powderfreak

Yeah it’s a tough call sometimes, I enjoy solo sometimes but skiing with friends is usually better. You have any trips to Spruce planned?

Which I guess shows it’s working as that economic disincentive is now going to move you to skiing midweek at Stowe when there’s excess supply… and lead to one less car on the Mountain Road from Fri-Sun. Or you’ll take a shuttle from lodging… though you probably pay $30 a day anyway to have a car at the Lodge at Spruce Peak?

Absolutely. That’s why we say they are businesses. Not non-profits, and there is massive overhead and uncertainty (weather). That’s what my post was about my naiveness coming in out of college. Its the “romantic” vision of skiing against the “realistic” for-profit-business side. Any business that can get more is likely going to do it, from the local pizza shop to a multi-national corporation.

Humans are interesting creatures for sure in thought processes. It’s not always logical, but it’s usually emotional. This forum in winter casts a light on that in its own .

The initial investment is just massive to get something off the ground. But people love the business challenge.

They found her this morning a bit below treeline it sounds like. https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/search-for-missing-hiker-in-nh-now-a-recovery-operation-officials-say/2902276/

34/26 and it’s been spitting light snow and flurries with no accumulation most of the morning. Smallest flakes possible type stuff. Like if they had to fall another few hundred feet they’d be completely gone.

At Stowe the lift uphill capacity can handle the crowd. The majority of the lifts will now be high-speed with the new Sunrise lift replacing the Triple. Liftlines are not the problem. The road and traffic are the problems. One person per vehicle is just not efficient. But it’s America and individual travel in a car is almost a constitutional right it seems. The answer is not easy but we enjoy the early season days that are quiet.

There needs to be an economic disincentive… something that discourages an individual from performing an action. That is the first thing I learned in the Stowe marketing and sales office 15+ years ago as a UVM intern. Obviously, my naive college ideological self was thinking skiing should be cheap all-around, almost like a non-profit org for those who like sliding down snow. With fast lifts that always open on time, snowmaking operations that run at all times to max capacity, pristine grooming when the natural snow isn’t in, terrain that’s always cared for in the off-season. Everyone wants a high-end operation, that’s cheap to experience, on a mountain that is breathtaking to view. I remember when Stowe was the first ski area to have a single day lift ticket go over the $100 mark. It was a huge deal. We got slaughtered on social media. Now a Mad River Glen day lift ticket costs a hundred bucks (well, $99) with very little operational overhead costs (lifts, grooming, snowmaking, all bare bones cheap economically). Places that are in demand need an economic disincentive and skiing is seeing a boom period. COVID reigniting outdoor spaces (similar to Sept 11 exodus to the countryside in drivable distance to NYC), Mega-Passes to places world wide, and later stage capitalism has led to a run on demand for mountain activities/life. As an economics study, the underlying dynamics at play make sense to me. You can’t have a cheap, big mountain and high-end operation and not run into demand issues requiring a variable that turns people off from the product.

This is how you set yourself up for failure. Rushing the seasons. Like if May/June isn’t HHH, you hate it… even knowing it’s coming in July/August. Feels the same when it comes to snow in November/December. Even at 1,000ft in ORH, on December 15 the average high is upper 30s (38F). And that’s at the coldest station in SNE. Climo wise it’s Jan/Feb/Mar for snow. I would worry more if you end up wasting January or February. Not the last week of November into the first two weeks in December. That snowfall can be made up in a hurry. November’s snow average is 2.9” and ORH had that 2” event that pretty much satisfied climo. Entire month of December averages under a foot. That’s one good warning event in the entire month of December to keep pace. SNE gets a widespread foot of snow from a coastal on New Years Eve and it’s a tick above normal snow month.

We’ve all been there. It’s a natural defense mechanism, I’ve done it before snowstorms… you look for what could go wrong. I expect a Messenger SE rug pull every storm. Ya’ll do it all summer, every summer now with rain.

That’s part of it too… worrying that the drug isn’t as good as the dealer says it will be .

That’s the crux of it right there. Everyone knows the variables and that everything in weather is a probability spread. Some people don’t do good with unknowns, probability, and uncertainty too.

