questions to ponder

[joegm]

now that the local 9 have wrapped up their historic run at the title and will have had the parade in less than 24 hours, for most, it would seem that the last 2 weeks events on the diamond have been able to draw our attention away from the disturbing mild weather trend that seems to have set down...lets try and fire up the board with a question with a debatable answer. keeping in mind of course that, for most reasonable people, we can assume that most would agree that there is no real way that K could be open for business at this point
1) consensus regarding- " if the last 10 days had produced no or minimal natural snowfall, but very favorable temps for snowmaking, would K be open/opening this coming weekend ? "

would there be any K old timers / locals out there who would have access to legit reliable weather info for some of the the glory years of k back from say 1980 to 1995 when they appeared to have some epicly early openings?

 

[riverc0il]

not that i agree or anything with the reasoning, but i believe K is going with the opening strategy of "top to bottom" opening and won't settle for less. base temps are almost never consistantly low enough for reliable snow making in october which is why K needed to use upper elevation trails for early season in previous years. i really doubt temps could have sustained low enough in october to allow top to bottom opening and not closing. even on the remote chance (say, about as remote as the sox winning the world series) that temps were perfect in october for top to bottom early season, i don't think K would have gone for it. i think october skiing in new england is done for now, unfortunately.

 

[Geoff]

As the Killington regular here, all I can say is that I was pretty unhappy when they ripped out the Killington Peak double chair. The midstation on that lift is what enabled October skiing. Running skiers in the back of pickup trucks up to the Canyon Quad was a rediculous substitute.

What I'd do is schedule replacement of the Snowdon triple with a lift capable of downloading. At resorts like Blackcomb, you can download on one of those Dopplmeyer high speed quads with the bubble. They could run a trivial handle tow through the woods to get from the wrap-around trail on the Glades up to the top of Snowdon. Voila! Perpetual fall skiing where you can open with 24 hours of snowmaking on terrain that's all above 3000'.

 

[joegm]

weather.com, ( who i have found to be not too accurate more than 4 days out) has what appears to be a string of about 4 days of nighttime mid to low 20's starting around this coming thursday...the sick bird in me says a week from this coming wednesday... my head tells me 2 weeks from today :roll: ...

 

[joegm]

steve makes a good point about the upper level spinning vs the t to b... anyone have any historical perspective as to when the t to b started from say 80 to 95?

 

[Geoff]

steve makes a good point about the upper level spinning vs the t to b... anyone have any historical perspective as to when the t to b started from say 80 to 95?

Typical was the first or 2nd week in November. The rollout always used to be upper Cascade for opening day in October, then Rime, then a way to ski down Snowdon. Some years, upper Cascade would melt out and be shut and skiing would be the Snowdon triple and the Glades triple. I can remember a few Thanksgiving weekends when all they had was Snowdon double, Snowdon triple, Glades, and the poma.

 

[Tony Crocker]

My ski day Nov. 7, 1993 consisted of 3 runs open, none connected to each other.
#1 was Upper Cascade with downloading required from the top of the K1 double.
#2 was Bunny Buster on Snowden. This was NOT connected to the top via Glades.
#3 was Superstar. I spent 10AM to lunch on the first 2, and the whole afternoon on Superstar. I was very impressed to ski a run with the length and challenge of Superstar as early as Nov. 7. I'm a little less impressed now with after October's bounty in California. My report from today at Snow Summit will be up shortly.

 

[Geoff]

My ski day Nov. 7, 1993 consisted of 3 runs open, none connected to each other.
#1 was Upper Cascade with downloading required from the top of the K1 double.
#2 was Bunny Buster on Snowden. This was NOT connected to the top via Glades.
#3 was Superstar. I spent 10AM to lunch on the first 2, and the whole afternoon on Superstar. I was very impressed to ski a run with the length and challenge of Superstar as early as Nov. 7. I'm a little less impressed now with after October's bounty in California. My report from today at Snow Summit will be up shortly.

The new management would never put Superstar online that early. Preston Smith focused on expert skiers since they are the early season customer base. The new management focuses on novice and intermediate terrain. For a number of years, they've blown Rams Head and Snowshed well before Thanksgiving only to see it melt out. At the moment, they do that wimpy stuff before they make snow on the intermediate Skyelark/High Road/Bittersweet descent down Skye Peak. With the late snowmaking start again this year, I doubt Superstar will be open before December.

 

[woodi7259]

Someone just said this on another forum and I thought it might be interesting to ad his comment here. I wanna hope it's not true but have a feeling it might be. I'm still hoping for a nice early opening from mss.

The news I heard this weekend is unsettling at the least. This is what a member of Killington management told us. They do want to open by next weekend 11/6 but......

