I did a day at Okemo in March and the conditions were deplorable.

my lurker .02

Abe Froman wrote:

I did a day at Okemo in March and the conditions were deplorable. my lurker .02

Why must the Sausuge King of Chicago lurk? Why God why??!!

My work. I work all spring, summer, fall so I can take my winters off....I work outdoors and lurk at night.

From what I see with the coverage at Sugarbush is that it all adds up in a sense at least on the core trails to be every bit as much snow as anybody else makes in a given season.

As of (Late March)

Last year, their was a dead consistant base top to bottom on Organginder, Jester, and Upper Downspout (lower was good, but thin in a few spots)

The traverse, over to Spring Fling was also good, and Stiens and Ripcord had plenty of snow on them.

The one area where the coverege was so so, was Gatehouse, as the the snow allready had mud tilled up into it by the end of March.

Birch Run up on North Lynx, had good cover for the most part, except twords the bottom.


At Mt Ellen, FIS had as much snow on it as it ever does, Upper Rimrun, and Elbow were great, and Rimrun was good for the most part, but did have some thinn spots.

Cruiser, and Strait Shot had great cover.

North star, Inverness, and the Cliffs were getting real thin.

So as far as increasing capacity, and spending more money on snowmaking would only increese pass and ticket prices.

What makes sense, is to upgrade all the guns to Low E as to make more of the compressed air resources, and Increase the capacity for any given window of operations, so that it would be possible to make more snow when it is most economical to do so, and to get more terrain open faster early on.

I think what would make sense at North, would be to have a system that could blow top to bottom, and estabilish a base very quickly at the top, provided good temperatures, Top to bottom arround thanks giving would be a great thing as it would keep the crowds spread out.

Although it all comes down to what is economical to do so, and I feel pretty confident that Win and SV know what is economical and feasible to do.

I think what I would like to see is with Sugarbush having Vermonts most effecient snowmaking system, and operations.
Low E guns, and the capicity to make the best of the coldest, dryest weather.

A few years out when the mountain has digested the costs of the current base expansion and perhaps the next phase or two I think SB definitely needs to look at expanding its snowmaking capacity. They need a bit more uphill pumping capacity and more over, a good sized reservoir to draw from. Nearly every mtn in the northeast has a decent reservoir, with the big players like okemo and now stowe with 110M+ gallon systems (and kmart has woodward). without the reservoirs many mtns run out of water during long cold snaps like the one we are about to have starting this friday night (whew-who!).

Don't get me wrong, I am not, under any circumstances, advocating that sugarbush blow icy rock candy all over the mtn like they do in southern VT. In fact, I DON"T think they should expand coverage (castlerock connection notwithstanding).

More uphill capacity and more H2O would allow them to open the mountain faster at the beginning of the season and recover from meltdowns faster mid season. Mid season meltdown recovery is paramount, particularly from xmas through late feb. You want to be able to resurface your iced over trails ASAP, more capacity gets that job done faster. Say what you want able Okemo's terrain (boring), they do a marvelous job recovering from meltdowns. And for that (and several other reasons), they have been rewarded with a dedicated following.

So I think arc1's point has SOME validity in that SB is now offering big time real estate and with that comes higher snowmaking expectations from that crowd. I think Win and team are up for the challenge. I'm sure they intend to squeeze all that they can out of what they have.

**************************************************************
Warning you are about to enter fantasy land with the remainder of this post. Industry people lurking on this board are welcome to help correct me with my figures

I don't know these figures with certainty, but lets say that the average low-e gun converts 60 gallons per minute at 15 degrees. Lets say you have enormous uphill capacity, something like 10k gallons per minute (which is probably way too much for SB, but about what Okemo has). At 10k per minute one could run 166 guns simultaneously if you are using 60 gallons per gun (on average). Consider the average gun is spaced 100ft apart (is this too close or too far, someone please help) then you could reach 3.14 miles of terrain a night. Now one more step, if your Okemo or Kmart with 50+ miles of terrain with snowmaking coverage you are going to need allot of water. In this hypothetical system with a 110M gallon pond you could blow snow for 7.63 days straight.

