An announcement giving a day or 2 warning could yield a very satisfying experience for those that are there to enjoy it. Keep watching the websites!
FLASH!
The Crotched snowmaking system is reportedly coming on line tonight (Tuesday). The weather conditions are too good to ignore.
We'll see how much gets laid down since scheduled opening day is still 2 weeks off.
When everything is working it has the power to empty the pond in 2 1/2 days. Once in the very early years they turned on the guns on Thursday night and opened Top to Bottom on Saturday morning. Rick, the food service manager, had to run to town & buy food/drink to cover that first weekend.
