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lakespapa
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SW New Hampshire
I'm tagging this New England but naming it Northeast.

It's been cold these late days in August, down to the fifties this morning, and I saw a picture of Tony S in a parka over in Maine yesterday afternoon. The night before last I wanted a woolly blanket; last night I had one. My wife even complained of the cold — no surprise (she's under-insulated), but she talked about turning on the furnace, too, which isn't her style in August.

The (always reliable) Old Farmer's Almanac has already predicted a cold and snowy winter. They look at the signs: thicker than normal corn husks, pairs of woodpeckers sharing a tree, early snowy owls, the early migration of geese, ducks, and monarch butterflies, thick and frequent August fogs, thick hair on cows' napes, thick-tailed raccoons, ravenous house-mice (check), early hearth-crickets, large spider webs, pigs gathering sticks (who knew?), insects traveling in lines, bees retiring early to their hives, an abundant acorn crop, muskrats burrowing high on river banks, high-placed hornets' nests, fat woolly caterpillars with narrow bands, squirrels gathering early nuts, and halos around the moon. Apparently, pigs have gathered sticks, but I haven't seen a caterpillar yet.

NOAA predicts an average winter — equal chance warm/cold, equal chance wet/dry. Joel Gratz of OpenSnow points out, though, that long term forecasts aren't worth the electrons they're written in. They're all air. We had a bonanza 2014-15, a bust 2015-16, and an average 2016-17. My bones predict a decent season, though, so mark it down, and we'll check back next spring.

In resort news (http://www.newenglandskiindustry.com), Saddleback has been bought by Australians, but nothing much has happened since (@Tony S?). New lifts are going in at Sunday River, Pat's Peak, Waterville Valley, Sugarbush, and Magic Mountain, and Burke and Whaleback are getting new T-bars. Berkshire East has cut the first trail on it's north face project — they picked up a 140 acre parcel on Mt. Institute and the planning board issued unanimous approval. Cannon is widening Mittersill trails (some discussion there, I believe), and Waterville is doing a major expansion (ten trails) on Green Peak. The Balsams claims they'll finally break ground in October.

As Trish has reported elsewhere, the new owner of Mount Sunapee resort (Och-Ziff Capital Management) has been fined $412 million for a bribery scheme that violates the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The fine triggered a public hearing last week, set by New Hampshire's attorney general. No news yet how that might affect Sunapee's expansion plans, which the state has approved but which are controversial among environmental groups.

Lots going on. I'm not ready to scrape storage wax yet, but I've been poking around in the basement, clearing the tuning bench, speculating, and wondering when I should pick up the season pass.

There'll be plenty to talk about in a couple of months, but I figure if the thread launches early, maybe Ullr will favor us this year.
 
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surfsnowgirl

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Magic Mountain, Vermont
Just spent a long weekend in killington and it got down to the mid 40s at night and stoke is in the air. Bartender at Garlics said it was 40 days until snowmaking. Countdown has started.

Question of the day is what is killington doing to that right of the base of superstar. 20170827_152013.jpg 20170827_152011_HDR.jpg
 
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lakespapa
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SW New Hampshire
Just spent a long weekend in killington and it got down to the mid 40s at night and stoke is in the air. Bartender at Garlics said it was 40 days until snowmaking. Countdown has started.

Question of the day is what is killington doing to that right of the base of superstar. View attachment 28776 View attachment 28777

Good question. I'll check with my Killington sources, but somebody here must know. Maybe this?: http://www.killington.com/site/culture/blog/authors/jeff_temple/preparations-begin-for-killington
 

Philpug

Notorious P.U.G.
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Philpug

Notorious P.U.G.
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Killington still has a ton of stashes...Hell, don't they have a run called "The Stash"? Want to have fun at Killington...
ski with the mountain bike trail map, it opens up a lot of the mountain
 

BC.

NEPA ShopRat/Skier
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Lake Wallenpaupack, PA
Since ur talking K-ton this am..

Not that I think it's true;)......but I love the sticker/saying, "Don't Jersey Vermont"...

Whenever I am at the Beast, which is often, cuz it's always a good time....I always laugh when I see that sticker.

Fuhgeddaboutit !!
 

KevinF

Gathermeister-New England
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Killington still has a ton of stashes...Hell, don't they have a run called "The Stash"? Want to have fun at Killington...

Oh. I thought the answer was
  • Drive back down the access road
  • Get on Vt. Rt. 107
  • Follow that to I-89
  • Head north to either exit 9 (Sugarbush and MRG) or exit 10 (Stowe and Smuggs)
:D
 
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lakespapa
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SW New Hampshire
On the Snow came out with their (equally useless but not unpleasant) season prediction today: "Driven by ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) Neutral conditions," their meteorologist predicts "La Niña Lite" for mid-December to March, giving us normal snowfall here.

Other regions: CUWMI — normal to above average; WB-B/LL — same; PN — normal; Ca. normal to slightly below average.
 

SallyCat

Getting off the lift
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Vermont, United States
they are building a 4 season jump venue financed by the Killington Mountain School parents.

^^ Winner, winner, chicken dinner. They've been working on that thing all summer. Didn't know about the funding, though. Huh. K-ton also has some pretty massive mountain bike trail expansion in the works. I'm looking forward to crashing into much of it next summer.
 
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lakespapa
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SW New Hampshire
Joel Gratz, a noted resister of seasonal forecasts, just released an article comparing the 2010-11 hurricane season and the current season (then and now there were three hurricanes in the Atlantic simultaneously) and suggesting that the following ski seasons could be similar as well — during the 2010-11 season, snowfall was above normal most places in the US (including the Northeast, significantly).

Joel doesn't suggest you book trips just yet, but chops-licking is acceptable, if you're inclined to that.

2017-09-10-1.jpg

2017-09-10-2.jpg

http://opensnow.com/news/post/can-h...il&utm_term=newsletter&utm_campaign=2017-2018
 

LKLA

Out on the slopes
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Here is some of the news I've come across recently regarding the 17/18 season -
  • Mount Snow completed $30 million in snow making upgrades for the upcoming season, including doubling their ability to make snow and increasing storage capacity six-fold.
  • Okemo added two new grooming machines to its fleet along with snow making upgrades and added 10 snowguns, bringing its arsenal of HKD snow guns to 1,300.
  • Sugarbush replaced the old ticket scanning system with RFID gates at all base lifts and purchased new guns and equipment.
  • Killington will host the 2017 Audi FIS Ski World Cup on November 25 and 26.Tickets went on sale last Thursday, September 7th.
  • Stowe is making some changes to its parking logistics including adding parking spaces by the Midway lodge. It will not be charging for parking (at least not this season).
  • Stratton is now owned by Aspen Skiing Company (a subsidiary of Henry Crown), along with Steamboat, Squaw, Mammoth, Tremblant and others.
  • Sugarbush joined the Mountain Collective Pass and replacing two of its older double lifts, the Village Double and Sunshine Double, with new fixed-grip quads.
 
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