PDA

View Full Version : Grooming Ripcord



Sugaree
01-09-2010, 07:00 AM
Seems like the plan is to keep grooming Ripcord instead of Grinder. Any word on this?

Lostone
01-09-2010, 08:00 AM
Probably be a good thing. It was pretty fast, yesterday! :shock:

Strat
01-09-2010, 10:52 AM
(Warning: somewhat taboo topic ahead)

How about grooming Middle Earth or Castlerock Run at some point soon? Still too early? It usually gets done once a season, right?

gone.skiing
01-09-2010, 05:23 PM
Strat, They usually do it right before a good storm.

Tin Woodsman
01-09-2010, 05:23 PM
Seems like the plan is to keep grooming Ripcord instead of Grinder. Any word on this?

Makes sense to me. OG always seems a hair too narrow, given it's traffic, to really be a good groomer.

summitchallenger
01-09-2010, 05:31 PM
NICE! I recall many of us suggesting that last year. I guess they listened! OG is better served with bumps because of the weird fall line. Ripcord is wider and has a better pitch for cruising. It is wide enough to leave one side bumped though. It gets so icy that it is probably better groomed.

Strat
01-09-2010, 05:53 PM
Strat, They usually do it right before a good storm.
Ah, that's right. There's talk of a disturbance next weekend... we'll see I suppose.

shadyjay
01-09-2010, 06:27 PM
Ripcord WILL be the regular groomed diamond run off Heaven's Gate, allowing 'Grinder to bump up. This is according to one of my bosses.

Kinda am digging a groomed Ripcord. It's fast and good for grooming and cruising because its nice and wide. Though I will miss curving through the courd' on 'Grinder.

HowieT2
01-09-2010, 07:52 PM
I like it. Although I usually can't resist heading into paradise.

TimKeogh
01-09-2010, 10:14 PM
I'd prefer it to be half-groomed. It is wide enough for both and allow those of us who aren't so great in the bumps to still ski it.

scharny
01-10-2010, 08:26 AM
agree with previous post.

How about a 15-foot-wide ungroomed "beauty strip" on the far left and far right side of Ripcord to accommodate some of us mogul junkies?

That trail is plenty wide enough to accommodate both kinds of skiing surfaces.

Always loved the steep pitch 1/2-way down Upper Ripcord skier's left on a good powder day, or in perfect mid-April corn conditions for that matter.

I am very happy to hear that Organgrinder is becoming a mogul run.

Jacksun
01-10-2010, 08:39 PM
OG to become mogul run and suggestions of Ripcord becoming half and half. Fantastic! I've never cared for OG as a groomer, because it gets skied off so quickly and becomes a pitched skating rink imho. Let it bump up and it becomes an awesome marquee run. Meanwhile, as others have pointed out, Ripcord's width allows it to be a bit of both or just a nice groomer with a good margin of safety. If those changes occur, it will make doing laps off of Heaven's Gate even sweeter.

By the way, did anyone do Spillsville this weekend? Absolutely phenomenal, tons of blown in snow, just sitting in fluffpiles nearly top to bottom. And no one seemed to be aware! Nearly untouched until mi-day today when people finally woke up. Best trail skiing on the mtn. this weekend.

bill-now
01-10-2010, 10:07 PM
My daughter and I skied Spillsville on Thursday morning. I was having a hard time of it because I was expecting every mogul troth to be icy. To my surprise, the whole trail was soft snow and very nice.

The HG lift chairs, on the other hand, were coated with about 4 inches of snow/crud. The lifties were clearing the seat but we were able to have a snowball fight without leaving the chair. :D

Ripcord, especially the top 1/3, was also excellent.

shadyjay
01-10-2010, 10:50 PM
About those HG chairs.... the combination of snow from natural causes and the guns, plus freezing fog and drizzle created rime ice which coated the chairs, making them look like the summit building of Mt Washington in mid winter. Unfortunetly when this situation occurs, there isn't much we can do to clean/clear the chairs as they are operating at normal speed. Even with our collection of "beaters", they barely make a dent, and when they do, they affect only the one area we beat them. It isn't like regular snow which breaks up after a beating, then gets "jiggled loose" after passing through the next shieve train. We tried to do our best to focus on clearing the seats themselves, and even that was a challenge. There's no really easy solution... except running the chair on slow for every chair to be given a few more seconds of whacking/beating, or even worse, stopping the lift at every chair in the bottom and having a team of 2-3 folks work on each chair. When we had the r@!# after Christmas, then it got cold, we had a crew of 4 or 5 of us working to beat the chairs, but this was just from a night of icing and it came off fairly easy. But combine that with bitter cold, and snow from guns and above, then you've got a whole new challenge.

Today I was surprised to be able to read chair numbers and see all seats cleared of snow & ice. The chair frames are still a "work in progress". To quote the Steve Miller Band, in a song that every time I hear it I can pick out similarities with the lyrics and Sugarbush/lifts in general.... "You've got to go through hell [read: Downspout, or crusty chairs] before you get to heaven['s Gate]". And the obvious... "Big wheel keeps us spinning around".

John Walden
01-11-2010, 08:49 AM
I noticed last weekend on the HG chair that there was a tower half way up that was dripping oil/ grease onto the chairs. My jacket got several spots on it and I noticed other people at the end of the lift checking their clothing. I'm not complaining as my jacket is old, but someone with a new one might of been p.o.

Great skiing on Ripcord the last week and half.