As you may or may not know K-town is offering the super cheap pass this year. Well, they sold an amazing amount of season passes this year compared to the last few years. They are seriously worried about an onslaught of eager early skiers the likes of which would spell disaster with the current parking situation and the fact there will only be 3-4 runs open. Not to mention they dont have the employees yet.

Here's the bad part if they dont get enough cold weather in time and enough employees hired they possibly will not open until Thanksgiving. Our source assured us this was a worst case scenerio but looking at the weather map and knowing that the usual group of foreigners, that show up when Killington hires help for the season, are not around it's not looking to good.

The web site and the Killington "lie line" are still claiming as soon as they get a few straight days of cold they will start the snow making. (when they start making snow and when they open are two entirely different things)

It would seem that a good thing has come to bite us in the ass.

 

[Geoff]

Killington is facing a big labor shortage this winter. They get crushed on weekends and rely on an awful lot of free and minimum wage part time staff who have traditionally worked weekends or parts of weekends in exchange for a season pass. The $349 season pass has caused many of these people to opt out. This won't effect opening day since they can handle snowmaking, lift ops, ticket sales, and patrol with full time staff but it will have a big impact on their ability to deal with crowds once they hit their busy season.

If you've ever been to Killington on Thanksgiving Saturday, you'd know that the limiting factor is parking. Once there is nowhere to put the cars, they'll have to start turning people away. This has nothing to do with how much staff they hire for opening day or for the first few weekends in November.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I find it truly incredible that a ski area would turn away people for lack of parking. The Big Bear areas have skier capacity beyond parking capacity, and on a weekend day of full operation you need to get there by 8:15AM to park at the base area. But they have auxiliary parking a mile away with somewhat tedious free shuttles to get to the mountain.

If the problem is that Killington peak is the only base area with skiing in the early season, then the parking would serve as a de facto limit on ticket sales. This is probably a good thing, given skier density on the few runs open. I did find Bunny Buster's skier density somewhat excessive. I like to do long GS-type turns as a warmup, and there wasn't enough room to do that. Big Bear limits ticket sales based upon number of lifts/trails open.

Management needs to look at who their clientele is. I'm guessing the October/early November skiers in Vermont are the die-hards. So going for more advanced terrain would make sense. I realize it's more difficult and needs more snow. But Killington could do it in 1993 ...

 

[JimG.]

They are seriously worried about an onslaught of eager early skiers the likes of which would spell disaster with the current parking situation and the fact there will only be 3-4 runs open. Not to mention they dont have the employees yet.

Does anyone else see the stupendous irony in this comment? The usual reason given for not opening early/staying open late is lack of skier visits. Adding new meaning to the phrase "be careful what you wish for", now we may have a situation where they are afraid to open for fear of being swamped by skiers!

I'm so trained to take all pre-season rumor with a grain of salt that I won't speculate on the factual nature of these comments, but if there is any truth to it I would be very concerned about the ability of current Killington management to bring the mountain out of its' current economic slump. Are they seeing the forest and not the trees?

 

[Patrick]

It's amazing how this reminds me of this time last year, instead of to top to bottom comment, we know (if true) get the too many skier for the lack of trails / too many skier.

Yes, the season pass deal was pretty amazing. If this would've happend 10 years ago (before moving to Ottawa and kids), I would've probably jump at it in a minute, regardless if I was 3 hours away from the closest ASC resort (Killington and Sunday River are 3hr from MTL, Sugarloaf 3.5hrs). Yeah, I was willing (and still are if it's the only game in town), heck I have made it to all the June 1st Slalom on Superstar (1992-97), regardless if I was living in MTL or Ottawa. Killington is also the third area I have visited the most in the last 25 yrs, mostly on day-trips, almost uniquely on the season margins.

I remember a few times around Thanksgiving where Bunny was covered in skiers, I don't believe I have ever seen a greater skier-density anywhere else.

REGARDLESS OF KILLINGTON CURRENT OPENING POLICY, I believe that without the old double, Killington would've had a hard time to open in October in the 80s. This Fall and the few Falls before have been particularly warmer than average. This is a disturbing trend that unfortunately, I don't think might change soon. There was a time when the first snowfall (in Montreal/Ottawa) of the year would ALWAYS happend in October, now this rarely happens nowadays.

 

[Geoff]

I did find Bunny Buster's skier density somewhat excessive.

A master of understatement. :lol:

Opening day and early season Saturdays have always had huge traffic problems at Killington with Thanksgiving Saturday being the worst. I typically get there before the lifts open and get the heck off the mountain by 10:30. At that time of year, they have nowhere to put the cars once the lots in Killington basin fill. I've seen Thanksgiving Saturdays where people were parked on the access road 1/2 mile below the Rams Head lot.

