Whiteface Summer Update (2011)

NYSkiBlog spoke with Whiteface General Manager Bruce McCulley, on the status of maintenance and improvements taking place on the mountain this summer.

Whiteface Mountain Gondola

NYSkiBlog: Bruce thanks for your time. What’s going at Whiteface this summer?

Bruce McCulley: As usual, we’re very busy this summer with annual maintenance — lifts, snowmaking, trails, plus our vehicles, electrical, and buildings. We’ll inspect every inch of our snowmaking pipe, replace any cracked air/water hydrants. We’ll pull pumps, rebuild packings, repair any leaking valves, brush out our lines and refurbish snow guns as necessary. We’ll do compressor maintenance, and clean silt from our intakes.

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Gore Mountain Snowmaking Upgrades (2011)

Mike Pratt upgrades Gore Mountain snowmakingOver the last ten years, Gore Mountain has had more terrain expansion than any mountain in New York. At the same time, the Gore snowmaking has made significant strides — increasing water supply, pumping capacity and snow-gun efficiency. We spoke to Mike Pratt, General Manager at Gore and asked him about this summer’s plans for snowmaking improvements.

NYSkiBlog: You’ve made incremental progress on snowmaking over the past several summers. What’s going on this year?

Mike Pratt: We’re undertaking our most significant snowmaking upgrade since we tapped into the Hudson River in 1996. We’re buying and installing 130 new fixed location HKD Impulse Tower Guns.

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Steve Wright of Jay Peak Resort

Steve Wright Jay Peak Resort.I first ran into Steve Wright in cyberspace on the First Tracks Online eastern forum a few years ago. As Jay Peak’s Vice-President of Sales and Marketing, he occasionally popped into discussions to add a comment or two. But instead of coming off as a ski-resort salesman — there only to perform damage control or to publicize something — Steve took us behind the curtain to explain how and why things happen at ski-area marketing departments, both at Jay Peak and industry-wide.

As Jay transforms itself from a no-frills mountain with the deepest lift-served snow east of the Rockies into one with a fair amount of destination resort accoutrements, we thought that it’d be interesting to hear his thoughts on a variety of marketing-related topics.

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