Stowe clean-up day

Last thursday for Practicum class sent it over to Stowe to Look over their progress on the new lift process and to do some maintenace on their acess road. First thing we met up with josh who walked us up to the base of the new lift. i was pretty shocked to see that the lift is complete and the maintenancwe guys were doing a weight test on it. They were using barrels of water to simulate people being on the chair. the way the water moves in the barrels pretty acuratly depicts the same motions as people would. This is the final step in the process to actually use the chair to move customers up the mountain. once the state inspector gives them the go-ahead, the chair will be ready for use this season. After a quick chat with the head of lift maintenance, we got back in the vans, and headed up the access road where our rakes ang leaf blowers where waiting for us. our task was to rake and blow all of the leaves out of the drainage ditches along the side of the road. we went ad it full force with everyone working hard to get it done. it was hard to find a simple way to do it sonce there were so many of us, but eventually we got the hang of it, got a system in place, and went to work. After a couple of hours of work, we got to a stopping point and then headed up to the top of the mountain to check out the lift terminal and new patrol building. after that we spread grass seed and hay around the unloading area of the new lift. after a long day of hard labor, we sent it back to school.

Burke Seat Pads and Chili Cook-off

Last thursday we headed over to Burke Mountain to put seat pads on the wiloughby chair. what seemed to be a pretty meanial task proved to be a bigger task that I originally expected. the chair started up and we went to work in two teams strapping the pads to each chair on both the downhill and up hill side. we worked great together and moved at a really quick pace and ended up getting the job done in under two hours. The compettition that formed between the two groups made the task a little more fun and definitly expedited the process. The guys are Burke were very happy with our work and thanked us for a job well done.

On Saturday it was the big day. The Chili Cook-off and Skate-jam. We got there early to get everything set-up which went a lot quicker than we thought, so it became a waiting game. at first i was a little worried about people showing up, but as the day went on we got much more people than iexpected as this was my first chili cook off. The Skate-jam also went off without a hitch. we could have used more competitiors, but there were a lot of spectators which made for a great vibe and exciting event. The skating that went down was incredible and its awesome to know we have that kind of talent right here at LSC. my boi cam cmobs took the much deserved win with some superrr sick hardflips

Bretton Woods and LOC Clean-up

On thursday, our practicum class made the drive over to Bretton Woods, New Hampshire's largest Ski Resort. First thing we met with a representative of their ski and snowsports. Here we took a tour of their Lodge and all the facilities in their main base including the rock wall and bouldering cave. The lodge looks huge from the inside because of the multiple floors and open space on the inside. We saw all of their cafeteria and eating facilities withing the main base lodge as well. After we left the main base lodge we headed over to maintenance to take a look at and talk about their snowmaking system. We met up with Big Tuna, head of snowmaking and he explained to us their whole system. I was surprised to hear how much the additive cost that they add to the water used for snowmaking at $100 dollars a bag. After snowmaking we headed over to take a look at the canopy tour and talk about their summer operations. The canopy tour being the beginning of their summer ops. After a long talk about guest services, we headed over to tour the Mount Washington Hotel, the oldest wooden structure in new england. The hotel was extravagant and a total change of pace from the resort next door.
This past Sunday, a small portion of us went over to the outing club for trail maintenance and cleanup day. many members of the class were either too hungover or out snowboading to make it, talk about not being commited to your school work. Anyway the few of us that were there put in work cutting and clearing brush from the trails while the LOC guys started up their chainsaws and started dropping trees left and right with no communication going on whatsoever i might add. but whatever no one died. the lodged was organized and cleaned up, trails were cleared, and we got free soda. made for a fun filled day of hard work.

Jay Peak

On thursday we headed out bright and early off to jay Peak Resort, There is a lot going on a jay peak right now with many construction projects taking place. Jay is building a huge start of the art hotel with every luxury you could think of including a big heated pool and hot tub that will be right out front slopeside. Along with the hotel, they are putting in an indoor water park with many water slides, a lazy river, wave pools and a wave rider. we got to the opportunity to speak with a representative from marketing which i found pretty intersting. The way jay markets themself is a way no other mountain could pull off. the posters of muddy boots and snotty beards really stand out in the industry next to other mountains marketing tools. jay peak gets away with marketing themselves as "hardcore" mountain rather than a family kind of vibe and with the type of skiing and terrain that they offer, it works really well for them. we also got to do a whole hard hat tour of all construction sites and existing facilities. we walked through the new hotel, the almost finished water park and got to see the ice haus, ice rink. The ice rink is really cool with the big windows look right out at the mountain. Jay Peak is expanding quickly with plans of more terrain on west bowl. They are putting themselves on a whole other level.

