Dick, the Snowmaking Guru

Tuesday we met for a presentation at the outing club.  it was about the history of snowmaking through the eyes of Dick Harris(?? no clue if that is right, Sean?).  He worked with seemingly every type of snowmaking gun that has ever existed, and will exist for the nearby future.  He put together a presentation that portrayed all of the basic concepts and requirements that the Snowmaking industry has been working to improve for the past 100 years.  It seems that the recipe of cold+water+air doesn't always equal snow, and can be combined and processed in numerous different ways all with their own strengths for specific purposes, temperatures, and locations across the world.  Snowmaking technology today has far surpassed that of the past, and continues to find new ways to become more efficient, and produce better quality more consistent snow.  Technological advances like automation allow guns to change settings automatically to adjust to the best current atmospheric conditions.
p.s. Im going to colorado in 26 days, i hope your all working and miserable while im out there

Stowe Leaf Blow

Stowe mountain resort is located on the hichest peak in Vermont, Mount Mansfield, and as a way to help both the development of the ski resort and tourist attractions in Vermont, they built an access road to the top that you can drive up to (almost) the peak of Mount Mansfield.  An access road to the top of the mountain is cool, but surprisingly to me requires a lot of maintenance each year by the employee's of Stowe Mountain Resort.  

At Stowe Mountain today we helped to rake out and clean the culverts that drain water safely around the access road to the mountain.  This work basically sucked except for the fact that i got to run the hefty ol' leaf blower (which was only mediocre..).  We were required to rake and blow out all of the leaves to allow for all of the water to run effectively down the mountain without huge results of overflow and erosion.  It makes you think that a mountain needs a lot of maintenance that you wouldn't always think about and its important not to overlook.  This seemingly pointless activity can cost the mountain tens of thousands of dollars worth of repairs later.  Truth of the matter is that a successful ski resort doesn't overlook the little tasks like this.  You need to remember to watch and maintain things like wiggly sheaves, towers out of line (guage), too much sag in a haul rope, falling trees/power lines, fire codes, licensing for certain sales/services, lift inspections up to date, trail maintenance and mowing, legal codes, etc because they can all result in major expenses to a ski area. You often have to focus on some very little details to keep expenses of an area down. 

Skate Jam'

     November 5th was the day of the Chilli Cookoff and SkateJam was very exciting.  We had a bunch of people there, more than i had expected but not many of them wanted to register for the skate jam.  we had 6 participants and about 45 people watching.  there were a bunch of awesome tricks thrown, and everyone had a lot of fun.  we got to give away some great prizes thanks to VSS, JSLV, SK8 Mafia, Steez, and some others. I didn't know that they were supposed to mow today, but the hill looks great, its getting me really excited for the season to come.  After the Cookoff we had a pretty spontaneous idea to set up a drive in movie theater at the outing club and premier 2 movies.  one of them was the sk8 mafia movie, which played first and was pretty killer, and the other was Level 1's After Dark. I thought this event was a huge success and we had about 50 people show up.  Sue Teske, one of the ladies who runs the club came by to see how we were doing and seemed very pleased with the event and everyone there.

Burke Work

Putting on Chairlift pads doesnt really seem like a big task.  its the thing that you forget about and don't really think of until the last minute and you don't really realize how long it can take when there are 161 chairs.  but in a situation like Burke Mountain, they have cleverly recruited the MRM experience-craving students to be able to learn basic skills and gain experience by taking over the job. The class did great working together, and we devised an effective system quickly.  i did the task last year in the class so i knew a few of the tricks, and my other classmates loved making it into a fun activity. the fact that it was a friendly competition kept it interesting and got it done really quickly. good team work boys! (and lindsey and shawna)

Loc Cleanup Day Oct 30th

The outing club is starting to get ready for its opening days as the days get shorter and the nights grow colder. so in order to get the trails ready for skiing they had to be cleaned up of all the brush and rubbish, but unfortunately my foot is still injured so i got the luxury of staying indoors, and chiseling the oil shmuck build up of 3 years off of the deep fryer.  it wasn't exactly the job for a princess, but now it's cleaner than some people thought that it may ever be again, and its ready for whippin' up some fries and mozzarella sticks for hungry skiers. we also did some constructive destruction by knocking out a part of the wall that goes into the kitchen, and cleaned up other things around the lodge.  The day was good and we had enough participants show to get the job done, we appreciate everyone who showed up to lend a hand!

