by skiloaf » Thu Oct 10, 2024 10:47 am
Fresh paint on the high speed quad terminals. Didn't realize this is going into SL 75. Feels like it was just SL 50. Is this what it feels like to be old? I hope they use this year as an opportunity to make a big announcement.
Overall I think the terrain park move to Whiffletree is theoretically great. In practice a number of solvable issues that I hope get addressed if they like how it works this year.
Snowmaking: WT snowmaking sucks. It's one air/water line for both cruiser and WT. Hydrants are pretty spaced out. They did add those old tower guns to cruiser a few years ago which will make piling snow easier. On WT and the park under WT that is going to be a headache as they need to drag the HKD sleds over and then try not to have the snow cover the lines. Dream world is they add newer tower guns on cruiser for snow, add a line up Jill Poke, and add another line up the west side of Whiffletree so they can make snow on both cruiser and whiffletree at the same time and don't need to drag the hoses across. They said in the comments they were going to try to push up Jill Poke this year. While they are adding snowmaking L buckboard would be nice for everyone who is on mountainside for early season.
Uphill capacity: Curious how much people think WME moved people off the WT line. The lift can run faster and sometimes it does on holiday weeks -- I've never seen it close to the design speed. The bigger issue is chair spacing and stops. I think they could first add a height adjustable conveyor load to reduce miss loads and then if they want once they replace SQ use some of those carriers to increase the number of chairs. No need for a new lift! But if they wanted to add another lift they could put a surface lift up the left side of the yard where tubing used to be. Heck that thing is probably in storage.
Terrain variety: One more trail would help with variety. I'm not sure if they ever finished putting the wires underground on pole line but I imagine you could widen that trail a bit more so it has some variety from springboard.
Overall experience: Lots happening on WM to be excited about with scenic lift rides, bike park, disk golf, and new park setup. A few things to make it even more fun would be: restaurant or food option for year round (scenic lift rides and winter). A european style umbrella bar like what they have at BigSky could be nice if they want to just do beverage no food. Heck might as well add a mountain coaster while they are at it. For the skybound park on the weekends or sunny days it would be fun to put some speakers on the lift towers so there was a bit more of a fun vibe while you watch people faceplant from the lift. I'm not sure what their vision is for jill poke given how steep that headwall is. Maybe you could guide people around that little turn on skiers right (this is old Lower Ramdown I think) and make it a bit of the european "fun trail". These often have tunnels, cartoon characters you can interact with (high five Amos), banked turns, and little rollers. Maybe there is a way to cut something further out so it's not so steep?
the jhondillah will run from the base of john diller's house to the summit