Burke MTN

On thursday we took a trip to our favorite ski hill, Burke Mountain. Burke has a lot going on at the moment with a new lift project going in to be opened this coming season. We were given the chance to sit down with Dick Andross, the manger of operations at Burke. Dick took us through The big plan for Burke mountian as well as their new lift. It is important for resorts to make a plan and follow it in order to make sure everything runs in conjuction with one another smoothly. Burke's new lift is a top drive Leitner/Poma detachable quad. the footings have been dug and most have been poured with concrete. the towers an sheave assembly's are there and almost ready to be installed. we also got to take a look at the lift profile and tlak about waht permits were needed and why the lift is going to be located where it is. Burke Mountian also completed another project this summer in their new wind turbine. We took a ride up to the top of the mountain to check it out and there it was spinning away, creating energy. i was surprised about how quiet it actually is. Also surprised to learn that it only will take two years to make back the money to pay for the turbine. seemed like a pretty quick turn around for a project of that size. Burke has a lot going on and little time to get it done. these are big improvements and will hopefully attract guests to Burke Mountain.

LOC Meeting and Cannon/New England Ski Museum

Class on tuesday consisted of us meeting with Thom Andersons Program planning class to coordinate the Chili Cookoff and our Fall Festival. We discussed which aspects each group would be in charge off and many details of the whole event. Thoms class is taking care off all the money and everything involved with the chili cookoff while we are putting on all of the games and skatejam taking place outside the building. We talked about how much to charge for our skatejam and the best way to get a lot of people participate in the jam while still making some money for LOC. Matteo as our spokesman presented our ideas to the other class and for the most part, they approved of our plans. All final decisions were made as far as pricing and the actual games and events that will be taking place, so we can finally get the ball rolling to plan this event.
     On thursday our class took a trip to Cannon and the New England Ski Museum. The New England Ski Museum is located near the base of the tram at Cannon. The museum has all kinds of ols ski equipment and photos that tell the story of how skiing got started and continued to progress in the east. My favorite peice in the museum is Bode Miller's Olympic Medals, I thought it was pretty exciting to be able to hold something like that in my hands. Also while at the museum we sat in on a presentation on the history of Skiing in New Hampshire and Franconia Notch. The presentaion explained the first surface and chair lifts in the state and the notch. Also learned that the first ski trail cut in New England was at cannon and was all cut by hand. Skiing was being done before chairlifts and all terrain had to be hiked, there a lot of places in the notch where this early skiing took place. After we visited the Museum, Sean pulled some strings and we were able to take a ride on the tram. we took a cloudy, misty ride to the summit and had lunch in the lodge. We were able to see the tram work at the top station where all the mechanics are visable.

SToWe MoUnTaIn ReSoRt

Last Thursday the 22nd our practicum class headed out early to Stowe to check out their new lift project. I personally was really excited to get to stowe no matter what type of work they had waiting for us as i have never actually been to the resort before. I always hear good things about stowe and it was cool to finally get there and check out what they have to offer. Right away we got the chance to check out Stowe's new lift. They are replacing an existing fixed grip chair with a brand new dopplmeyer detachable quad. We walked over to the construction area where we were able to check out the terminal and even go up in it. There we saw all the wheels and clutches that guide the tow rope. The Constuction workers were even putting the roof on the terminal while we were up there. In conjunction with the new lift, Stowe is also building a chair rail and a huge barn to house the chairs. I found it interesting that they plan to take every chair off the line every evening and put them back on everynight. i havent heard of many mountains taking their chairs off daily. The reason that they are doing this is to prevent icing on the chairs that could potentially cause problems when chairs go into the terminal. icing on chairs often break parts and cause breakdowns of chairlifts. After checking out the bottom terminal, we hopped in the vans and went up to view the top terminal. As this is a top drive lift, we saw the motors and a pretty similar looking terminal as the bottom. Stowe is actually putting in the primary electric motor and two diesel backup motors. reason being if power is lost they can still run the lift and load passengers. at the top of the mountain, Stowe is also building a new patrol building where they will use heat from the lift motors to heat the building, i thought this was a really cool idea. Another goal for the top of the mountain was to use the space as efficiently as possible as they have a lack of space up there. A lot of space has been freed up durring the project making the lift unloading process a lot smoother and more efficient. Stowe's new lift will be a great inprovement for them an i hope to be riding it this coming season.
           After the tour of the new lift, the remainder of our day at Stowe was spent Dis-assembling Sheave assembly's. It was pretty interesting seeing the sheaves and towers up so close as we usually only see that stuff up in the air on the towers. overall the task was pretty simple esspecially because we had a whole class to do it, but still a good learning experiance. It was definatly cool to talk to Steve the lift mechanic about all he has seen over the years and how he got into this industry.

