I was surprised that they have 1500+ guns since I thought kmart had 1200 guns, the most in the east.

Okay, so there is a tennis connection. Kool. Aside from not having a breakdown like Richie T, I suppose its also safe to assume that you don't sport the same outfit everyday (including headband) like all the characters in Royal T too.

About T.W., that's what makes his imagine so great, the fact that he beat the movie by a full year. Niiiice.

ski_resort_observer wrote:

Regarding "Someday Bigger" and their stats lets put it this way. Their vertical rise of 2340 is definately smoke and mirrors. 15 years ago they had 1500 vert, 10 years ago it grew to 1700, now it's 2340. The mountains didn't grow, they just expanded mostly horizontaly up and down the ridge. I'm not bashing SR, know alot of people who love the place and they do make alot of snow just pointing out why SR is not a good comparison. They really only have a skiable vert of about 1500 vs 2400-2600 for the Bush so uphill capacity should be alot less. I was surprised that they have 1500+ guns since I thought kmart had 1200 guns, the most in the east.

I was going to bring this up earlier when I mentioned JH being closed.....JH has 4,139' of vert. Killington claims 3,050'. What gives??? I spent a couple seasons in Jackson & there is no way it only has 1,089' vet on K....someone is embelishing

Regarding my wardrobe, I have been known to wear the same baselayer & socks for a week....pee-eww!

Killington's vert is calculated from the tippy top of the radio tower up on Catwalk all the way down to the ottawechee river (spelling help) down below the starship gondola base. At kmart, you mostly ski in 1000 to 1650ft vt intervals, not the 4100ft tram intervals at JH. For instance, i think the vert between the killington base lodge and summit (k-1 gondola) is about 1650ft vertical (2550 base, 4200ft summit.) Snowdon has 1100 vertical and the Superstar chair about 1250ft.

Say what you want about your base layer, I'll be looking for a ratty early 80s era headband on a feelheel skier (free the heel, free the mind) next time I'm at the 'bush.

freeheel_skier wrote:

ski_resort_observer wrote: Regarding "Someday Bigger" and their stats lets put it this way. Their vertical rise of 2340 is definately smoke and mirrors. 15 years ago they had 1500 vert, 10 years ago it grew to 1700, now it's 2340. The mountains didn't grow, they just expanded mostly horizontaly up and down the ridge. I'm not bashing SR, know alot of people who love the place and they do make alot of snow just pointing out why SR is not a good comparison. They really only have a skiable vert of about 1500 vs 2400-2600 for the Bush so uphill capacity should be alot less. I was surprised that they have 1500+ guns since I thought kmart had 1200 guns, the most in the east. I was going to bring this up earlier when I mentioned JH being closed.....JH has 4,139' of vert. Killington claims 3,050'. What gives??? I spent a couple seasons in Jackson & there is no way it only has 1,089' vet on K....someone is embelishing Regarding my wardrobe, I have been known to wear the same baselayer & socks for a week....pee-eww!

Disclaimer: I deleted the vert thing in my original post regarding SR cause the more I thought about it I figured that my point was wrong in that due to their large size horizontily makes up for lack of true vert in uphill capacity needs.

You get the big vert at kmart only if you ski all the way down to the bottom of the Skye lift on Rt 4 which very few would do unless your returning to your parked car. For SR you get the big vert if you traverse all the way from the top of the Oz lift all the way down to the bottom of White Cap. I actually did this the last time I was there...it was way long, lots of poling but the worst part was crossing in the middle of dozens of busy trails. Lots of resorts have done this, including the Loaf by squeezing out another 300' by putting a lift down the hill into the condo area from the base.

Geeze SRO, I don't think your point about Someday Bigger was off base. Sure, the vertical is technically there and of course they are going to boast of it, but your point is still valid. Nobody really ski's their full vert with much enjoyment. Like Kmart, you ski mostly in 1000-1500 vert intervals. This is somewhat true at SB, but at least you can ski all 2400 or 2600 on two lift rides without much or any poling.

random_ski_guy wrote:

Geeze SRO, I don't think your point about Someday Bigger was off base. Sure, the vertical is technically there and of course they are going to boast of it, but your point is still valid. Nobody really ski's their full vert with much enjoyment. Like Kmart, you ski mostly in 1000-1500 vert intervals. This is somewhat true at SB, but at least you can ski all 2400 or 2600 on two lift rides without much or any poling.

Apparently you haven't had the pleasure of skiing lower FIS Actually I don't mind the poling as much as getting stuff thrown at me from kids on Slidebrook I decided to put that trail on ignore. One time a bunch of kids were thowing firecrackers down on the trail.

I have, it was a long time ago. Whenever I am up there these days I never seem to get over to it.

They should leave some sled dogs at the bottom of that thing.

The endless run out is a good test of your ski wax.

Getting this discussion back on topic, does anyone know where the low E guns are located? I know Ripcord, Steins and U/L Organgrinder have them. I suspect that Upper FIS does as well. Where are the others, and as a result, where are the opportunities to install more?

