I think the new lift is an upgrade across the board. Shorter lines and no more long flat traverse with a narrow, dangerous, icy intersection at the end. Spring fling has always been crowded when natural snow is scarce.
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Steins was fantastic on Monday. Mt Ellen survived the thaw and freeze from last night and the groomers skied very well today. Elbow amazing.
See Howie. This is exactly what I am talking about with this whole perception thing. The skiing was good last weekend and the weekend before don't get me wrong but if you are telling me that the snowmaking as dry and silky then you need to sample other places to understand what that actually is. Because I skied all of the snowmaking trails under the guns all day long. Steins, Birch, Sunrise, all of them and that was not dry silky snow under most of the guns. I actually did the snow makers test. You hold out your arm and if the snow falling from the gun sticks to your jacket it is too wet. if it bounces off them the guns are dry. There is no way you can tell me that the snow was bouncing off. Also how do you explain the absolute bomb proof nature of the snow mounds the day after they turned off the guns. Dry snow has a Styrofoam carve-able texture. That was not. I still say thy are running the air too low. Air is what makes the snow lighter and dryer.
Trouble with you is the trouble with me,
Got two good eyes but we still don’t see!
Perception is the key, indeed. And, conditions on different areas and exposures of the mountain change continuously. Though I stayed away on Monday, I later heard some of the same fantastic comments about Stein's...only a day or two away from the "downhill skating rink" description...and I'll bet both are accurate! Changing temps have a huge impact, as I don't need to explain. Yes, Ducky, ME skied really nicely on Tuesday (groomers only). However, I, for one, wouldn't go so far as tagging Elbow as "amazing". I like to reserve that, and "epic", for conditions that deserve the full blown fanfare. It was good, for sure. I'm spoiled, though, having just returned from four "epic" days of Utah sun and pow.
I dont know. the weekend before last when the guns were on steins, I avoided it on saturday morning because I hate skiing under wet guns. then at lunch someone told me that the guns were in fact dry and so I skied it in the afternoon and it was dry. no sticking to the goggles or shell. the snow was dry. did laps on it sunday and it was the same thing, dry silky snow on the trail and 'nothing sticky.
now if you're talking about birch, that was a different story. up top there was a gun blowing wet. But when I was on steins, it was dry.
Tang- just dirty water from the pipes. Stein's was dry, it depended where you skied and where you did your sleeve test. On top of the piles was wetter becuase less fall time for the crystal. By the hydrants unded the tower arm was much drier. Only one had some stick to it. I do agree they blow snow much wetter now in general- production snow we used to call it. I was pleasantly surprised by Steins that day.
One thing I have been wondering the past few weeks is the new guns and how they keep maxing out the system on water. Could they run more guns if they used some of the older less efficient ones so they used more air and spread the water to more guns?
I have to say what everyone is thinking, this stinks. The weather I am talking about. This past weekend was the best weekend on the mountain. Now everything is going to turned into packed ice. So that being said does anyone know what the plan is for snowmaking? I know there isn't an endless budget for snowmaking and the holiday time ate a lot of that budget up. So is SB planning on just resurfacing the high traffic areas? or are they going to slowly hit all the snowmaking trails and have it blend in to the existing base?
What ever the case, Win and his staff have done a great job this season with all the curveballs mother nature has thrown at them.
Dblshot, my understanding is that they would gain nothing out of switching to the older guns. Very simply put, the old guns and the new guns use the same amount of water. I know it doesn't seem this way, but after I checked with people in the industry, that is the consensus. So, they can either max air and run X guns with the old ones, or max water and run 2X guns with the new ones. Running more guns means covering more ground. Air is considered a waste in the snowmaking industry since there is no product to show for it. Water is created into snow and air just goes back into the atmosphere/environment. They would rather max on water because it translates into something, then max air and watch it just disappear. When an old Ratnik/SR-7 uses 200 + cfm of air and the new guns use 5 cfm, that's a lot more guns helping to max water.
RD - thanks for your explanation. Sounds like you actually know what you are talking about and it's consistent with what Win has been saying. It's amazing that the new technology uses ( based on your numbers) 2.5% air of the old technology. Personally, I love how much quieter the new guns are. I guess all that compressed air made a lot of noise.
RD the piece that you and others are ignoring is that the air is the key ingredient. The air pressure is what breaks down the water droplets into smaller droplets and also allows the cold air to do the job more efficiently. if you use less air and more water then you get wet snow. It seems to me that the new guns do make a bunch of snow. Maybe more that the old guns because of the amount of water they use. But there is a minimum amount of air that you have to use to get lighter/less wet snow. I do have experience doing this job back in college. I also have long time friends back at my old ski area that run the system at that mountain. This is not a guess. The air water mixture is checked every couple of hours at my old mountain. Now lets see how fast they recover after this thaw.
Trouble with you is the trouble with me,
Got two good eyes but we still don’t see!
Temperature also plays an important role in snowmaking. More air is needed to produce snow in higher temperatures so when they make snow in marginal temperatures the system usually maxes out on air. When temperatures are lower they they can send more water through each gun using less air. When making snow in low temperatures the system usually maxes out on water not air. Sending more water through each gun means they can produce more snow using less guns.
Is it true that Cliffs, Organgrinder and Ripcord are closed?
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