SB Snowmaking has begun?

[HowieT2]

Dont forget that a good bit of snowmaking goes into mt ellen. So when that comes online, the trail count shoots up. If the weather cooperates this week, it will be a rope dropping fiesta.

[shadyjay]

I'm looking down towards the parking lot right now and see the heli lot almost full, at 10am. Weekends have been pretty busy judging by the cars. Weekdays have been quiet.

After just over 24 hours of snowmaking, Birdland opened. And it was Thursday AM when Ripcord was lit up... now its Saturday AM and that's open. Last night's colder temps helped. Birdland really came into it quickly... hard to believe the top half was bare, and last night at ~ 9pm, I was stepping down into some areas up past my knees. Last year... Birdland snowmaking took place in early January.

[win]

The snowmaker team out did themselves on Ripcord and it should be even better tomorrow morning after we stay on it all night again.

[ReefBum]

Birdland and RC were excellent today. And the corduroy in the AM was great.

[gostan]

Work commitments kept me west of Boston this weekend for the 2nd weekend in a row. How was the skiing/riding?

[SkiVideoGuy]

Is something going on with the snowmaking system or are we just not updating the live lift/trail report? I haven't seen any snowmaking listed for a day or two and temps seems within the range and a couple of inches of natural coming down? What's up?

[shadyjay]

We made snow last night on Valley House Traverse, Murphys, and some spot locales on Birdland and Lower OG at HGT. These efforts led to the opening of HGT and MG today, but since VHT doesn't connect to anywhere, there's no point in opening it. Fortunately we had temps all night and allowed the guns to stay on right until dawn.

[ml242]

Reverse traverse doesn't really go anywhere. It increases the trail count even though it only runs from bird land to jester and it's really a partial opening, maybe 8 percent of the trail. It's about 400' of trail. It does add some acreage though because the iced up trees should be falling in the next year. Why the guns were turned off I don't know. It was under 32 even at noon before it changed to snainsleet. Did anyone see if K or Stowe were blowing?

What really leaves me scratching my head are the whales. In two intersections (birdland murphys+bottom of ripcord) piles of snow have been built up but not rolled. This is odd because there are also water bars very close that should be filled. These whales are even more annoying because the snow has to be spread out to fill the mountain bike ribbons which seem to be growing in number every year... that are topped with large rocks and dirt. They're at least on my mind because I can see them.

I hadn't skied SB yet because I was waiting for natural. At the price the pass is obviously I would expect a lot because these are my complaints from a single day and I've been playing the field for the past few years.

Btw: the ticket scanners are working "better" this year but the chairs need to get loaded, especially on a pow day. And, If you've said hi to the liftie every fifteen minutes for four hours....

Cut to 3pm: I asked the guy how many runs I had. He said it didn't count the runs. What do they do anyway?

So that's my day 1 rant from my phone. Hope there's room here for constructive criticism among the endless rhythm of the golf clap.

Hope that this stays snow to end the early season complaints here and everywhere else. wishing everyone a great and snowy new year and laps at Mrg and castle rock promptly! Lets go white Xmas!!!

[shadyjay]

Keep on forgetting that Reverse Traverse actually ends on Middle Jester... I always used to think it ended on Murphy's or Birdland, but forget about that last little chute over.

Snowmaking was still taking place on Ripcord and Murphy's last night. It takes X amount of hours to allow the snow to settle and the water drain out before its groomed out. Otherwise, if you push it sooner, it will turn to a sheet of ice.

As a former lifty for 4 years, I feel your pain with the scanners. The scanners don't count runs... just number of days you've skied. There is an "app" for that, though. The Sugarbush app logs every run you take and records your speed. You can even input your runs into Google Earth.

I was so tempted to go out and ride today but after working last night, my need for sleep was greater, though I found out that the rest of my crew fought the sleep urge to ride and that it was really good. Oh well, there's always next time!