New Englad Winter Sports Summit NEWSS

Last thursday our sophmore Ski Resort Practicum class took a ride to Sunday River to check out the New England Winter Sports Summit. We were given the oppertunity to meet al kinds of people from inside of our industry. This was something none of us have ever been able to do before so we took advantage and began to work the room and talk to all the people that we could. The beginning of our day was spent in the ballroom where the tradeshow was going on. Various Ski and Snowsport industry companies set up booths to showcase their product and inform about waht they do. after the morning hours of the tradeshow, the rest of the day was broken into different workshops for us to listen in on. The first Seminar that i sat in on was the NSAA season update. Here i learned that in most regions last season the industry gained skiervisits over previous years. We are over the 10 year average of skier visits and this past season we were up 1.3% than the season before. The Speaker also gave a lot of tips on what works as far as discount deals and what doesnt work so well. He informed us how much resorts are losing on their senior discounts as they are actually a bigger part of the market than we would ever think. The group was given a lot of information on our target market and how we will market to them. A lot of graphs were shown for skier visits and how many each state makes. I was surprised on the portion that vermont made up as it was more than i thought. The next seminar i attended was Motivating Marketing to Millenials. Here i learned taht millenials are the Ski industry's largest target market and are the largest generation. i felt that this whole presentaion was poorly put together. It seemed that she took the information right of the internet and alot of the graphs didnt make sense. It didnt even seem that the speaker was familiar with her own slide show. Some slides did not seem accurate at all. overall all information given was things i already knew and most did. The last Seminar that i attended was put on by Sustainable Energy Developements. SED is a company that builds and constructs wind turbines. They have been successful in selling their turbines to resorts and are looking to build more at ski resorts. Resorts that have already built turbines have been happy with them and would probably say that it is a good investment. Jiminy Peak was a big project for SED and the whole deal has been very successful as they make enough energy to run their whole resort and then some. massachusett state law also allows them to sell their remaining energy back to the state with brings in more revenue for the resort. Resorts were also warned about all permitting and building setbacks they may run into. the realistic timeline to have a turbine put up is 1-2 years. Durring the tradeshow portion of the summit i first spoke to Matt from SED and he told us everything we need to now about wind turbines. We discussed the turbine at Burke Mountain and were informed that they did infact build it. Matt also told us about the permitting process and a timeline to build a turbine at your resort. I asked him how long it typically takes to construct a turbine and he informed me that the actual build process doesnt take very long but its the permitting and regulations that take all of the time.
Also durring the tradeshow i spoke with Maynard Russel  from ChairKid conveyors. The product that ChairKid Showcased was their lift conveyor. These cna be found all over the country an the world. The conveyors are put in place to prevent accidents while loading the lift. it basically does all the work for you while you load the chair. I have been on these conveyors and the do make the process a whole lot easier. The best application for a ChairKid conveyor is a lift that services all types of terrain, both beginner and expert trails. Reason being it can load everyone at the same speed and there is no tripping or shuffling while trying to get onto the chair. Maynard also informed us that there are a lot more of these conveyors build in europe. When we asked why that was, he told us that europes government subsidises improvements for ski resorts as they see that sking is a huge part of their econmy. i found this fact very interesting. Overall the New England Winter Sports Summit was a great time and i Learned A lot. NEWSS got me very excited for the rest of work we will do in this years practicum.

1st class at LOC

As a class we gave been given the oppertunity to work with the Lyndon Outing Club and are evan able to make changes and improvements that will hopefully bring L.O.C. to a whole new level. The class was split into 4 groups that will each control an aspect of bring the outing club back to life. the four groups are trail maintenance, Sustainability, Events, and Marketing. The trail crew are in charge of cutting and trimming trails, clearing brush, and getting the hill ready for the season. Sustainabiltiy will be making changes in order to make the operations more efficient. some of the ideas that they are trying to put fourth are changing the lighting to something more efficient that will ultimatley use less energy and cost less to run. Also they plan to try to heat the lodge with wood primarily using less heating oil. The events Group will be putting together an event that will attract and pull people into the outing club. this is important because it will show people that the outing club is still there and a great place to being the family. The event we plan to put on is The L.O.C. Fall Festival and Skate Jam. The fall fest will consist of custumes, skating, pumpkin carving contests, vendors and affordable fun for the whole family. The marketing crew will be in charge of marketing not only this event, but creating a new style and overall look at the L.O.C.

East Coast loon freshy edit

dylan dragotta at loon
http://vimeo.com/24096591