There is another measure of a snowmaking system; acre feet per hr. I believe it takes approximately 200,000 gallons of water (depending on the snow quality one seeks) to cover 1 acre with 1 ft of snow. Therefore, with 110M gallons, you could cover 550 acres with 1 ft of snow. If the average trail is 80ft wide, then the average trail acre is 544.5 ft long (43650/80), which in turn means you could convert that 110M gallons into 56.7 miles of terrain (550 acres X 544.5 =299,475 / 5280) in just 7.63 days. Of course, 1ft for average coverage is a little too thin for early season, but about right for those mid season meltdown recoveries.

okay, I'm sure I have made some mistakes, so fire away. -cheers

ps - I can think of one problem, no mtn crew, no matter how talented, can shutdown/move/start up 166 guns around 18 times without interruption over 7.63 days. I guess that is why, in part, mtns have so many extra guns.

random_ski_guy wrote:

************************************************************** Warning you are about to enter fantasy land with the remainder of this post. Industry people lurking on this board are welcome to help correct me with my figures I don't know these figures with certainty, but lets say that the average low-e gun converts 60 gallons per minute at 15 degrees. Lets say you have enormous uphill capacity, something like 10k gallons per minute (which is probably way too much for SB, but about what Okemo has). At 10k per minute one could run 166 guns simultaneously if you are using 60 gallons per gun (on average). Consider the average gun is spaced 100ft apart (is this too close or too far, someone please help) then you could reach 3.14 miles of terrain a night. Now one more step, if your Okemo or Kmart with 50+ miles of terrain with snowmaking coverage you are going to need allot of water. In this hypothetical system with a 110M gallon pond you could blow snow for 7.63 days straight. There is another measure of a snowmaking system; acre feet per hr. I believe it takes approximately 200,000 gallons of water (depending on the snow quality one seeks) to cover 1 acre with 1 ft of snow. Therefore, with 110M gallons, you could cover 550 acres with 1 ft of snow. If the average trail is 80ft wide, then the average trail acre is 544.5 ft long (43650/80), which in turn means you could convert that 110M gallons into 56.7 miles of terrain (550 acres X 544.5 =299,475 / 5280) in just 7.63 days. Of course, 1ft for average coverage is a little too thin for early season, but about right for those mid season meltdown recoveries. okay, I'm sure I have made some mistakes, so fire away. -cheers ps - I can think of one problem, no mtn crew, no matter how talented, can shutdown/move/start up 166 guns around 18 times without interruption over 7.63 days. I guess that is why, in part, mtns have so many extra guns.

I am a confused simpleton. Where do you get your information? Are the figures industry accurate or arguments sake? Maybe the industry lurkers will chime in....BTW, I stunk @ physics in high school!

lets just say that i once spent a my three week college winter break between semesters blowing snow as part of the night crew at a ski area in the berkshires. i also spent a summer as an intern many years ago in NH for one of the leading design/land use planning/engineering/consulting firms in the ski industry. some of my figures come from that experience, others from factoids collected over the years from industry people and a few from the internet.

i'm no physics expert, just a ski dork. too bad that name is already taken on the AZ.

Wow, that's pretty impressive. I'm no snowmaking expert by any means but a couple of problems in your senerio jumped out at me. What do you do if your power supply to run the system is not unlimited? Electricity doesn't grow on trees.

After 7.63 days and you drain the water supply how do you replenish 110m gallons in the pond to make snow the next day or the next week? Vermont has extremely tight restrictions regarding taking water out the Mad River mostly having to do with waterlife habitat so it would be some time to replenish the pond depending on the weather. I remember one winter where the pond never got filled up and that was when it was 60m gal.

You obviously know the Bush pretty well in that you mentioned the problems with the Castlerock Connection.

I've pretty much stayed out of this as much of it requires knowledge and memory. Both of which I seem to be short on. But I do know a few things.