[SkiVideoGuy]

"Live" lift/Trail Report - I don't know what the social media folks at SB think it's like to be from PA where it's raining and 47 degrees right now. Some people (me and I'm sure some others) get up in the morning, pour the coffee and get online. My routine includes the Snow Report, the webcam and the "Live" Lift/Trail Report. It's my way of living vicariously in VT through the website. If you are going to call it a "Live" lift/trail report then you need make it live. I'm sure you made snow somewhere in the past couple days but not according to the lift/trail report. No mention of snowmaking either in the Snow Report the past 2-3 days.

If you are going to have a webcam, how about actually using the pan/tilt/zoom functionality and point it somewhere different every couple hours. Takes somebody about 12 seconds to do that. Makes a world of difference to people 7 hours away who wish they were there. If you think the idea of a webcam has merit, then why not fully build out the concept and have another over at ME and 1 each at midmountain and at the peaks? Here's a cheaper way....Take a GoPro and suction cup it to the window at Allen's Lodge and the Glen House for a few minutes each morning. Move it up to the lift shack at the top of Heaven's Gate and the Summit Quad. Then send the camera down the hill with a patroller to post the video online on the webcam page. For that matter, you could suction cup one of those to the inside of the windshield on one of the groomers and post that.

For today, maybe get the live back in Live Lift/Trail Report.

FYI, we will ski SB about 10 days this year so I'm not just some 1 off ticket purchaser nit picking. Have been coming 15 years and will be coming for another 30 and hopefully buying.

[ml242]

"Live" lift/Trail Report - I don't know what the social media folks at SB think it's like to be from PA where it's raining and 47 degrees right now. Some people (me and I'm sure some others) get up in the morning, pour the coffee and get online. My routine includes the Snow Report, the webcam and the "Live" Lift/Trail Report. It's my way of living vicariously in VT through the website. If you are going to call it a "Live" lift/trail report then you need make it live. I'm sure you made snow somewhere in the past couple days but not according to the lift/trail report. No mention of snowmaking either in the Snow Report the past 2-3 days.

If you are going to have a webcam, how about actually using the pan/tilt/zoom functionality and point it somewhere different every couple hours. Takes somebody about 12 seconds to do that. Makes a world of difference to people 7 hours away who wish they were there. If you think the idea of a webcam has merit, then why not fully build out the concept and have another over at ME and 1 each at midmountain and at the peaks? Here's a cheaper way....Take a GoPro and suction cup it to the window at Allen's Lodge and the Glen House for a few minutes each morning. Move it up to the lift shack at the top of Heaven's Gate and the Summit Quad. Then send the camera down the hill with a patroller to post the video online on the webcam page. For that matter, you could suction cup one of those to the inside of the windshield on one of the groomers and post that.

For today, maybe get the live back in Live Lift/Trail Report.

FYI, we will ski SB about 10 days this year so I'm not just some 1 off ticket purchaser nit picking. Have been coming 15 years and will be coming for another 30 and hopefully buying.

Oh yea, we got another howlie!

Considering that I've skied more than a thousand days at the bush as my home mountain I dibt think im a day tripping nit picker. What I do have though is an eye for VALUE and recent on mountain experience at many other hills to compare my recent SB experiences to. And I don't see anyone leaving piles of snow at intersections. If the snow coming out of the guns is too wet then there probably wasn't enough air in it. But then what would be the excuse for ice layer already installed on OG and DS?

But yeah, this is probably just nit picking and not constructive glad handling of the mountain ops teams. Anyway, patrol isn't that busy so they can probably just grab some shovels and fix this stuff, right?

As far as the webcam goes, it's been talked about before.

Want a live weather report? It is 35 degrees and alternating rain and snow staring at spring fling right now. Snow when I started this post and raining now. Time for more coffee. Oh wait, back to flakes!

