Comments on: Kelly’s Blog: South Bowl and Plummet to name a few

By: Erik

Erik — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 20:13:52 +0000

I did not have a problem with Timbers being closed until 10:30 that day. I skied Chute multiple times on that Sat morning. It was nice and groomed and not very crowded. Most people don’t seem to come out until about 10:30 even on a holiday. Got to give the racers some room — at least Mt Snow did not host races over MLK weekend like Stratton did when I went there on Monday and had a main trail closed all day.

By: Dan Gullotti

Dan Gullotti — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 16:20:23 +0000

Just an FYI, we do have moguls on our snow report, and after I read this comment, i ran down to the snow reporter’s office to make sure they had “moguls” checked on the form, and they didn’t. They made the change and the mogul icons showed right away.

By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 05:18:02 +0000

I get ya Diane. But a couple things. Comparing Mount Snow to Stratton is not natural in my opinion. Stratton is a beginner hill compared to Mt Snow. It has zero challenging terrain, glades aside. Also, it seems most people who comment on the grooming thing ski nothing but groomed runs. Well, there are alot of us out there that get bored of that real fast. The reason I ski Mount Snow in large part is the variety of terrain and larger selection of advanced/expert terrain.

You are right, Stratton and Okemo darn near sterilize the entire mountain every night. And they are catering to that intermediate/mildly advanced skier. If thats your thing, thats great, but the people who want this “groom every trail” thing arent the only ones who use the Mountain.

Mount Snow should be proud that it has such a diverse selection of terrain, and in my opinion they should advertise it and contrast it with the Stratton/Okemo way of doing things. If it weren’t for Mount Snow Id have to drive all the way to Killington.

Just look at the snow report. They groom well more than 1/2 the mountain every night. That has to be close to every major snow making trail on the Mountain. For example … today 41 out of 59 open trails were groomed. The natural trails cant be groomed right now, so, what are we really talking about grooming?

I say good job Mount Snow, i think you have it just about right!

By: Diane G.

Diane G. — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 21:18:14 +0000

Bob- It isn’t what particular trails aren’t groomed it is the overall percentage of trails that are groomed. It is natural to compare Mt.Snow to Stratton so how do they manage to groom between 90 and 100 percent of their trails on a daily basis.

By: kelly

kelly — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 11:58:23 +0000

Thanks James for catching the South bowl snafu. The bottom section of South Bowl was open. So on the grid we use, 20% of the trail was marked as open (needed so we can calculate accurate acres open.) Unless a trail is open from the top it should not appear as open. We’ll try to be more thorough in the future.

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 05:59:58 +0000

Im interested to know what trails everyone thinks should be groomed, but apparently arent. Ive seen Kelly field this question a number of times this year and I’m not sure where its coming from. I’m quite curious about it in fact. It seems to me they groom pretty much every major trail on the mountain on the main face, they maintain all the parks over in Carinthia on a daily basis, Thanks Walt is always groomed as are the access trails from the summit into Sunbrook. I’m honestly curious what people think should be groomed that isnt.

By: Kelly Pawlak

Kelly Pawlak — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 02:43:04 +0000

Charlie – pls let me know which snow report you use so we can get it updated with moguls. the ones I checked denote moguls. And I am not sure why you say that we have a reduced grooming plan. Nothing could be further from the truth.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 13:16:23 +0000

What happened to showing the trails with moguls vs. those just not groomed? Would be helpful to all lookong for a particular conditions. I suspect that with the reduced grooming at MS, many have moguls.

By: Dave M

Dave M — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 12:00:54 +0000

Just wanted to chime in a bit about power and curtailable time periods. Jeff S is correct, the max demand on the entire ISO New England grid has reached a peak, our utility has customers like us with special contracts that allow us to use a lot of power when available and sometimes asks us to curtail. Not since I began working here in 2006 have I ever seen a back to back curtailable period. This week we ended up with 4 days where we basically had to shut down snowmaking completely from 5:00 to 9:00 PM. This puts a strain on the system and the guys in weather that freezes above ground lines quickly if water is not moving fast enough. We are doing our best to get the terrain open as quickly as possible.

By: James

James — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 02:05:03 +0000

For thursday and friday the snow report said that south bowl was open. it also showed a green check mark on the various monitors around the grand summit but the trail was roped off both days. whats up?