Bretton Woods, Live Free or Die

Bretton Woods is a great ski resort.  they focus a lot of their marketing and operations around being one of the east coast's top family oriented mountains.  their gentle pitch and expansive acreage on the mountain allows them to cater to families very effectively.  but that is not all that they have, one of the newest and most successful canopy tours around, their 18 hole golf course, and the mount washington hotel keep customers coming to the mountain all year round.  we visited and got a chance to meet and speak with a lot of people who had a lot to do with how well the resort ran as a hole.  We spoke with managers and people in all different departments like snowmaking, lifts, marketing, human relations, operations, etc and I couldn't help but notice that they all seemed to be very fond of eachother.  they all know eachother well and although there was joking about some people it always ended with a friendly chuckle and a commonly understood goal.  It didn't surprise me to see this kind of teamwork and connectedness(dont think this is a word) at bretton woods since i feel that they are known to have some of the best customer satisfaction in the east coast.  after checking out the mountain and all of the stuff at the resort we went over to the Mount Washington Hotel which is possibly the spookiest most guarenteed to be haunted place i've ever been to.  I have been there before with my mom about 3 or 4 years ago, but there have been some additions since then.  learning about the history and heritage of the Hotel is really interesting, and the rooms are rich with stories.

A Peek at the Peak

     Jay Peak is a widely expanding operation that is one of the fastest growing 4 season resorts in the country.  C.E.O. Bill Stenger works out business partnerships with United States Government  issued green cards and timeshares to locate international donors that support the areas explosive growth over the past few years and over the next few to come.  We got a chance to visit the mountain and take a look at exactly what kind of new exciting things they are getting and have already got.  We started off in the old Lodge, but it was obvious when we showed up that there was massive construction areas and it seemed like everything was moving at once.  I'm not very good with names, but we had a small lecture before adventuring the resort that nearly put me to sleep, but saved at the last minute we got our hardhats and i waddled out on my crutches to see what was going on.  We started by walking through the area's new hotel. it was massive but we finally found Jay Peaks new water park, which is extremely interesting.  there are not many ski resorts with water parks yet, so i think that it will be interesting to see how successful it works out.  and also the Ice Hockey rink was a new addition to Jay.  other than this they were constructing another new spa and bar area on the other side of the Main Lodge, they have just constructed a 19th hole Golf clubhouse and are in the process of adding 50 new condos to the mountain's outskirts. This massive expansion is impressive and is huge for the ski resort industry, but what might this mean for smaller nearby areas like Burke?

Burke Work

This week we traveled to Burke mountain to meet with Dick Andros, the "big wig" of burke.  He explained to us the use and techniques of ski resort master plans.  I learned a lot from his presentation in the lodge,  i thought that it was very interesting being able to take a peak at Burke's master plan.  it was also cool how they decided on the placement of the lift, taking into account what MIGHT be possible 20 to 30 years down the line. This placement is the best spot to allow for the resort to be able to expand their current operation to the maximum threshold that the landscape could provide us.  After this we also took a peak at all of the new lift construction and got a chance to check out their new wind turbine as well.  seeing the turbine that close and even being able to go into it really put it into perspective how large they are, and Burke Mountain's is relatively small!  Burke is a very interesting mountain with huge potential and meeting with Dick was a good way to explore the progress, work, and possibilities of the mountain over the years.

The New England Ski Museum

     The New England ski museum is located at the base of Cannon Mountain.  it describes the history of the ski and snowboard industry that we have evolved into today.  This ski museum focuses mostly on New England, and the series of events that lead up to the first successful ski area's.  here they had so many interesting artifacts and trinkets that helped to show what the history of the ski industry looked and felt like. after the museum we traveled up the tram to the peak of cannon, where we were able to get a look around and hike up to the fire-tower.  Cannon is a pretty incredible mountain hosting tons of history and rich life.

