Kelly’s Blog: Get Out The Yardstick
I am ready, armed with my yardstick, to give you updates on the progress of this storm. Snow totals are all over the place but one of my favorite meteorologists put Mount Snow in the 12-24″ dark blue zone. That left me happier than a witch in a broom factory (Sorry for the rip off GEICO – love that commercial) and spilling coffee all over my lap.
Kevin Skarupa puts us in the 1-2 ft zone!
Southern storms always bring out my competitive side. Every once in a while I take pleasure in knowing that certain northern ski areas (cough, cough) will check out Mount Snow’s storm totals and drool. This is Mount Snow’s storm and instead of feeling green with envy, I’ll be making laps on the North Face with the white, fluffy stuff in my wake. Yup, with the cold front upon us, forecasters are calling for light, fly-away snow. Can life be any better?
In the meantime we will enjoy the calm before the storm. A perfect bluebird Thursday. Speaking of Thursday, if your kids are blessed with a Snow Day tomorrow, I hope you are heading up tonight? I know some of you are!
Stay tuned, I will post pics here once the storm begins.
Friday 7:20 am. A little snowshoeing this morning and the valley is already wrapped in a low cloud, fog.
Friday 9:30 am. I am off today so I will have to report snow accumulations from my home. Should be pretty close to what the base area is receiving as we are about the same elevation. I have two measuring spots on the front and back of my house. This is my snow drift safeguard.
Measurement location #1 – front deck. Light snow – dusting.
Measurement location #2 – back garden.
They say a watched pot never boils and that is how I feel with this storm. I know it doesn’t intensify until this evening but I have the day off and I was looking forward to watching it pile up. At 1:30 pm we have finally made it to 1″ and wind is gusting from time to time.
Checking in at 4:36 pm. Finally made the 2″ mark. Currently snow is coming down steady and the wind has picked up. MA and CT have a travel ban??? How many skiers and riders will ignore that? Not that I would ever ignore a travel ban.
6:35 pm – almost 6″. That is almost 4″ in 2 hours or 2 ” an hour. At that rate we could have another 22″ by 5:30 am. Pinch me!!!
9:18 pm and we are little over 9″. We are at about 1″ an hour.
5:30 am on Saturday - 16 inches. That is about 7 inches over night.
It was so beautiful driving into work this morning. Or should I say having my husband drive me in because my car couldn’t make it.
Before we can have fun on the hill, there is lots of snow removal! Thanks to our Road Crew, maintenance staff and lift operators who were in VERY early to start the task.
All the magic carpets have to be shoveled out too!
I would highly recommend you check out our Snow Reporter, Andy’s, quick edit from skiing this morning. http://mountsnow.com/ (middle of the home page) See you on the slopes tomorrow!
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Kelly
Can’t wait. Bet there are two 9 year old girls who would love to help you measure. That is of course is in between their trips down Yard Sale.
Any chance the grommers can flatten the rock hard frozen land mines on trails like Olympic, Jaws Challanger and Ledges ????
They will bump up with much softer and did I say NO ICE!
Thanks ! See you tomorrow !
Thanks for the suggestion Robert. Unfortunately, the answer is no. We cannot take the grooming machines on trails where there is that much exposed ground. We have to take the best care possible of our grooming fleet. Earlier this year we did groom some naturals in anticipation of snow but since the two thaw events the coverage is poor. We will have to leave the natural trails up to the fate of Mother Nature.
hi kelly – where do season pass holders chat.How do i get there.I realise we have 1′ to 2′ of fresh pow coming Just wondering why the guns have stoped blowing it seems the other mountains are still putting down fresh.See ya tonight in prep for the AM pow and bumps bumps and pow
Matt, if you’re a passholder, you can go to mountsnow.ning.com to join the passholder forum
Hi Matt – we shut down snowmaking for an important repair that we needed on a pump. We figured with the storm, this would be good timing. And we will be back to fattening up spring skiing trails soon.
I was at Mount Snow last weekend and now I’ll be at one of your “northern competitors” this weekend! Someday I’ll get it right!
Also, why did Mount Snow remove the glades from the trail map a few years ago. It makes the mountain look less appealing with no glades.
Jason, we changed our philosophy on tree skiing a few years back. We allow skiing/riding anywhere within the boundaries of Mount Snow instead of specifying tree skiing or glades areas. As long as you’re in bounds, have at it if you want!
Do you still maintain the old, now unmarked glades? Or will you let them sit and “see how it goes”?
Jason – we hand clear tree skiing areas each summer, pretty much on a rotation basis.
Hey Dan (and Kelly)
I’m not sure i understand the philosophy about the tree areas. If you do hand clear them and maintain them as Kelly says, why not put them on the map to direct people to the areas that are there specifically for that. It doesnt really make alot of sense to me. I mean, I have skied Mount Snow for years so I know where to go, but if you dont fall in that group, how are you to know?
Along the lines of maintaining the glades, maybe you could trim down all the saplings in Claim Jumper this summer. That glade has gotten basically useless…unless we get about 4 feet of snow on the ground .. here’s hoping !
I hear you Bob. The problem with naming glades runs is that people will think that those are the only ones we have. We like the open mountain approach – have at it if you want!
I’m not sure what this off-season’s priorities are in terms of clearing, but will pass along the CJ request!
Thanks Dan. I’m with ya! See you guys on Tuesday…..Save a little untracked pow for me !
Hope to see a few of those pictures as the snow moves up your yard stick. Weather channel in NJ is showing you guys at 18-24 inches.
5:48 am. Think I will go clear off the car and get the boys up for am express
Kudos to mountain operations, especially all the lift attendents. As the storm rolled through Friday into Saturday high winds out of the north on the backend did not stop the mountain from operating both lifts to the top. I’ve been there plenty of times early, only to find ego alley running. Great job to all employees who got there early and did their jobs!
Thanks for taking note of that Chip. There was a lot going on behind the scenes by our lift mechanics and operators to keep the summit spinning. This did an outstanding job.
Are you guys limiting the number of 49$ for 2 tickets sold?
Just curious — Why is Tumbleweed not running? — I am coming up Wednesday and we are a Seasons owner
Jim, the lift is offline for repair, but may be running again for the weekend.
thank you Dan
Just wanted to say we had a blast over the weekend, especially Saturday. Thank you for keeping the lifts going to the top. Windblown snow everywhere, drifts, basically everything ungroomed. Hit all the naturals early (Uncles, Hop, Ledge, etc)… fantastic! Got over to Jaws during the eyeblink that the Face was open… wow! The wind howling on the way up. It was an old fashion winter day at the Mountain.
Thanks to everyone that I’m sure worked very hard to get all systems up and going for Saturday AM. Great time, absolutely great time.