First of all, the big problem we had last year is the same problem we have now. (Can't believe the mountain hasn't figured a way around this in a whole year! ) It is too warm.

Don't matter how much up or downhill capacity you have when the temps hit 40°... you're kinda sol.

If memory serves me right, the new guns are more particular as to temperature than the old ones. They are slightly less efficient and their quality is not as good when the temps are in the high 20s and low 30s, but are demonstratively better as the temps get lower.

The other thing I know is most of the new-guns are mounted on towers. They're already in place, and if you had the chance to run them when tey were in use at good temps, last year, you know they can put out the nicest sweet powder. I found them making real good stuff on Ripcord, Stein's, Snowball and Pushover, last season. Other trails have them, but I remember staying under the guns for multiple runs on these trails, last season. Sweeeeet!

random_ski_guy wrote:

lets just say that i once spent a my three week college winter break between semesters blowing snow as part of the night crew at a ski area in the berkshires. i also spent a summer as an intern many years ago in NH for one of the leading design/land use planning/engineering/consulting firms in the ski industry. some of my figures come from that experience, others from factoids collected over the years from industry people and a few from the internet. i'm no physics expert, just a ski dork. too bad that name is already taken on the AZ.

I was jsut curious about the factoids. I was wondering how you came up with the #'s. I figured you either knew what you were talking about or were crazy like my physics teacher! He always said "everything in life is related to physics".....I am scared for life!

Perhaps my estimate of the amount of water needed per acre ft of snow is off. Or Sundary River is just being its old ASC self. If you take their stated GPM and multiple it by 60 minutes = 540,000 gallons per hr and divide that by 4.06 (their claimed acre foot per hr capacity) then you get a water usage per acre ft of snow of 133,000. I think that is a little low on the snow density. From what I have scene its typically around 150k to 200k.

Below are their snowmaking stats per their website.

http://www.sundayriver.com/mountainstatistics.html

SNOWMAKING:
Terrain Coverage 92%
Water Capacity 9,000 gallons per minute
Air Capacity 60,000 cubic feet per minute @ 150 p.s.i.
Snowmaking capacity 4.06 acre feet per hour
Snowmaking arsenal 1,570 guns
Miles of pipe in system (approximate) 72
Miles of hose in system (approximate) 30

Because I feel bad posting up their stats on the SkiMRV chatboard, let me also point out that Sunday River absolutely must have this manmoth system because it gets about 100 less inches a year of the natural white gold than Sugarbush.

Everything is related to physics. We are nothing but a bunch (A very large bunch) of atoms.

Actually, we are space. Want to hear a very interesting program about it? Radio Lab

Extremely interesting, as are others in their series.

Nothing on snowmaking tho... yet.

SRO,

Regarding the power shortage, most mtns rent generators for the season. They are loud and dirty...and I am sure no ski area operator is very happy to have to do this.

Regarding the water supply, once it is depleted you might not ever get it fully refilled until after the season, but having that reserve to use one or two times is better than where you are now without it. Plus most mountains divert a portion of their runoff back to their resevoir, so when you get that nasty three day warm up, your pond is refilling with your melting snowbase. One of the chief purposes of a reservoir is to circumvent the water withdrawl limitations, particularly in winter when the water is needed, that most state agencies have on mtn streams these days. I could never imagine the state allowing much, if any, water withdraw from the Mad River for SB. That is why you need the reservoir.

Richie, completly diverging from the subject matter, care to elborate on why you have fancied yourself as Richie Tenenbaum? The Royal Tenenbaums is a wild movie. So memorable, so original. I need to see it again, its been a while. Like Tin's Borat, its a great avatar imagine.

I'm a quietly heart broken tennis player/freeheeler! I gave up tennis to spend more time skiing....really. It's not like I took my shoes off during a match to sit down and have a meltdown or anything....geesh!

I am also a big fan of Wes Anderson and the Wilson bros. writing/directing.

BTW, T.W. (not to be confused with Tiger Woods) was using the Borat avitar long b4 the movie..