I'm a lurker, so I hope the regulars don't mind me jumping in (my guess is not), but I am a tech/geek/engineer kinda guy and thought some of you would find these snowmaking stats interesting:

Snowmaking: 100% on all 156 acres of terrain
· Miles of Pipe: 40
· Compressor Capacity: 40,000 cfm
· 1500 Snow Guns including: 350 Snowstorm Avalanche 7's, 30 Avalanche 15’s, 9 Aerotech 357 Magnums, 110 Whisper Guns, 20 Quads, 600 Tower Guns, 14 Airless Fan Guns, 130 high-efficiency towers and 40 tower and sled-mounted snowguns

The above is from Camelback, an 800 vertical feet hill located in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. I think their natural snowfall averages 50" or so per year.

Tim

Vermont Winter Guide (or some similar title) in the free aisle at Paradise Deli last weekend.

One of those two had a snowmaking article.....and extensive discussion of low e guns and how they work. Something about they make better snow, but have a much more limited effective temp range they work within....like Lost touched upon.

Just fyi.

Wow this thread has taken off......


I know publicly they have said they are on Stiens and Ripcord, I do remember seeing some new heads on the towers on Pushover, and Easyrider. I am guessing (correct me if I am wrong) SB gets its regular guns from HKT (snowgun.com) though I am not sure who makes the Low E guns. I guess they have been adding more yearly, and I also wonder what they have at M/E because out behind the Snomaking builing is a graveyard of old rusted over guns. Perhaps Win could comment on exactly wherre they have the Low E guns, and where and if they plan to add more.

My undersdanding is they are quietly adding them yearly.

They seem to do good snowmaking with the current system, after all look at the fact that last season that Glen Ellen was open as long as it ever is. Part of that to a mild spring though and temps that allowed for grooming.

It would make sense though to mass up the largest system possible, and them make a much greater volume when the temps are below 15 degrees, or even better in the single digits.

In addition more snowmaking could be done at night, less round the clock operations, so that the snow could have a chance to dry out, and possibly be groomed before opening in the morning, this would be espicialy nice on the terrain frequented by the Ski School becuase the guns are so loud that it is hard for Instructors to comunicate with students.

In addition having the capicity to blast a meaningful ammount of snow would make night time resurfacing of a wide ammount of terrain possible.

Of course when it is cold, we all want to be able to look up at the mountain and see every single gun on, but this too big of a mountain for that, at least untill Fusion power is arround and it would become redicously cheap to pump water from Lake Champlain, and to generate massive ammounts of compressed air, though I am hoping that SV will eventualy make public what they are planning to do with the system in the future. From Wins comments, it sounds like they are in the planning stages, and that they are deciding what is both economical and necessary, and looking at all the options.

Snowmaking is a great tech and it is only getting better, and having been to places that only care about quantity, Sugarbush is into making the best product they can, and they have been doing a great job with the quality, and the cover where they do blow, but I guess it is prety obvious that they could use more capicity, to make Sugar at the Bush (I hope they don't start calling it something like that, Killingtons Signarture Sneaux is so Fith Avenue)

As far as the total ammount made, I see that beeing increesed by adding more Low E guns, supposedly that they have made more as a result of them, that could potentialy increese capacity and quality dramatically, with out increasing the budget.

Again having the capacity to make more snow durring the very coldest weather, could also increese the volume and keep the costs constant.

I guess having claybrook might increese skier days and pass sales enoguh to increese the snowmaking budget without raising ticket prices, just keep buying 3.50 Sodas and 6.00 Burgers in the caffe. (I really hope some of that makes its way to snowmaking, only reason I ever buy it)

Though I think the embarrassment of having to had close this week while K-Mart has from what I hear decent conditions top to bottom, could have been avoided for instance, even if the system at Glen Ellen and Sugarbush were interconected.

As far as water, I guess the idea is to try to get as much of the water that comes out of the melting snowpack back to the pond, to re-use. Mabey the pond needs to be dredged deeper, and possibly enlarged..... I can't think of to much open land where additional stoarge could be added. What about the water treatment facility, the large concrete holding tank which I have only ever seen filled with a few feet of water?


Anyway it would be nice if someone from the resort could fill us in on the specifics of the Low E guns, mabey one of the Mods could email Win and ask him to chime in, it would end alot of speculation.

trtaylor wrote:

The above is from Camelback, an 800 vertical feet hill located in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. I think their natural snowfall averages 50" or so per year.

First of all, we don't mind you jumping in. That's what we're here for. Quite the opposite... welcome to the board.

As to the 800' vertical, that is a little less than our Gatehouse area.

If you look at the Sugarbush trail map, it is the mountain on the left and the high speed quad on the right. Most of that is covered, tho Castlerock Connection and Sleeper Road aren't.

Now, we might not have the snowmaking capacity you do, on that part. But if you look at everything around that area... we have a lot more mountain!

C'mon up and visit, when we're full open. we have a lot of skiing... and we have a lot of great skiing!

Do I sound like an ambassador?

Yeah - what Lostone said. It's good to get some fresh blood in here!

As for changes/improvements to the system, maybe I'm a total geek (maybe? right) but I'd love a rundown of even the little things the mtn did in the off-season w/r/t snowmaking. Any new low E guns/nozzles? Any compressor upgrades? Pipe replaced? any small plans for the next year or two before the larger projects (system interconnect, large scale upgrade at ME) kick in? Has the pond for LP been fully dug out to its permitted capacity? I know that was an issue in the ASC days.

Lostone wrote:

Do I sound like an ambassador? :lol

I didn't know you were a fan of Sugarbush,