Gore Mountain Conditions

[SudsNBumps]

I love all the talk about spending...It is NYS, if you don't like it go ski a private resort ANYWHERE else. It's a quirky mountain that makes no sense in some of their decisions, but we are skiing on a lot of trails that in previous years, wouldn't be open. Today was solid...A good cold ski day. Fabulous conditions, that may be overselling it a bit. Barkeater glades are still holding up and my favorite glade today despite the chair. My best runs of the day were Moxam and 46er early. We need snow but kudos to the snowmakers and groomers...we are doing alright for a NYS run ski area.

 

[Harvey]

The conditions are great!

 

[Kleetus]

Another good one today. Coldest AE2 lift ride ever was not what I wanted to check off the list for today but here we are. Luckily that happened first thing and day got warmer and the winds slackened a bit by mid morning.

Lapped Abenaki and Barkeater most of the day but everything skiied well. Lower Darby had nice velvety gun pow on it. Pristine carving on Hawkeye to start the day too. Got to ski Birch Bark alley which I strangely never have skiied. What a fun little glade! The view of course speaks for itself as always...

Great weekend that exceeded expectations.

 

[Harvey]

Another good one today. Coldest AE2 lift ride ever was not what I wanted to check off the list for today but here we are. Luckily that happened first thing and day got warmer and the winds slackened a bit by mid morning.

Lapped Abenaki and Barkeater most of the day but everything skiied well. Lower Darby had nice velvety gun pow on it. Pristine carving on Hawkeye to start the day too. Got to ski Birch Bark alley which I strangely never have skiied. What a fun little glade! The view of course speaks for itself as always...

Great weekend that exceeded expectations.

+1000 Today was awesome. Trees all day, was the only way.

 

[Alfredeneumann]

I love all the talk about spending...It is NYS, if you don't like it go ski a private resort ANYWHERE else. It's a quirky mountain that makes no sense in some of their decisions, but we are skiing on a lot of trails that in previous years, wouldn't be open. Today was solid...A good cold ski day. Fabulous conditions, that may be overselling it a bit. Barkeater glades are still holding up and my favorite glade today despite the chair. My best runs of the day were Moxam and 46er early. We need snow but kudos to the snowmakers and groomers...we are doing alright for a NYS run ski area.

I like that ORDA spends money on stuff that a private area would not. Their mandate is not turning a profit. Besides running a ski area, it’s preserving the Adirondack forest and the historic parts of that ski area (snowmaking on Pipeline, Peaceful Valley, Wood Out), supporting other Olympic sports (Nordic racing venue to replace the ones schools have lost to climate change), bringing tourist dollars into the area.

 

[snoloco]

I think that's right. It was especially noticeable when the gondola was broken. It took them an hour to open the upper mountain even when there were crazy lines at the base. I assume that was because there were too few patrollers. I never saw snowmaking on more than two trails last week even with the cold weather. For all they talk about snowmaking improvements it seems like maybe labor may be the real capacity limitation.
They should convert some of the low elevation capex into payroll for patrol and snowmakers. Do they really need a new lodge at Ski Bowl if they can't open the interconnection before mid-January?

mm

I hate having to defend Gore/ORDA, but I guess you're going to make me.

Snowmaking is significantly better than it was before the 2018 upgrade. They have never made snow on Moxham before, or opened 46er on snowmaking this early, and this is in one of the worst seasons I can remember. In fact, it seems they are making so much snow that it seems the groomers can't keep up on pushing out the whales.

I don't know where you got the idea that they were only making snow on 2 trails last week. They opened 4 snowmaking trails at the ski bowl, and would've also been able to open Sagamore, had the groomers kept up. It's possible that you only saw snowmaking on 2 trails at a time, but most of the snowmaking last week was at the ski bowl, which would've been out of public view. Same thing last Sunday when I skied there.

While it hasn't been perfect, I think this is Gore's best year for snowmaking since I started skiing there. They didn't always run in the right places at the right time, but I have never felt that they didn't have the system maxed out. It's also entirely possible that 2 trails will max out the system, depending on how long each trail is, how many guns are running, and what flow rate they are running at. Gore's pumping capacity is 6800 gpm. The new HKD guns have a max flow rate of 80 gpm, which can be used in very cold weather like this. If you divide 6800 by 80, you get 85. If we assume 100 foot spacing of guns, then you can run every gun on 8500 linear feet of trail. That's 2 46er sized trails. Colder weather does not necessarily mean more guns running. It just means that each gun can run at a higher flow rate. Sometimes they might opt to not run the guns at the maximum flow rate based on the weather, so that they can run more guns on more trails. This is called rationing water.

 

[Dmoss]

I think that's right. It was especially noticeable when the gondola was broken. It took them an hour to open the upper mountain even when there were crazy lines at the base. I assume that was because there were too few patrollers. I never saw snowmaking on more than two trails last week even with the cold weather. For all they talk about snowmaking improvements it seems like maybe labor may be the real capacity limitation.
They should convert some of the low elevation capex into payroll for patrol and snowmakers. Do they really need a new lodge at Ski Bowl if they can't open the interconnection before mid-January?

mm

Does anyone know why with all the low energy fixed snow guns on Sagamore they were using the old portable ones?

 

[snoloco]

I don't know for sure, but it could have been wind. When I was there last Sunday, a lot of the snow was blowing back into the trees. That snowmaking line was installed when they had no fixed equipment on the trail and only used ratnik ground guns. It's possible that it wasn't installed on the upwind side along the entire trail, which is very important when using fixed equipment, and not as important when using portable equipment.

 

[Dmoss]

I hate having to defend Gore/ORDA, but I guess you're going to make me.

Snowmaking is significantly better than it was before the 2018 upgrade. They have never made snow on Moxham before, or opened 46er on snowmaking this early, and this is in one of the worst seasons I can remember. In fact, it seems they are making so much snow that it seems the groomers can't keep up on pushing out the whales.

I don't know where you got the idea that they were only making snow on 2 trails last week. They opened 4 snowmaking trails at the ski bowl, and would've also been able to open Sagamore, had the groomers kept up. It's possible that you only saw snowmaking on 2 trails at a time, but most of the snowmaking last week was at the ski bowl, which would've been out of public view. Same thing last Sunday when I skied there.

While it hasn't been perfect, I think this is Gore's best year for snowmaking since I started skiing there. They didn't always run in the right places at the right time, but I have never felt that they didn't have the system maxed out. It's also entirely possible that 2 trails will max out the system, depending on how long each trail is, how many guns are running, and what flow rate they are running at. Gore's pumping capacity is 6800 gpm. The new HKD guns have a max flow rate of 80 gpm, which can be used in very cold weather like this. If you divide 6800 by 80, you get 85. If we assume 100 foot spacing of guns, then you can run every gun on 8500 linear feet of trail. That's 2 46er sized trails. Colder weather does not necessarily mean more guns running. It just means that each gun can run at a higher flow rate. Sometimes they might opt to not run the guns at the maximum flow rate based on the weather, so that they can run more guns on more trails. This is called rationing water.

I also heard the pump house completely flooded with some of the recent rains and needed a lot of work. The amount of snowmaking this year has been very impressive. I agree.

 

[Dmoss]

I don't know for sure, but it could have been wind. When I was there last Sunday, a lot of the snow was blowing back into the trees. That snowmaking line was installed when they had no fixed equipment on the trail and only used ratnik ground guns. It's possible that it wasn't installed on the upwind side along the entire trail, which is very important when using fixed equipment, and not as important when using portable equipment.

I'm fascinated by how much thought and planning needs to go into snowmaking. It's more art than science it seems.