I see Whitetail has lit Far Side which is a pretty big move, I guess that leaves 1 trail unlit unless I'm mistaken. I'm not a big night riding fan but it's a big addition to anyone who is. Farside is the most fun all out bomber run on the mountain. My only dissapointment was the sinking of funds into a covered magic carpet on the tubing hill. I still think they should be doing somethng with some kind of lift on the terrain park, even if it's just a rope tow.

That's right, Fanciful (the far left intermediate off the high-speed quad) is now the only unlit slope. Any bets on whether Whitetail will just go ahead and light that in the next year or two, to get 100% lighting? Then again, Fanciful usually doesn't get too much snowmaking attention early in the season, and there is plenty of lighted terrain now.

In terms of the covered magic carpet in the tubing area, remember that tubing is very popular and profitable. Anything that makes that more popular only helps the ski area overall. It does seem that Whitetail now has parts from two or three old rope tows sitting around, and when they installed their first carpet, the plan was to move the old rope tow to the terrain park. But terrain parks keep growing in size, so maybe that's not a good option anymore. And I'm not sure it's necessary now, since the terrain park was moved from Stalker (served by the slow Easy Rider quad) to Angel Drop (served by the high-speed quad). It doesn't take too long to get back to the top now.

I think it's been flogged to death here but the consensus seems to be that putting some kind of tow or lift on the terrain park would reduce the pressure on the high speed lift, especially at peak times and help reduce the traffic on upper Angel which is usually a zoo by 11:00am. Putting a lift in the park would allow park users to just keep cycling through that area without the need to use the main lift. On super busy weekends this would be a huge asset, MLK weekend for example.

It's something I'd like to see happen but I have my doubts that it will.

Lighting Farside is terrific! It wasn't too long ago that entire north end of the mountain was closed after dark, now all the runs are open!

Looks like they put a great deal of $$ into the snowmaking plant as well. 10 new cannons and 20 new double headed towers is a major expansion, not to mention the new pumps and controls. Given the advancements in machine design over the last few years, this should really help them to lay it down quickly during cold snaps and improve ongoing maintenance in marginal conditions in a big way. Looks like Snowtime is very committed to continued success and extended seasons to the maximum extent possible.

The picture on their site of the covered tube lift is interesting. I don't think I've seen a covered surface lift anywhere in the U.S. before. Of course, all the tubing lifts I've seen are of the "sit in the tube" rope tow variety, so maybe it makes a lot of sense if people have to stand for the ride up. It's great to see so many resorts finding a new source of revenue in tubing which, I believe, ultimately leads to more snowsliders on the rest of the mountain when they see how much fun the skiers and boarders are having on the bigger hills.

Kudo's to Snowtime for continuing to invest and upgrade all of their PA resorts!

The carpet lifts need to be covered because snow/ice on the belt jams up the machinery bad. On the original carpet lift at Whitetail, the covers are attached to the left side and manually flipped over at the end of the day. Many carpet lifts have "hats" instead.

The new carpet lift in the tubing area increases capacity 400% over a single tow lift. Removing the old tow lift on the right opens up room for more lanes. So now we have more uphill and downhill capacity.

One of these days I'll get a status update on moving the 1/2 pipe to lower angel and adding the surface tow over there. At one point lighting the advanced runs had been on the next year list for so long it was a joke, so there's still hope!

Thanks for the info Rusty. I never thought about but it makes sense what you say about the system jamming. I hadn't see a covered magic carpet before so I thought it was just some weird extravagance for the tubers