Lostone wrote:

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?

Thanks. I check this board almost every day and was certain I would be made to feel welcome. First class group of people here.

As far as the invite to the 'bush, I do indeed plan on skiing there sometime this winter. And I'll let you know when I plan to get there.

Thanks.

By chance, I rode the lift with Hardy on Saturday, and the topic of the new Low E guns actually came up in our conversation. He told me that they don't have any of them at Mount Ellen-- they are all over at Lincoln Peak. I didn't ask what percentage of the heads at Lincoln Peak have been switched over and/or where they're located, so don't have anything to add there.

Hardy mentioned what's already been said here in this thread that the Low E guns are more sensitive to temperature, etc. He also said that he was really happy with the quality of what had been laid down at Mount Ellen so far this year, and I would agree. The snow quality was very nice last weekend.

Yeah, the low e guns rely more on temps than compressed air, thus reducing the volume of air and air pressures required. As a result I don't immagin the arsinal beeing completly Low E, as they would still need guns optimized for covering large ammounts of terrrain, or guns for higher temps, to open in November, but it seems like the Low E Guns would be best in january once it is consistantly cold, at least when it should be consistantly cold.

low e is great. good for keeping operating costs down, good for making lower density snow (higher quality) and better for the environment (less electrical consumption to run air compressors). but all the low e guns in the world don't make up for a general lack of uphill pumping capacity and water to convert to snow. you need uphill gpm, you need water.

of course natural is the best, and sugarbush much more than most.

exactly, and all the snowmaking asside, there would still be lots of great skiing at Sugarbush, just as there is at MRG, just not as much of it. This can't be said about many of the resorts south of Sugarbush.

Regarding the uphill capicity, I think this is what is preventing the use of Low E guns at Glen Ellen, as there simpily isn't enough water from the pond at ME , and enough pumping capicity to benifit from the added volume from Low E guns.

Hence they are supposedly looking into interconnecting the systems, or adding an additional remote pond to Glen Ellen.

smootharc wrote:

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

There is no Free aisle at Paradise.

Terry's Lookin' for you.

Bubba wrote:

smootharc wrote: Vermont Winter Guide (or some similar title) in the free aisle at Paradise Deli last weekend. . There is no Free aisle at Paradise. Terry's Lookin' for you.

LMAO and Roberta probably has the shotgun.

Is there any snowmaking purpose to the small reservoir that was dug next to cat's Meow this summer? If I recall correctly the main purpose was for fire suppression for the new buildings.

I'm going on memory here but I think a few years ago they did a major dredging of the pond, that went a long way in increasing the pond from 60 to 110m gallons. The Mad River just doesn't have alot of water, normaly, and just getting the permit to build it was a long and expensive process.

I think they have free match books at Paradise, I also got some free chicken wings at the end of the day once, because they were going to trash them anyway, and I have a friend who got a burger for free for the same reason.

Speeking of Snowmaking, mabey we should all drop by Paradise, buy a couple bags of ice, take them up to the mountain, and dump them on lower organgrinder, unfourtionalty my logic behind that Idea is flawed, because there aren't a thousand of us who would consider doing that, and I doubt they have more than a dozen or two bags of Ice, but I guess I had to throw something in this that was relative to the topic.

I guess for that to work, we would have to buy out Paridse, Warren Store (I guess that have ice) Meheurans, the Valaro, the Mobil station in Irasville, the "VG", Macs (it would probably burn down agin before we got to it), Whatever that place is in Moretown, and the Deli in Middlesex, and I know there a couple of places in Bristol, and probably every place in the danm state.

Man, am I in withdraw from hitting lines of that wite, dry, powdery substance that sends chills down your spine or what?

Mabey I should head to K-Mart for some Ski Rehab, o wait there sure as heck isnt any powder there either

Guess I will have to be paitent, with the rest of yall, before I can take the chair lift up HIGH....

Man, what a corny attempt at a cheap o analogy

Well enough of this rant of shear boredom.


Off to patch my bases up with P-tex, so I can chew them up agian on sunday.

I suppose it's my turn to get technical regarding Low E and temps...

The industry's most robust Low E gun is the Ratnik Sky Giant IV, cabable of turning 280 gallons of water to snow in one minute. That's a lot of snow. However, that assumes 8-14 degree temps, and 600 PSI. 8-14 degree aren't all that frequent, and from my knowledge and research, neither South or North have nearly the pumping power to retain 600 PSI the whole way up the mountain (due to the loss per foot of PSI pumping through the pipes). This gun is capable of operating at up to 29.7 degrees, which is not bad. However, at 29.7 degrees with 250 PSI (a much more reasonable number) this gun is only cabable of converting 44 GPM. This is still a decent number, but remember... this is the most powerful Low E gun on the market, and in turn, quite expensive. These specs also assume 36 degree water and 34 degree air. While this is not a problem in mid winter, early season it may be an issue. Now, in layman's terms, since 1 Acre Foot of Snow = 139,322 Gallons of Water, it would take about three days to make 1 acre foot of snow (one foot of snow over one acre) at 29 degrees. That's not very much snow.

