jamesdeluxe
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2020
I wonder how many people here skied Ascutney in southern VT? Very few, I'd guess. I went there maybe five times from 2000-2004 (sadly never took any pix), whenever I could work the discounts. When I lived in Brooklyn, about 3:15 away, it was a convenient warmup day on a trip north to Mad River Valley, Stowe, Burke the Eastern Townships, or Magic. The back of the mountain is right alongside I-91 and the base is a short drive from the highway.
Ascutney has a reported 1,800 continuous lift-served feet (when the lift to the top is running), but in a perfect world, it *could* have been much bigger: 2,300 verts at the summit and a huge steep area to the looker's right that, if developed for skiing, would've tripled the size. Apparently, I got extremely lucky (or planned well) because most of my visits there were on fresh snow days -- in contrast to the #1 complaint: low snow levels and ice due to lack of snowmaking. It had interesting old-school New England terrain, including some nice steep woods (Cabin Chute), and zero crowds (good for me, bad for the resort).
Ascutney is on death row for a variety of reasons (mismanagement, poor marketing, development restrictions, real estate that didn't work out, etc.). There's scuttlebut about selling off the lifts, including an eight-year-old HSQ that was rarely used in recent years due to cost-cutting.
Someone on Alpine Zone mentioned:
Ascutney's number one downfall isn't the quad -- in fact, they did have one or more record seasons after putting the quad in. The major issue comes down to water -- no water storage pond for snowmaking and not enough pumping capacity from the Mill Brook to make large quantities of snow in a short period of time. February low-flow limits on the Mill Brook have also forced the resort to scale snowmaking way back if the stream depth was low that time of year. (A VT Act 250 provision).
This issue has never been dealt with in the 17 years that the Plausteiners owned the ski area. The snowmaking system was modeled after those in the 70's and 80's, but without adequate water to run several snowmaking "loops" at the same time, Ascutney was always forced to run one trail section at a time. Thus, a warm fall meant a late start and marginal skiing for the holidays. Recovery after bad weather was terrible because it was like starting from scratch -- thus the ice problems that have been mentioned.
Ascutney does have 95% snowmaking capability -- there are snowmaking pipes all over the place there, but in most years, there simply hasn't been time to cover all those trails because of water.
If it were me, I would go the route of a place like Mount Snow -- solve the water storage issue with a 60-100 million gallon pond, add pumping capacity to run multiple loops and look at fan guns (if the electrical capacity issue on the mountain can be resolved by the power provider). Ascutney could succeed if it focused on ONE thing -- snow quality and quantity. Make it deep and make it quick.
The terrain is truly great -- some of the best in southern Vermont, but a failure to address water capacity makes the resort financially shaky at best. It doesn't matter how many HSQs you put in if you can't make a lot of snow quickly.
Ascutney has a reported 1,800 continuous lift-served feet (when the lift to the top is running), but in a perfect world, it *could* have been much bigger: 2,300 verts at the summit and a huge steep area to the looker's right that, if developed for skiing, would've tripled the size. Apparently, I got extremely lucky (or planned well) because most of my visits there were on fresh snow days -- in contrast to the #1 complaint: low snow levels and ice due to lack of snowmaking. It had interesting old-school New England terrain, including some nice steep woods (Cabin Chute), and zero crowds (good for me, bad for the resort).
Ascutney is on death row for a variety of reasons (mismanagement, poor marketing, development restrictions, real estate that didn't work out, etc.). There's scuttlebut about selling off the lifts, including an eight-year-old HSQ that was rarely used in recent years due to cost-cutting.
Someone on Alpine Zone mentioned:
Ascutney's number one downfall isn't the quad -- in fact, they did have one or more record seasons after putting the quad in. The major issue comes down to water -- no water storage pond for snowmaking and not enough pumping capacity from the Mill Brook to make large quantities of snow in a short period of time. February low-flow limits on the Mill Brook have also forced the resort to scale snowmaking way back if the stream depth was low that time of year. (A VT Act 250 provision).
This issue has never been dealt with in the 17 years that the Plausteiners owned the ski area. The snowmaking system was modeled after those in the 70's and 80's, but without adequate water to run several snowmaking "loops" at the same time, Ascutney was always forced to run one trail section at a time. Thus, a warm fall meant a late start and marginal skiing for the holidays. Recovery after bad weather was terrible because it was like starting from scratch -- thus the ice problems that have been mentioned.
Ascutney does have 95% snowmaking capability -- there are snowmaking pipes all over the place there, but in most years, there simply hasn't been time to cover all those trails because of water.
If it were me, I would go the route of a place like Mount Snow -- solve the water storage issue with a 60-100 million gallon pond, add pumping capacity to run multiple loops and look at fan guns (if the electrical capacity issue on the mountain can be resolved by the power provider). Ascutney could succeed if it focused on ONE thing -- snow quality and quantity. Make it deep and make it quick.
The terrain is truly great -- some of the best in southern Vermont, but a failure to address water capacity makes the resort financially shaky at best. It doesn't matter how many HSQs you put in if you can't make a lot of snow quickly.
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