The biggest problem with ORDA is that they undertake massive expansions or sign up to host large events without making the necessary upgrades to snowmaking infrastructure. By the time they upgrade their snowmaking, the cycle just repeats, so they're always playing catch-up. The result is that while the mountain has doubled in size, half of it isn't open half the season.
Gore tapped the Hudson River for snowmaking in 1995, right-sizing the system for the terrain they had at the time. Afterwards, they added Bear Mountain, Topridge, Burnt Ridge, and the Ski Bowl, and their system was woefully undersized again.
In 2018, they increased their snowmaking capacity by 40%, right-sizing it for the terrain they had at the time. But then they signed up for WUG. While WUG is a one-time deal, they've been hosting other large freestyle events that also require an insane amount of snowmaking on Wild Air. And between this year and next, they're doing yet another terrain expansion.
Even the upgraded system is now woefully undersized again, because they kept adding terrain and are now holding events that require massive snowmaking commitments.
nyskiblog.com
