Adirondack Sports March 2024

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ALPINE SKIING & SNOWBOARDING Gore Snowmakers Shine Amid Sparse Conditions MARCH 2024 41 ● EARLY SNOWMAKING ON TOPRIDGE TRAIL. By Alex Kochon Anyone who has skied at Gore Mountain in North Creek, with 108 trails across nearly 448 acres, can vouch for the superb snowmaking and grooming this season. The state-owned ski area hasn’t been blessed with abundant snow – instead, the opposite. Like other downhill ski resorts across the state and country, they’ve been dealing with one of the more lackluster winters on record. According to Gore Mountain Snowmaking Supervisor, Dan Feiden, the amount of natural snowfall there has been on par with the winter of 2015-16, “the winter that wasn’t,” as he called it. That was his first year as the head of snowmaking; he managed Gore’s tubing hill before that. They opened about 50% of the mountain for skiing and snowboarding that year. Fast-forward to this season, a similar winter with temperatures hovering just below freezing most nights, and Gore’s snowmaking team produced enough snow to open nearly 95% of their trails. This can be credited to Gore’s hardworking employees, whose snowmaking team was one of eight nationwide to earn a nomination in Ski Area Management magazine’s “I AM a Snowmaker 2024” contest: saminfo.com. Together with Gore’s grooming team, they made mountains out of molehills. Snowmaking typically begins in November when temperatures allow and continues through January, usually later. Snow is blown in piles, which groomers push around to spread evenly over the trails. Sometimes, these mounds are left for days to let the moisture leach out – especially when the snow is made during “marginal” air temperatures: about 16-30 degrees Fahrenheit. Anything warmer than that is too warm to make snow, and colder (0-15 degrees) is optimal. “It will typically take two or three nights to get a trail ready after we’re done making snow on it,” Dan explained. “The groomers spend the first night or two just pushing the first piles around to evenly smear it around the trail, then they’ll do a night or two of grooming with the actual tillers down and turn it into the nice corduroy that people like to ski on.” ● GORE’S SNOWMAKING SUPERVISOR DAN FEIDEN. They start by covering half the trail with snow from top to bottom. The other half is left for natural snow or snowmakers to fill in later. They prioritize opening the trail, then moving snow guns or pushing snow around as needed. If all goes well, snowmaking can wrap up in late January, “but that never happens,” Dan explained. “It’s either Mother Nature is not working with us, or some equipment maintenance is needed, but more times than not in recent years, it’s Mother Nature.” The goal is to make as much snow as possible through February. “Usually, by then, we’ve been running so much equipment for so many hours that the mountain starts seeing enough snow made that we can scale back the snowmaking.” Dan explained. “Our goal is to stay open as long as possible.” he added. “The year before last, we went to the first weekend in May.” Throughout the season, his team works around the clock during “cold weather windows,” running as much snowmaking equipment as possible when temperatures drop below freezing. This season, they’ve been limited to snowmaking mostly at night and in the wee hours of the morning, as their equipment requires temperatures colder than 30 degrees. While Gore’s snowmakers have operated most evenings this winter, temperatures have been mainly in the marginal range, except for a few “optimal” snowmaking nights thus far. ● GROOMING TEAM’S SIERRA OLBERT ON FRESHLY GROOMED TERRAIN. ● SAFELY SHARING THE TRAIL. GORE MOUNTAIN/OLYMPIC AUTHORITY “When we get 90 to 95 percent of the mountain open on a year like this, it makes me really happy with the improvements we have made,” Dan said. In the last eight years, Gore has nearly doubled its snow-gun fleet to almost 2,000 snow guns spread throughout four peaks. Some of these are permanently fixed to the slopes, others are mobile, and hundreds are energy efficient – producing ten times the amount of snow with the same amount of air required by an older-style snow gun. This has resulted in substantial energy savings for the mountain, bolstered by a recent $1.2-million-dollar National Grid incentive to cover half the cost of these high-efficiency snow guns: goremountain.com. This year, the Olympic Regional Development Authority, which operates the Gore, Whiteface, and Belleayre ski areas, purchased 136 energy-efficient, tower-mounted snow guns for Gore in partnership with National Grid. A press release stated that these are expected to conserve more than 2.1 kilowatt-hours per year while pumping out 190 acre-feet of snow. See ALPINE SKIING & SNOWBOARDING 43 ▶
Page 1 and 2: COVERING UPSTATE NY SINCE 2000 FREE
Page 3 and 4: MARCH 2024 3 Outdoor Oil Paintings
Page 5 and 6: MARCH 2024 5 CONTENTS 5 FROM THE TE
Page 7 and 8: News Briefs NYSOGA Winter Rendezvou
Page 9 and 10: BICYCLING MARCH 2024 9 ◀ BILLY’
Page 11 and 12: ▲ MUD? NO PROBLEM AT FARMER’S D
Page 13 and 14: RUNNING & WALKING MARCH 2024 13 ■
Page 15 and 16: RUNNING & WALKING continued from 13
Page 17 and 18: MARCH 2024 17 18th Annual NY’S LA
Page 19 and 20: MARCH 2024 19 18TH ANNUAL EXPLORE T
Page 21 and 22: MARCH 2024 21 EXPO HIGHLIGHTS ■ G
Page 23 and 24: RUNNING, BIKING & TRIATHLON Adirond
Page 25 and 26: MARCH 2024 25 LOOK WHO’S EXHIBITI
Page 27 and 28: MARCH 2024 27 FINALLY, THE MISSING
Page 29 and 30: MARCH 2024 29 2021 CARDIAC CLASSIC
Page 31 and 32: Listings with bold type, more detai
Page 33 and 34: MARCH 2024 33 21 Bike ADK: Bike the
Page 35 and 36: MARCH 2024 35 28 Findley Lake Triat
Page 37 and 38: MARCH 2024 37 13 Helderberg to Huds
Page 39: MARCH 2024 39 Sunday, March 24 IT
Page 43 and 44: MARCH 2024 43 COMMUNITY continued f
Page 45 and 46: MARCH 2024 45 By John Slyer COMMUNI
Page 47 and 48: COMMUNITY continued from 45 er made
Page 49 and 50: COMMUNITY continued from 47 MARCH 2
Page 51 and 52: MARCH 2024 51 NON-MEDICATED LIFE Me
Page 53 and 54: RACE RESULTS GORE MOUNTAIN CITIZENS
Page 55 and 56: RACE RESULTS MARCH 2024 55 EMPIRE S

Adirondack Sports March 2024

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