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Starting Snowmaking This Weekend!


HouseMuzik

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In my opinion they would make more money if they opened this weekend than on monday

 

They were planning to open Sunday. Its not a question of opening cause of snow, its weather. Rain and Ice on Sunday.. would make for shitty opening day weather.. thats the real reason here. I have full faith they will open on Monday.. they have some massive snowpiles from 24 hours of blowing. And unlike the other hills it looks like Bear will open with a lot of the trails ready to go. Looks like they blew just about everywhere. Even timberline looked to have a good half foot at least down.

 

I should add that they shut down the snowmaking on Kodiak around 11 or so tonight. thats a sign that they think they have enough to go with. I even saw the groomers working (at least I thought).

Edited by HouseMuzik
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I just finished speaking with the snowmaking team and here is the latest:

 

We are planning a Thursday opening. Believe me, we would love to open early in the week and give ourselves a chance to find any bugs that may pop up before the Weekend. No matter how much you train and plan and test you just can't simulate what happens when you have guests on the mountain.

 

We do have enough snow to open from Cascade to Drifter at this time. Our reasoning is based heavily on what happened three years ago. We were in a very similar situation and went ahead an pushed out all our piles to get open. We then received a full day of rain followed by a prolonged warm spell. For those of you who were around then, you remember the rest. For those that don't remember, the rain and warm weather took us down to bare ground and we weren't able to reopen until January 18th. If we had kept the snow in piles through the rain we would have had a much better shot at riding out the warm spell.

 

This forecast does not look as dire as 3 years ago and the 3 day warm spell is forecast to be followed by more snowmaking temperatures. Nevertheless, I would rather play it safe and give ourselves the best chance of preserving as much snow as possible rather than risk it to open 3 or 4 days earlier. After all, we are in PA and the next heat wave can be lurking at the end of the 10 day forecast.

 

The plan is to keep the snow in piles through Sunday's rain. Evaluate Tuesday's forecast on Monday morning. If Tuesday stays as scattered showers, we will begin pushing out the areas that need more prep time, like the parks, on Monday and Monday night. Once the snow gets a chance to dry out and firm up a bit on Wednesday, we will begin pushing out the piles on the rest of the trails Wednesday. Wednesday night we will put down some fresh snow and do a final groom for a Thursday opening. We should open with the trails from Cascade to Drifter. There is a possibility for more terrain on opening day but not certain. We should have most, if not all, trails open by the weekend if the forecast holds.

 

Thanks for the patience.

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Oh, I forgot to say that we are still making snow on all trails. We lost power last night for a few minutes and, even though the generators kick on, the guns still shut down briefly. When this happens, the snowmaking team has to scramble to keep the hoses, pipe lines and guns themselves from freezing. The process to get everything restared takes about 45 min to an hour.

 

My guess is you were seeing the guns turned off during the restart period. This time of year we can never have enough snow and will run every chance we get on all trails.

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Thursday's opening will depend on the grooming situation. If the plan holds, we should be open in the morning. We will know more on Monday.

 

while its a bummer you can't open soon, i just want to let you know that its awesome how much information you're giving everyone here mark. it's a lot more than some of the other ski areas do, and it means a lot to keep your season pass holders and regulars updated on what's going on when we're all dying to get on snow.

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while its a bummer you can't open soon, i just want to let you know that its awesome how much information you're giving everyone here mark. it's a lot more than some of the other ski areas do, and it means a lot to keep your season pass holders and regulars updated on what's going on when we're all dying to get on snow.

agreed, thanks mark

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while its a bummer you can't open soon, i just want to let you know that its awesome how much information you're giving everyone here mark. it's a lot more than some of the other ski areas do, and it means a lot to keep your season pass holders and regulars updated on what's going on when we're all dying to get on snow.

x2

 

LOoks like you guys have an insannne amount of snow! but i can wait till thursday :naughty

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We are still looking good for Thursday. Brad and his team are going to try to make snow tomorrow nightif the low of 27F really materializes. Temperatures from Wednesday night throught the 10 day look good.

 

Thursday may be a bit thin on the upper parts of the Kodiak and Black Bear due to some heavy losses from the rain. Conditions should get better each day and we are still hoping to have the majority of the mountain open by the weekend.

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