Mid-Atlantic The Neverending Timberline, WV: Info, Weather, and Stoke

[WV RVA Skier]

View from Mid Mountain and below.
Blowing on lower Thunderstruck and White Out

 

[WV RVA Skier]

Salamander, Easy Does It, White Out

 

[JohnL]

View attachment 119393
How much snowmaking is going on at Timberline Mountain?!?
This much!

Effin <those who shall remain nameless/> You can see the clear-cut stupidity between Thunder and Heaven above the pump house. With dropped trees just left in place. Extreme danger zone.

 

[SCWVA]

Wow... that many guns along OTW?!? Sweet!

That has me thinking... have TM ever had a regular bump run? Maybe a side of White Lightning? I haven't skied there often enough to know.

I was told that The Drop would be the designated bump at TM. I hope that they get the guns going soon.

 

[skidrew]

A high-speed 6 can move a lot of people/hour if being fully loaded. I'd be surprised if non-holiday lines get to be enough to warrant another lift to the top.

And having uphill capacity>downhill capacity does no one any favors. Better to have people waiting in line at the base than running into each other on the slopes.

 

[pipestem]

Agree. That always seemed to happen on upper dew and heaven on weekends. Good reason to ha have wall and drop open.

 

[James]

A high-speed 6 can move a lot of people/hour if being fully loaded. I'd be surprised if non-holiday lines get to be enough to warrant another lift to the top.

You’d think so. However, when we put in our 6 pack for the high speed 4, the capacity was exactly the same. The extra capacity per chair is offset by fewer chairs. That’s a bubble though, so chairs are heavy and maybe there’s less on a line than a regular one.

 

[WV RVA Skier]

A drone photo of the entire mountain!

 

[WV RVA Skier]

 

[dbostedo]

View attachment 119523
A drone photo of the entire mountain!

That's awesome!!! Post in Photo of the Day!

And that looks like a very good socially-distanced line too. Well done TM!!!

 

[knuckledragger]

View attachment 119527

I'm glad they are getting some crowds for Christmas/NewYears. The holidays are great for business..... then the real season starts

 

[mdr227]

How as the parking situation been for those that have gone?

 

[skidrew]

You’d think so. However, when we put in our 6 pack for the high speed 4, the capacity was exactly the same. The extra capacity per chair is offset by fewer chairs. That’s a bubble though, so chairs are heavy and maybe there’s less on a line than a regular one.

This is basically a general case - the uphill capacity per hour usually is similar. Skiers just spend less time on the chair (which in cold weather is itself pretty nice).

 

[dbostedo]

This is basically a general case - the uphill capacity per hour usually is similar. Skiers just spend less time on the chair (which in cold weather is itself pretty nice).

If it was a switch from a fixed grip 4 to a high-speed 4, I'd tend to agree (though a newer lift versus an older should still make a difference). Both going to a 6 should still increase capacity significantly over what they used to have. And what they used to have was a triple, not even a quad, right?

According to @Lift Blog, the old Thunderstruck lift capacity was 1800 people per hour, and the new 6-pack lift is 3200/hour. (And the new quad is 2375/hour.) I don't know if those are official or resort provided, but they're typical of new lifts I think.

 

[RickH]

I thought I read somewhere the 6 pack has a capacity of 4800/hr.

 

[dbostedo]

I thought I read somewhere the 6 pack has a capacity of 4800/hr.

That would be really high, per other site's listings for other 6-packs. The 3 at Vail, for instance, all run at 3000 or 3600 - and those aren't bubble lifts or anything that would tend to reduce capacity. Super Bee (no bubble, but older) at Copper is 2900, Killington's bubble 6 is 3000, and Okemo's bubble 6 is 3000.

Maybe 4800 is the maximum possible, not what it would typical run at?

 

[skidrew]

If it was a switch from a fixed grip 4 to a high-speed 4, I'd tend to agree (though a newer lift versus an older should still make a difference). Both going to a 6 should still increase capacity significantly over what they used to have. And what they used to have was a triple, not even a quad, right?

According to @Lift Blog, the old Thunderstruck lift capacity was 1800 people per hour, and the new 6-pack lift is 3200/hour. (And the new quad is 2375/hour.) I don't know if those are official or resort provided, but they're typical of new lifts I think.

Fair, though it depends on chair spacing and what the resort figures it needs and can do. A comparison - Big Sky replaced a triple chair with a HS six pack on Lone Peak a couple years ago. Uphill capacity remained the same because it spaced the chairs a lot more generously.

There's a practical limit because people still have to mount/dismount at a manageable speed and clear the unload area.

4800/hour would mean 80 people every minute, or a chair every 4.5 seconds. People would be on piling on top of each other in the offload area. Even 3200 sounds aggressive, which is about a chair every 7.5 seconds. I'm sure it's mechanically capable of it, but not necessarily the most sensible way to do it.

 

[RickH]

Happy New Years everyone. There was one good thing that came out of 2020. Timberline Mountain, thank you Perfects.

 

[ksampson3]

How as the parking situation been for those that have gone?

Parking filled up on Wednesday. We got there about 8:30 and the lot next to the ticket windows wasn't close to being full. 30 minutes later it was.
The parking lot down by the condos also filled up. I'm not sure what time that happened, but it definitely was filled by lunchtime.

Could be a lot of folks trying to get there before the rain and warmth the next few days.

Definitely. Walking through the parking lot it was mostly cars from DC/MD/VA. I have no doubt that the Pennsylvania quarantine restrictions had a lot to do with that.

We skied Canaan Valley Resort on Tuesday and Timberline on Wednesday. If I get motivated, I'm going to post a "Compare and Contrast" of the 2 hills. Man, it's like night and day. Or before and after. Or heaven and hell. Or...

 

[dbostedo]

Big Sky replaced a triple chair with a HS six pack on Lone Peak a couple years ago.

Yeah, but that six pack is a fancy heated bubble, with a lot of weight... so it makes sense that it didn't up the capacity, though 1800/hour is pretty low. Even Ramcharger (which is awesome) is only 3600/hour. TM's 6-pack is much simpler, obviously, so should be quite a bit higher than the Powder Seeker 6-pack.