Brownski
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2020
I think in the past I have talked about ”max on water” or “max on air” but that is just about the systems firepower and weather conditions, not a budget thing.
Ski Bowl 3.0 at Gore
- Thread starter snoloco
- Start date
Tjf1967
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2020
They are moving in the right direction.. they know what they need to do to get numbers. Cover the entire mountain by Christmas. They are moving in that direction. Until they get there Christmas week will be remembered by a family as the year whiteface ruined Christmas. Not good for repeat business. They can build all the lodges and lifts they want t. Until the product they come to experience is up to their hype skiers visits will never pop. IMO
According to the DEC for Gore's UMP the draw from the Hudson appears to be limited to 5000 gpm.
There’s been an expansion of the reservoir.
If they don’t blow the Mount Gondola’s there would be more trails well covered.
Think snow
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snoloco
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2021
Whiteface has a gpm of 6000 and about 250 snowmaking acres. That's actually pretty good. The problem is that in my opinion, their snowmaking performance is just not matching up with what their capacity is. In the first few weeks of last season, they did an excellent job. Summit opened on opening day, and by the third weekend, they had two full routes from top to bottom, plus Bear Den open and connected to the main base. After that, things just fell apart. It took until Late January to open Skyward, and February to open Wilmington, and multiple trails didn't open until Mid February or were skipped entirely, just like when they had the old system. The other thing they did is put fixed equipment on some of the harder trails to set up, such as Wilmington. I'm not sure why it's not leading to opening terrain sooner. Is there a learning curve to figuring out the new system, or was it something else? I feel like with the upgrades they did, that they should be able to open all of their snowmaking trails by mid-January in a year that isn't super marginal. No question they've come a long way. I remember when it was unheard of for the summit to open on opening day, and when they used to struggle to open it by Christmas. I just think we should be seeing more, based on how many millions were spent. I'll withhold further judgement until the season is underway.
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DomB
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2020
Not defending that jump but we have had massive inflation since 21(?).
Harvey
Administrator
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2020
Phenomenal memory and good analysis, some realism. Not too much crank, and withholding judgement to gather more data. Nice sno.
Trying to resist moving it to Whiteface Conditions.
Scott McManus
Member
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2020
Im not sure if I'm in the minority but i prefer to have the hill open earlier than to have it skiable into the Spring. I guess I like to spend the holidays near or at the Mountain (Gore is my home mountain) than to ski into late March. By the time March roles around mentally I have switched to Spring mode and I dont long to ski as much as I do in November. With that being said, and if anyone is in agreement, wouldnt it make sense to go gang busters early and spend the bulk of the snow making budget at the front of the season. I am aware of the Christmas thaw. It seems every season around mid December a warm rainy 'mini season' moves into the region.
Harvey
Administrator
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2020
I like March better then December. I also like April, May and February better. November is my least favorite.
BUT
Frontloading snowmaking makes a ton of sense. Christmas week can be 35% of total revenue for the season. I am not revealing anything that management isn't keenly aware of.
Important to remember: increasing capacity doesn't (necessarily) mean you are going to spend more on making snow. But you can open terrain faster, and make more use of cold air.
gregmarx
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2023
I wonder how much Christmas visitation Gore (and I guess Whiteface too) loses by not having an all-day youth ski school option. Due to school schedules Christmas week is the only opportunity my family has where we can stay somewhere 4-5 nights and ski 3 full days. The 8 year old is still in ski school all day every day when we're at a "big" mountain. Assuming i'm not missing something on the website the closest thing ORDA offers to full-day is a 2-hour morning lesson and a 2-hour afternoon, so you've got 4 hours of child care total but it's less than that actually because you've got to pick up your kids and feed them during the lunch rush. Might seem a small thing but for us at least it's a reason to rule out ORDA mountains for this annual trip, for now at least. I would guess the number of families making similar calcuations isn't huge but if you spin it forward into what mountains kids get to identify with and where they ski as they get older, etc...
Then of course the other factor is early-season snowmaking... This year we'll be going to Mt. Snow, which we can count on to make a lot of snow. But even if the weather doesn't cooperate, the trail map there is mostly very similar long blue groomers; if half or more of them are closed it's disappointing but not *that* big a deal. Gore's network is much more varied and imo much more interesting but you need all those connectors and traverses and at least a trail or two on each pod covered to get that benefit. I've only skied there when it's nearly fully open and really liked it but it seems like it would start to feel a lot smaller pretty quickly with different faces not open. I'll definitely be checking the trail status this December to see how they do...
