Any others seen it? I think its pretty nice. Looks alot more professional.

www.snowshoemtn.com


And while on the topic of the shoe, Who thinks they will make more snow Sat night, with a low of 21?

But when are they going to get a live web cam - 7s, Wisp, and others have many and have had them for years!!!!

When Joe Stevens was the Communications Manager at Snowshoe, I asked him this question (probably about 3 years ago). He said that Snowshoe would not get a live webcam because he thought webcam imagery was too poor quality and open to misinterpretation. For example, during times of weather, the webcams can ice up or fog up and it can be very difficult to tell what is going on. And Internet connections can go down, which leads to old images being up (or none at all), which can frustrate visitors. Instead, he said Snowshoe would take daily high-quality photos from around the mountain and post those, along with very honest condition reports.

I really like resort webcams, but Joe did have a point that the imagery from webcams can sometimes be misleading or poor quality. But webcams have improved in quality in recent years, and many include built-in heaters to keep from fogging or freezing up, and also work much better in low-light conditions than they once did, with more vibrant color and contrast. I don't know if Snowshoe's philosophy has changed. It is true that most resorts these days offer webcams.

One other point I forgot -- also bear in mind that it may be more difficult for Snowshoe to install a webcam infrastructure. Many resorts rely on wireless webcams because they are much easier and cheaper to install and place. Because Snowshoe is near the Green Bank radio telescope, there are lots of restrictions on the wireless technologies they can use. They had to jump through a lot of hoops to properly install repeaters for ski patrol radio communications and for a wireless smoke detector transmitter at the backcountry hut. In the latter case, they had to use special antennas and worked closely with Verizon, if I recall, to narrowly bounce the signal around in a way that wouldn't affect Green Bank. (It was pretty fascinating how they worked around the problem, especially when you consider that the backcountry hut is line-of-sight to the telescope!) I don't know if wireless webcams would cause a problem; it would probably depend on their placement, but they typically use WiFi, which is omnidirectional. Running direct signal wire to the camera(s) would get around this, but could be much more expensive.

What is the status of the new Quad on Widowmaker? I presume that it will be in operation this year, but that also implies some slope changes in that area and snowmaking additions, which there's no mention of on the website. Also, did they remove the old lift or are there now 2 lifts on Widowmaker?

I read on their Snow News is Good News article that the number of lifts remains the same so I guess that means the old lift is gone. I want to know what they're going to do with it. They mention expansion to the south but nothing concrete.

The new high-speed quad on Widowmaker (the Soaring Eagle Express) has been installed and will be ready to run when the season starts. It replaces the old lift. I don't think Snowshoe has plans to use the old lift anywhere -- they didn't recycle the lifts when Ballhooter Express and Western Express went in. Don't know if they sold the parts to another resort or not. If/when Snowshoe expands to the south, I believe they'll install brand new lift(s).

I believe i read that skisoutheast is working with snowshoe to get the first webcam up there. It seemed like it was pretty far in the planning stages so maybe this winter we'll have one.

Its been a few months since I was there but I did walk out and check the new lift. They completely removed the old lift, moved the top portion further right (if standing at TOW looking down), and closer to the top of the mountain. The top part of the lift is now between TOW and the new building. They also cleared additional trees in the path of the new lift (on the right side) so the trail will now be bit wider but I didn't see where any new trails were being cut.