The atmosphere has been good lately. Most folks have accepted it, gotten their season parking pass, or will just park in the free lots and ski back to the car. Many locals wanted it to get more expensive (they were used to the AIG $2000 pass) as supply and demand says this should be very expensive to ski here. Social media will never truly calm down because social media does outrage well. I know of a decent amount of people who got Sugarbush passes too. The market will correct itself and I think market correction is already in progress. It’s been a quiet start to the season, different than the frenzy last November IMO. Pretty nice afternoon, I just got off the hill. There’s maybe like 40 people skiing this afternoon, ha.

Patterns also don’t necessarily correlate to measuring inches of snow either. The pattern can be exactly as shown but it still doesn’t snow because of other random variables. That’s where the “satisfaction” side comes in… it can verify but not satisfy. Great patterns don’t produce sometimes, just like terrible patterns can run into one sometimes. But you hedge your bets. It’s all a probability game.

Yes forgot them, I saw their video from the past weekend and that’s legit. Wide trail coverage too. Real vertical, real skiing.

Morrisville-Stowe Airport average high is 41F today. Mid-40s average a week ago. 31/17 yesterday. 36/4 today. 8th straight day solidly below normal. Ginxy’s pattern change call worked out.

I also think the enthusiasm is high this time of year. It’s dark, it’s cold, it feels like winter. Darkness at 4:30-5pm feels like midwinter. Pitch black by 5:15pm. The expectations and “vibe” vastly out-perform the reality. But it’s really still in the mid-November envelop, heading towards late-November. This is so incredibly early in the snow season and climo normals, despite the warmth for the first two weeks. @bwt3650 is spot on in recognizing the snowmaking window and time of year. We are still days away from the time of year when spots like Jay Peak, Smuggs, and Bolton Valley have enough budget allocation to open. Will those spots open their true vertical? Probably not, because it’s still so *early* in the season. There are 5+ months to go of daily operations, it’s a lot. There are s lot of skiers who don’t understand why half the mountain isn’t open this time of year. It’s like why on this forum people are antsy/anxious/upset that mid-winter patterns aren’t settling in. Average highs are in the 40s still at most stations.

Yup. Even marginally below normal cold. -SN falling in the flood lights right now as a weak shortwave moves NW to SE through here. A piece of energy tonight and another tomorrow night. It looks like we are in for a pattern relaxation coming up, but hopefully having the gradient nearby can lead to some forum fun.

Yeah if the right pattern sets up, one even better than those past winters, it can certainly beat them. These days you just need that extra 10% of perfection to best the past in cold records.

2,100 vertical feet is a big deal too for Wildcat. People look at all ski areas as generally equal when it comes to opening... but pay attention to vertical feet and trail length. It's not easy to bury that amount of vertical in the feet of snow wall-to-wall required to support nightly grooming operations. Places opening short vertical have a big advantage as much smaller windows can make it happen. Shameless Stowe plug here but I've been super impressed with the snowmaking crew this year (shockingly, raising minimum wages to $20+/hr attracts people) that is running deep in personnel. If we have two full top-to-bottom runs at 2,100 verts each on Thanksgiving, plus a variety of beginner terrain on lower Spruce, it's a very successful early season buildout to date. When comparing early season snowmaking, the amount of vertical feet and miles available are the true industry metrics. It makes Whiteface's 3,000 vertical feet open this past weekend probably the most impressive of the entire Northeast. Killington had like 600 vertical feet, and was downloading/walking from the skiing... Sugarbush had like 1,000 feet (?) of a beginner/intermediate run open... while Whiteface (a NY State run area) was offering 3,100 vertical feet of sustained pitch, groomed snow from top-to-bottom. IMO, Whiteface won the early season.

Yikes. No word yet? It was really cold last night. Mountain wind chills from Mansfield at 4,000ft were like -25 to -30F, and MWN at 6,000ft was like -50F. Low over this way was 4F this morning.

Low of 4F. Hill is 0F with wind chills of -30F. Here come the heating bills.

Ha, right. Like +6 or +7 even with a week below normal. Just a huge sensible weather shift though. Like it’s 6F outside right now. Snowpack feeding back big time.

Yeah the daily snows have helped too. Not some snowfall that then leaves you with no more flakes the rest of the week. But brushing snow off the car on 3 of the last 5 days adds to the wintry appeal.