So, to recapitulate, Low E guns need much lower temps and much more water pressure to make the volume of snow that they are capable of. This is not to say that Sugarbush should not continue to add Low E guns to the fleet. On the contrary, I think it is a crucial component of snowmaking. However, it is also necessary to retain a reasonable number of standard air/water snowguns. Several of Ratnik's Snow Giant guns are capable of making limited amounts of snow at up to 48 degrees. This is, of course, rather uneconomical. But they are obviously useful when the temps are getting in the upper 20s and lower 30s.

Okay, I'm going to elaborate a little more about the pressure issues. I mentioned that the great numbers on the Ratnik gun assumed 600 PSI, and that 250 PSI is a more reasonable number.

While the water pumps are quite capable of pumping at higher than 600 PSI, one must take into account the loss of pressure due to vertical rise. For every 2.31 vertical feet, 1 PSI is lost. This being the case, by mid at Glen Ellen (approx. 1500' vert) the water pressure has already dropped by 649.35 PSI. At mid, there is a pump house to boost the pressure. However, it is still unreasonable to assume 600 PSI over the whole mountain, especially at the top.

Not only is there pressure lost due to vertical rise, but also due to friction in the pipes. Calculating this is a hugely complex process that I'm not going to bother with figuring out right now... but just realize that this also affects the pressure.

Being realistic, even if it was possible to pump at a pressure great enough to sustain 600 PSI all over the mountain, this pressure would be so great it would likely burst many of the older pipes and possibly destroy the entire infrastructure.

There is so much to consider when discussing upgrading snowmaking. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as saying, "let's just buy more guns and bigger pumps!" If it was that simple, Sugarbush would likely be making hundreds of upgrades all the time. But, it's not that simple and it probably never will be.

So, what I'm getting at is....... upgrading is good, but one must always realize the upsides and pitfalls of certain upgrades. I trust that Win knows what he's doing and has the right people to do the job. I know Hardy has an extensive background in snowmaking, and I'm sure through the course of the years we will see intelligent and reasonable upgrades to the system.

Alright, I'm done ranting (for now!).

Great info!

I'm reading this thread and thinking how much good info I was getting that I hadn't heard of when... I remembered that I was sitting at a computer.

Quote:

Here's how it works: The main source of energy consumption in snowmaking is the production of compressed air, so Low-E guns have special nozzles that atomize the water into finer particles, relying less on compressed air to do the same job. The catch is that Low-E guns have a more limited operating temperature range. While regular guns can shoot out powder when it's upwards of 38 degrees, the optimal conditions for Low-E guns is 14-24 degrees, with little wind. Plus, they're expensive - about $1,250 each. Still, places like Killington, Okemo and Sugarbush are loading up on them, and reaping the rewards of reduced energy bills.

This and more info.

Kmart/ASC took a grand step. They built a pipe 16 miles long to a lake south of them so they would have unlimited water for snow making. It took 3 years to build. (I believe) To make Sugarbush a compeditor in that market we could build a pipe to our big lake to our west.....lake Champlain. Then like Les did in Maine convince the VT/US goverment to finance a power plant to power a sewage treatment plant to pump the water. (may not have all the fact correct) but then we would have unlimited water and power. While we are at it we should also put some trails on the west side so we can use the snowy western slopes to our benefit. That would make us a big time competor..it only takes $$$$$....in the mean time.

I keep doing my snow dance so mother nature can make the snow for use....snow flakes in the weather report everyday next week.

Treeskier wrote:

Kmart/ASC took a grand step. They built a pipe 16 miles long to a lake south of them so they would have unlimited water for snow making. It took 3 years to build. (I believe) To make Sugarbush a compeditor in that market we could build a pipe to our big lake to our west.....lake Champlain. Then like Les did in Maine convince the VT/US goverment to finance a power plant to power a sewage treatment plant to pump the water. (may not have all the fact correct) but then we would have unlimited water and power. While we are at it we should also put some trails on the west side so we can use the snowy western slopes to our benefit. That would make us a big time competor..it only takes $$$$$....in the mean time. I keep doing my snow dance so mother nature can make the snow for use....snow flakes in the weather report everyday next week.

No offense Treeskier....you can stop dancing. It ain't working, it was 60 today.

Jinx buy me a beer