Gore Mountain Snowmaking Capacity

I skied with Mike Pratt this afternoon. I asked him several questions about snowmaking. What follows is a breakdown on snowmaking capacity at Gore Mountain.

snowmaking on Lies

Ten years ago Gore used 80 million gallons of water per season. Last season Gore water consumption was over 300 million gallons.

The limit on the system is the ability to pump water uphill. There are two pump systems currently. Upgrading means more than adding pumps. When operating at full capacity the current “plumbing” is also maxed out. New systems are a big expense. Both Gore systems, cranking at full production can put out 7 million gallons in 24 hours.

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Gore Mountain, NY: 1/8/10

Today was an “interesting” day. I had some serious equipment setbacks. I’m not going to detail them, because I have a ton to post tonight, and that’s the least interesting or fun part. But suffice it to say, it took a positive attitude to shake it off and have a good time.

Pine Brook entrance

BUT, I did have a good day. I know you’re shocked right. Borderline great really. Had a bit of a love/hate thing going on with PineBrook today. But it wasn’t because of the surfaces. The constant drip drip of days of flurries seems to be adding up.

The mountain has made big progress on surfaces. Clearly Hawkeye had been pounded. On a scale of 1-to-10 Hawkeye went from a 2 last Saturday, to a 7 today. Lots of nice manmade in big piles across most of the trail above the ChatieHawk cutover. The headwall still had some tough spots, but it was certainly skiable by an expert. I did ok too.

Pine Brook Glades

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Conversation with Emily Stanton

Recently, we spoke with Emily Stanton, Marketing Manager, and Mike Pratt, General Manager, about Gore Mountain. Part One, with Emily, is the first of a two part conversation with Gore management.

NYSkiBlog: Emily … thanks for giving me time today. I really appreciate it. If it’s OK with you, I’d like to ask you a few questions to get an idea about who you are. After that, I’d like to move into some of the issues of the day. Some of the questions are mine, and some are from the readers of NYSkiBlog.

Emily Stanton: Sounds good.

NYSB: How old were you when you started to ride on snow?

ES: I was five.

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