ORDA Snowmaking Improvements
- Thread starter snoloco
- Start date
snoloco
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2021
I wanted to respond to @Face4Me 's comment in the conditions thread about snowmaking.
While Whiteface has made improvements to their snowmaking system, it is clearly still woefully undersized. The main reason is the acreage they need to cover has grown significantly, and improvements to the system have just not kept up, and it is unlikely they ever will.
We need to go back to the Olympics, and then look at the trails that have been added since then:
Paron's Run
Follies
John's Bypass
Draper's
Boreen after it splits with Brookside
Wilmington
Lookout Below
Hoyt's
Coyote Cut
Ausable Run
Then we need to look at the trails that had no snowmaking but had it added later. It used to be that only Gold had snowmaking at Bear Den. Silver, Home Run, Medalist, and Bronze did not. Now the entire area has it.
I'm still not done yet. Now we need to look at trails that were widened. Skyward, Victoria, Excelsior, Wilderness, Parkway, Thruway, Upper Valley, Broadway, Easy Street, and all the Bear Den trails were all narrower back then. There are others I'm probably missing too.
There were also no terrain parks back then.
Now it should be abundantly clear why the snowmaking system is not the size it needs to be. Unfortunately this comes at the expense of Lookout being only open sporadically, and trails like Cloudspin, MacKenzie, Middle Parkway, and now even Wilderness not seeing snowmaking until February or being skipped entirely.
The problem is that Whiteface's snowmaking is probably as good as its going to get without a reservoir. They are capped at drawing 6000 gpm from the river. While they should still work towards eventually building a reservoir, there is another way to speed up their trail rollout without one.
They need to seriously consider making snow all the way through March like Killington does. No, they don't need to build a Superstar Glacier, but they can do any spring base building in March, rather than doing it in late January or February when they should be getting all their snowmaking trails open. When they open Skyward, they spend about 10 days making snow there to bury it so they won't have to come back to it. Under my proposal, they could stop at 5 days, make snow on another trail, like Wilmington, and then come back to it in March to deepen it up for spring.
Another thing that might help is spacing the hydrants closer. Killington has 40-60 foot hydrant spacing on most of their trails. Whiteface has 80-100 foot spacing. With closer spacing, they would not be able to make snow on as many trails at once, but would be able to achieve a quicker turnaround. This means instead of having to slog away at Draper's for 2 weeks in marginal temps to prepare for a race they committed to holding months ago, they could get it done in 4-5 days of optimal temps, and then head elsewhere, presumably to higher elevation terrain when temps aren't as favorable, and get another trail open. Killington often gets trails skiable under the guns in just 24-48 hours of snowmaking, and can put a 2 foot base on most trails in 4-5 days. Whiteface takes 4-5 days just to open a trail, and nearly 2 weeks to get a deep enough base that they won't have to come back to it.
While Whiteface has made improvements to their snowmaking system, it is clearly still woefully undersized. The main reason is the acreage they need to cover has grown significantly, and improvements to the system have just not kept up, and it is unlikely they ever will.
We need to go back to the Olympics, and then look at the trails that have been added since then:
Paron's Run
Follies
John's Bypass
Draper's
Boreen after it splits with Brookside
Wilmington
Lookout Below
Hoyt's
Coyote Cut
Ausable Run
Then we need to look at the trails that had no snowmaking but had it added later. It used to be that only Gold had snowmaking at Bear Den. Silver, Home Run, Medalist, and Bronze did not. Now the entire area has it.
I'm still not done yet. Now we need to look at trails that were widened. Skyward, Victoria, Excelsior, Wilderness, Parkway, Thruway, Upper Valley, Broadway, Easy Street, and all the Bear Den trails were all narrower back then. There are others I'm probably missing too.
There were also no terrain parks back then.
Now it should be abundantly clear why the snowmaking system is not the size it needs to be. Unfortunately this comes at the expense of Lookout being only open sporadically, and trails like Cloudspin, MacKenzie, Middle Parkway, and now even Wilderness not seeing snowmaking until February or being skipped entirely.
The problem is that Whiteface's snowmaking is probably as good as its going to get without a reservoir. They are capped at drawing 6000 gpm from the river. While they should still work towards eventually building a reservoir, there is another way to speed up their trail rollout without one.
They need to seriously consider making snow all the way through March like Killington does. No, they don't need to build a Superstar Glacier, but they can do any spring base building in March, rather than doing it in late January or February when they should be getting all their snowmaking trails open. When they open Skyward, they spend about 10 days making snow there to bury it so they won't have to come back to it. Under my proposal, they could stop at 5 days, make snow on another trail, like Wilmington, and then come back to it in March to deepen it up for spring.
Another thing that might help is spacing the hydrants closer. Killington has 40-60 foot hydrant spacing on most of their trails. Whiteface has 80-100 foot spacing. With closer spacing, they would not be able to make snow on as many trails at once, but would be able to achieve a quicker turnaround. This means instead of having to slog away at Draper's for 2 weeks in marginal temps to prepare for a race they committed to holding months ago, they could get it done in 4-5 days of optimal temps, and then head elsewhere, presumably to higher elevation terrain when temps aren't as favorable, and get another trail open. Killington often gets trails skiable under the guns in just 24-48 hours of snowmaking, and can put a 2 foot base on most trails in 4-5 days. Whiteface takes 4-5 days just to open a trail, and nearly 2 weeks to get a deep enough base that they won't have to come back to it.
Last edited:
chumpomatic
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2021
tldr; make more snow
I won 6 pack betting my a ski buddy today on the lift when I said Gore was open for skiing last year in May.
He wanted to "bet a 6 pack of yer favorite.”
Wasn’t my idea.
Sometimes ya get thrown a bone.
Q*bert Jones IV
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2020
“Open” and “skiable” are not the same thing. 
Him and his brother were there shortly before things closed up.“Open” and “skiable” are not the same thing.
One of em thought they broke a rib. It was just bruised.
Harvey
Administrator
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2020
“Open” and “skiable” are not the same thing.
The question is which is your guiding star.
raisingarizona
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2020
It’s neither