Killington will open when they open. With a top to bottom policy, that's going to typically be the 1st or 2nd week in November with the occasional October opening. I preferred upper mountain skiing in October but that seems to be gone forever.

I'll be interested to see what the impact ends up being with the $349 season passes. I've heard that Sunday River was a ghost town much of last winter even with their $349 Sunday River/Attitash pass. For every person who bagged 100 days on that pass, there were dozens who no-show or only end up skiing a few days. If the same thing happens at Killington, I guess it's marketing genius. We'll see.

 

[riverc0il]

i will second that comment about Bunny Buster. i have only done early season november skiing at K once and remember the place being packed, but especially remember bodies hitting the snow all over the place on that trail. small bumps had formed and the trail is a narrow funnel. oh man, it took me about 5 minutes minimum to pick my way down that trail. crazy.

all summer i was wondering what the low season pass rate would do to traffic at ASC areas. it should be really entertaining to watch and see what happens. i think they have a legitiment concern here folks. normally, only the die hards (as mentioned earlier) would be shelling out $40+ to ski a dozen "trails" in novemeber. however, if people have a pass in hand and are really excited about it and won't be paying any extra money to ski more days, you can bet traffic is going to be much higher on the mountain.

another interesting question is whether K believes that regular day ticket sales will be substantially lower during the early season if most of the early season skiers decided to anti up for the pass. this would mean they might loose a ton of money if they open too early and don't have any day ticket sales. do they please the pass holders or to they hold off an additional week fearing that early season skiers will be pass holders and not day ticket skiers? lots of interesting questions!

is the labor shortage the result of the visa thing expiring so fewer temporary foreign workers can be brought in? i believe i heard a news story on NPR a while back indicating that fewer work visas were available and companys that rely on cheap foreign workers coming in temporarily were hurting this year. maybe they should offer more money and employ domestic workers that need some extra cash? :lol:

 

[NHpowderhound]

Hopefully the pass deal keeps all the goofers where they belong,at ASC resorts and away from the hills that have the "goods".I hope lots and lots of people bought the pass and ski the hell out of it.Less traffic for me to deal with where I go.
K for me means an overpriced mountain polluted with condos and resturaunts.Killington,as far as i'm concerned is less about skiing and more about what to do after skiing.My dream mountain has lifts,trails,a modest cafeteria with a good value and thats about it.
Vermont can keep the damn town of rich,crybaby taxpayers.As far as i'm concerned,this NH citizen thinks they should try to ceceed to California,cuz I dont want thier problems.
When is Killington going to open?I dont care but will guess each year it will get closer to Thanksgiving and further away from Veterans Day.At that point, why go get rippied off for skiing a hard frost with a swarm of tourist?Wait a couple of weeks and get some real snow at a resort that cares about quality.
((*
*))NHPH

 

[riverc0il]

Hopefully the pass deal keeps all the goofers where they belong,at ASC resorts and away from the hills that have the "goods".I hope lots and lots of people bought the pass and ski the hell out of it.Less traffic for me to deal with where I go.

while i completely agree with the sentiment, my fear is that many smaller ski areas that people with ASC passes won't be skiing at will be losing money. i don't think the cheap passes are good for ASC in the long run, and they will have at least a minor effect on some lift ticket sales at other areas that are known to be less crowded. less crowded is good, but being open is better! :wink:

 

[Tony Crocker]

Is the $349 season pass for Killington or all ASC resorts? When did you have to buy it? And was there a limit, like the 25,000 at Mammoth?

The cheap season passes are inefficiently used, especially when purchased far in advance. The Sunday River/Attitash experience fits with what I heard about Mammoth's. Is there enough day/weekend skier traffic to pay for early/late season? We had that discussion last May with inconclusive results. The economic equation is different when you have to spend upfront $ blowing snow. Mammoth looked at its 56-inch storm 2 weeks ago and opened 2 days later.

Impact on small areas could be serious. The first region where cheap season pass price wars broke out was Colorado's Front Range, and that has been blamed for the demise of Berthoud Pass ski area.

 

[Geoff]

is the labor shortage the result of the visa thing expiring so fewer temporary foreign workers can be brought in? i believe i heard a news story on NPR a while back indicating that fewer work visas were available and companys that rely on cheap foreign workers coming in temporarily were hurting this year. maybe they should offer more money and employ domestic workers that need some extra cash? :lol:

I don't believe this applies to the 6-month student work visa program. That's where the resorts are getting their indentured servants.

 

[Admin]

I don't believe this applies to the 6-month student work visa program. That's where the resorts are getting their indentured servants.

Actually, there's a special class of visa -- forgive me if I don't recall the letter designation -- for temporary workers in a seasonal position. That's the visa class that most resorts rely upon for foreign seasonal employees.