     Also this week we met with Thom Anderson's program planning class in order to finalize details and events leading up to the chili cookoff.  it is stressed that communication between parties is crucial and could be a deciding factor in the success of the project.  right now things are looking pretty good, and the anticipation is growing as the event gets closer

Wire Splice Advice

The Lyndon outing club got a little bit of maintenance work done this past week, splicing a new section of wire in where the old one was frayed, as well as adding a little bit of length to take some tension off the lift. We were there on tuesday morning ready to watch the procedure,  but a few complications and some rain put it off for another day.  In getting the wire ready for work, we had to drop the cable off of a few towers so it was low enough to work on.  I helped with this by taking a 4 foot metal bar and just prying it to the side of the sheaves.  when it dropped it went quick, and to my surprise the whole sheave assembly started whipping around like the propellers on a plane.  i wasn't really ready for that to happen and i almost lost a few toes in the process, but i would call it a lesson learned.  Once the wire was on the ground we put brackets on the wire and pulled them toward each other (1 uphill, 1 downhill) and made some slack in the line.  at this time it was raining pretty good, and there was a little too much tension on the wire since we didn't move the counter weight up so it had to be postponed until wednesday when unfortunately i couldn't make it.

Thursday we went to Stowe mountain and saw ___________(insert important guys name here), who showed us all the work going on with there new high-speed quad and patrol shack.  the new lift looked pretty awesome, and it was obvious that it was a brand spanking new one. It was a Doppelmayr made lift and the most interesting part i think was the bull-wheel assembly.  bull-wheels don't usually come in 3 separate pieces and the bull-wheel was angled down in both the top and bottom terminals.  It is a different way to detach the chair from the cable pushing the chairs along on their own separate track, while the wire is pulled downward onto the automatically tension'd bull-wheel.  after this we helped take apart some of the top assemblies from the old lift tower.  This was a real fun activity and it was cool to see what was holding all of that together.  once we removed the catwalks, and sheave assemblies from the frame we separated them into different organized piles so that Stowe mountain could find a buyer and get them ready to be shipped out.  By parting out their lift, selling the cable to one place, chairs to another, and the sheave's and tubes still without a buyer, they optimized the retail value of the old pieces.

I've Got some good NEWSS

this past Thursday we traveled to Sunday River to take part in the New Endland Winter Sports Summit.  It is a convention for ski areas, and ski industry business to market all of their new product out to the industry.  This was a very cool convention and its interesting to see a few of the industry big-wigs all together in one place.  There were representatives from Pisten-bully, Prinoth, Action Bearing, TechnoAlpin, Ramp snowboards, Rossignol Skis, and many many more. These representatives were extremely helpful and were all willing to take time out of their day to explain their product, and discuss it with us. All of these people represented people who have succeeded in the ski industry, and I think that it is important to talk to these people and learn a little bit about the path that got them there. One of the more interesting people that I talked to was Steve Greene of Action Bearing.  It's funny how we take little things like bearings for granted,  but they are everywhere.  they are in every sheave of every tower, they are in our snowmobiles, and groomers,  we use them in the kitchen, and just about everywhere else on a ski resort, you can look and find a bearing.  Steve explained to me 2 major different kinds of bearing, roller bearings for fast spinning low load bearing uses, and roller bearings which spin a little slower but are able to hold much heavier loads.  Another interesting person that I spoke with was Chris of the National Ski Patrol, he had been patrolling over Pat's Peak for 21 years, and from what it seemed, he has seen everything on the ski hill. We had discussed the curriculum and if it has expanded to cover any needs for mountain biking and other summer recreation that a lot of mountain's have been installing.  He says the curriculum covers all kinds of emergency care, and most of the summer information falls into place in the curriculum already.  This event was a great way to see some in's and out's of the ski industry and also meet some of the people who have lived it.

Lyndon State Outing Club

The outing club is a marvelous place full of opportunity.  this year our practicum class has decided to try and make something of all this land.  our job is to plan and facilitate an event at the outing club that will benefit the club, the town, and the community. so in order to do this effectively we broke the class up into 4 different groups.  events, marketing, trail maintenance, and sustainability so that we can tackle obstacles in a organized and focused fashion.  I am in the events group and we have decided to do an event in conjunction with Thom Anderson's already successful chili cookoff on november 5th.  Beginning to coordinate this event leads me to believe it will be a lot of work to make sure that things run smoothly.  but in the mean time you can watch this snowboard teaser!