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.