last year 7 this year 1!! (days of skiing this point-last year vs. this year) <BR> <BR>another incredible opening day. beautiful sunshine and great snow. pretty much a carbon copy of last year. as opposed to the announced opening time of noon, the mountain actually opened at 10:30 this morning. pulled into kbl at about 10:25 and saw people milling around the k1. called up & asked if they were open and someone shouted back 10:30. threw my boots on in a hurry and got out there. <BR> <BR>essentially 3 runs-rime, east glade & great northern w/middle chute. lower west glade was not open so there a bit of an uphill to get from the base of the glades triple to lower great northern. nothing seemed to be groomed. guns were going pretty much top-to-bottom on east glade and on just the lower part of rime. they were going on mid chute, lower bunny and upper mouse before being shut off early in the afternoon. the main condition was huge snow whales (a bit tricky for the first day out). bump lines started forming on both rime & east glade later in the day. chute was very sticky early and firmed up for my last run at 3pm. snow held held up well with no thin & bare spots. i guess the opening being moved up a day took people by surprise because the turnout was surprisingly light as oppposed to last year which was packed. <BR> <BR>expect pretty much the same terrain for the weekend with the addition of upper mouse & maybe upper bunny enabling them to open the poma and possibly the snowdon triple. lower west glade should be open tomorrow. <BR> <BR>all in all, a great day. my legs are killing me today. walking up stairs is a challenge.
Killington 11/10/03
- Thread starter skiadikt
- Start date
Frankontour
New member
Thanks for the report, Skiadikt ! <BR> <BR>I was wondering how it was for the KOD ! <BR> <BR>Weird that they didn't took the time to groom the trails. I guess they wanted to do it, but they realized that they were short in time, just like at MSS sunday, so they decided to open earlier, but without grooming the trails. <BR> <BR>Personnaly, I would have prefered it at MSS in the West 70, rather than opening it really late in the day ! So I would have been happy to ski on this kind of terrain on Killington. <BR> <BR>Ish for the 7-1 for last year !
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Anonymous
Guest
it's called "curing", it allows excess moisture to drain and evaporate out of the snow, if you groom it right off the bat it will turn to ice immediately
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Anonymous
Guest
That's what happened at MSS this past weekend. They foolishly tried to groom immediately after turning off the guns and consequently made ice. I thought they knew what they were doing is terms of snowmaking at MSS, but obviously they don't.
I don't think it was foolish for MSS to groom everything. <BR> <BR>First, their HKD system makes it such that there were huge mounds of snow (15 feet high) with almost no snow in between. It wouldn't have been skiable had they not groomed it. Killington's guns are on the ground, so they can be moved to spread snowmaking accross the width and length of the trails. <BR> <BR>Secondly, turning snow into ice isn't all bad: this way, the cover will last longer during the warm spells such as the one we currently experience, and will prevent skiers from digging all the way to the ground as they ski the limited terrain.
Frankontour
New member
About MSS, I think that Max is right, at least for the "Nordique" It would have been impossible to open it (at least the lower part) with the snow they'd made in it, without grooming. <BR> <BR>The West 70 could have got enough snow, but there was some big snow mountains and it would have been enough dangerous with all the boarders taking advantage of that... <BR> <BR>There is an advantage to have some fixed snowguns. Before the beginning of the season, some ski areas don't want us to hit the slopes before they open, cause there is some snowmaking pipes in the trail. There is absolutely no problem with that when the snowguns are fixed, so each year there is a lot of boarders and few skiers that are enjoying some first turns before the chairlifts open <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT="
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Frankontour
New member
PS : Don't forget the weekly chat, tonite at 9h, at : <BR> <BR><A HREF="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/chat2.shtm" TARGET="_top">http://www.firsttracksonline.com/chat2.shtm</A> <BR> <BR>see you there !
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Anonymous
Guest
With respect to MSS I agree that because of the mounds they had little choice but to groom. The main point of my post was that this is what caused the icy conditions mentioned in the MSS thread. Also, the HKD guns themselves are not responsible for the mounds, but rather the, for lack of a better word, laziness of the mountain crews is. I have seen them used, regularly rotated during the snowmaking run, and produce a reasonably even cover that is wonderful to ski. In fact the snow can be so good that it actually bumps up nicely. That is what I'm used to seeing for early season skiing in places like Killington, Sunday River and Sugarloaf (in the old days when they tried to open first).