Dark Side Liftline Photos

[x10003q]

They will clean the HP line in the off season and it will remain a "glade" without snowmaking in order to remain off the mileage total.

 

[Campgottagopee]

I don't predict snowmaking. Let's leave that one alone...snowmaking has it's place, but it puts tremendous strain on nearby trees and ultimately leads to their death.

i have never heard of snomaking hurting trees before. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that it's a new one for me.

 

[Frk]

i have never heard of snomaking hurting trees before. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that it's a new one for me.

You haven’t been skiing enough lately. The trees at the edge of the trails are covered in probably thousands of pounds of ice and snow. They bend and brake. This rarely happened with the older snow making systems.

 

[Campgottagopee]

You haven’t been skiing enough lately. The trees at the edge of the trails are covered in probably thousands of pounds of ice and snow. They bend and brake. This rarely happened with the older snow making systems.

What am I missing here. New snowmaking vs old snowmaking? It's still just air and water, do you mean the sheer capacity of snow being made?

Granted I haven't been skiing much but I live right near a ski area, know snowmakers and talk with them all the time, yet haven't heard of this before.

 

[SudsNBumps]

There is no snowmaking technically on DSG but it gets blow-in from Hullabaloo and the Steilhang-Cloud connector. I was there Thursday and the boulders were showing, yesterday they were covered and it looked like with enough snow, skiable without breaking a leg. And that was with no new snow. If we ever get enough snow this year that is. Snowmaking and grooming on DSG would destroy it worse than opening it up a bit. Anyone ski Hullabaloo yesterday? Nuff said The ice storms we have will bring down more trees than snowmakers. And Kudos to the snowmakers...we're getting there. Yesterday was the first day this year I skied the whole day. But got there early and was rewarded...

 

[Yukon Cornelius]

I've actually got more frustration with the part that CAN'T be repaired----the Open Pit intersection. Can't tell if its the widening of upper cloud, the additional people being dumped off, or combination of both. But there's a whole lot of mess of people at that intersection---dangerous, almost---with where people are stopping to ponder Open Pit. Never used to be like that.

I think it's the additional traffic. The constant stopping also resulted in giant piles of sugary snow and slick spots at that intersection. The cloud "corner" had pileup after pileup this weekend.

 

[Brownski]

What am I missing here. New snowmaking vs old snowmaking? It's still just air and water, do you mean the sheer capacity of snow being made?

I think tower and fan guns put snow higher in the air, leading to more ending up caked onto tree branches. I think that as mountains have moved to automated systems and fixed installations instead of lots of ground guns, with regular babysitting from dedicated crews, the overall quality of the snow has declined too. Just my observations. Results may vary

 

[gorgonzola]

You haven’t been skiing enough lately. The trees at the edge of the trails are covered in probably thousands of pounds of ice and snow. They bend and brake. This rarely happened with the older snow making systems.

whoa slow down tree, I hate when they jump out in front of me!

 

[snoloco]

The upper portion of Cloud is definitely much more crowded. Even at restricted capacity, the High Peaks Quad sure does move a lot of people, and you still have the people coming over from Straightbrook. However, it's not a problem once you get past Open Pit, and the traffic going back to Straightbrook branches off. I still like the skier flow much better because you don't have people joining Cloud from where the old lift ended. Also, I never felt the actual Dark Side trails were crowded. I think a lot of people were just riding the lift to access Straightbrook and not lapping back to it.

 

[Milo Maltbie]

The upper portion of Cloud is definitely much more crowded. Even at restricted capacity, the High Peaks Quad sure does move a lot of people, and you still have the people coming over from Straightbrook. However, it's not a problem once you get past Open Pit, and the traffic going back to Straightbrook branches off. I still like the skier flow much better because you don't have people joining Cloud from where the old lift ended. Also, I never felt the actual Dark Side trails were crowded. I think a lot of people were just riding the lift to access Straightbrook and not lapping back to it.

SO you like Cloud better now that it's crowded all the way from the top to past Pit then when it was an open uncrowded groomer with a little cogestion (which was easily avoidable by staying skiers' left) at the HP landing zone? Interesting.

How do you like the 2 way traffic across the top?

mm