[HowieT2]

meltdown city this morning. everyone step away from the ledge.
I'm sitting in my office T-4 days till i head up. absolutely putrid outside. trying to think good thoughts of wet snow forming a base and backend upslope powder. serenity now.

[SkiVideoGuy]

ml242 - I don't need your help with what it's doing on Spring Fling. I can see that on the static webcam. That's my point regarding the webcam. I come here so I can hear from you guys on what it's doing elsewhere on the mountain. It's great that the core skiers of the mountain have this forum to chat. It's great to have a season pass and have SB be your home hill. Congrats. Wish I were you.

The Snow Report, the "Live" Lift/Trail Report, the webcam are not for you, they are for the people who live in Boston, NY, PA and elsewhere far far away. It's not that difficult to do it right. I'm just calling them out on their C- performance on using social media and web to get the word out.

I won't be there for the first time till February and my week there is mid-March after I get back from Sun Valley. Week after I'm there I'm at Stowe for a week too. By the time I get to SB, the trail count is 111/111, I just like to watch it build WHICH I'M TRYING TO DO FROM PA. I like SB and have liked it for the 15 years in a row I've been coming there. I don't have to come there. I could just as easily spend my time at the Canyons in UT, Tahoe and Sun Valley. I spend money on tickets, dinners, accomodations, beer, cider, cheese, maple syrup in VT so guess what, I get to have an opinion on the place. SB is a business. In these aspects, there needs to be some improvement in their performance.

There are plenty of good weather tools starting with Single Chair WB so I'm not very concerned with their weather reporting integration on the website.

BTW - before you say webcams cost a lot, you can monetize the webcam viewing page(s) with ads for local lodging, restaurants, ski shops, Big Picture Theatre, etc. It could be done in a revenue neutral way. I know what the Bosch Cameras cost as I've been a part of installing about 100 of them in our city.

[HowieT2]

ml242 - I don't need your help with what it's doing on Spring Fling. I can see that on the static webcam. That's my point regarding the webcam. I come here so I can hear from you guys on what it's doing elsewhere on the mountain. It's great that the core skiers of the mountain have this forum to chat. It's great to have a season pass and have SB be your home hill. Congrats. Wish I were you.

The Snow Report, the "Live" Lift/Trail Report, the webcam are not for you, they are for the people who live in Boston, NY, PA and elsewhere far far away. It's not that difficult to do it right. I'm just calling them out on their C- performance on using social media and web to get the word out.

I won't be there for the first time till February and my week there is mid-March after I get back from Sun Valley. Week after I'm there I'm at Stowe for a week too. By the time I get to SB, the trail count is 111/111, I just like to watch it build WHICH I'M TRYING TO DO FROM PA. I like SB and have liked it for the 15 years in a row I've been coming there. I don't have to come there. I could just as easily spend my time at the Canyons in UT, Tahoe and Sun Valley. I spend money on tickets, dinners, accomodations, beer, cider, cheese, maple syrup in VT so guess what, I get to have an opinion on the place. SB is a business. In these aspects, there needs to be some improvement in their performance.

There are plenty of good weather tools starting with Single Chair WB so I'm not very concerned with their weather reporting integration on the website.

BTW - before you say webcams cost a lot, you can monetize the webcam viewing page(s) with ads for local lodging, restaurants, ski shops, Big Picture Theatre, etc. It could be done in a revenue neutral way. I know what the Bosch Cameras cost as I've been a part of installing about 100 of them in our city.

relax man. I dont think anyone is arguing with you. If you search the site, you'll find that we begged for a webcam for years before it was installed. and since, there have been numerous requests for more webcams up on the mtn. in fact, I think there was a skit on SNL "more webcam, more webcam".
when you go to sunvalley go to spaghetti western in hailey and tell Larry and Jen I sent you.

[pcampbell]

Cut to 3pm: I asked the guy how many runs I had. He said it didn't count the runs. What do they do anyway?

haha how about an LED board that flashes how many runs you have done when they scan your ticket