# Magic 1/4/2010



## polski (Jan 4, 2010)

Planned to make my first visit ever to Burke but called an audible at 5 a.m. and went to Magic instead after NWS warned of possible freezing drizzle in N VT. Great day with an inch of new on top of about a foot the two previous days. Lots of fresh tracks including some boot-deep+ in the woods and first tracks on Green Line for my last run of the day, about 20 minutes ago. Leaving now, more later.


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## marcski (Jan 4, 2010)

Nice. I bet my day at work was better than yours skiing at Magic  :blink::angry::smash::flame::uzi:


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## SKIQUATTRO (Jan 4, 2010)

Magic is on the MUST HIT list for this season


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## bvibert (Jan 4, 2010)

Sounds like they're pretty well covered.  Is everything open?


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## wa-loaf (Jan 4, 2010)

bvibert said:


> Sounds like they're pretty well covered.  Is everything open?



If they have a good base down everywhere now, it might be a good call for the next powder day.


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## bvibert (Jan 4, 2010)

wa-loaf said:


> If they have a good base down everywhere now, it might be a good call for the next powder day.



I'm sure it wouldn't be a bad call.


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## 2knees (Jan 4, 2010)

trail report says everything except black magic, which based on my experience of one run down it last year, takes a whole lot more then 14" to open.


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## powbmps (Jan 4, 2010)

2knees said:


> trail report says everything except black magic, which based on my experience of one run down it last year, takes a whole lot more then 14" to open.



:lol:  I would agree with that.


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## polski (Jan 4, 2010)

2knees said:


> trail report says everything except black magic, which based on my experience of one run down it last year, takes a whole lot more then 14" to open.



The trail report didn't precisely reflect reality on the ground. The only trail with a rope across it was Twilight Zone, though I wound up skiing the bottom half of the top part anyway after cutting through a too-tight-for-me glade from Witch. In other news of hitting terrain that was over my head, I did ski Black Magic, and admittedly the toughest parts of that were survival skiing. Magician (headwall) also was open from the top -- that's the one that really surprised me this early in the season - but I did not try navigating that one.

Anyway, they have a lot more than 14" on the steeps -- they got a decent natural base that got rained on and then froze after Christmas. Very little exposed rock.

The west side was skiing really well though often fairly technical, going back and forth between powder (sometimes somewhat wind-loaded) and wind scour. Slide of Hans was a bit scratchy and the bottom half of Broomstick was pretty scraped but those were trivial issues. Sorcerer had some of the best snow outside of the woods. Heart of Magician and Black Line were big powdery playgrounds. 

The Hallows were deep, 15-16" a pretty typical measurement, knee deep in spots. At times there I bottomed out on older rain crust but there was enough fresh on top that that wasn't a problem. Goniff Glade also was outstanding.


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## pepperdawg (Jan 5, 2010)

Also hit up Magic yesterday - 1/4/10

Not much else to add, but lots of nice, light, light powder over on the east side on the lower incline slopes not wind packed at all....for example Mystery had lots o nice snow - especailly on the sides boot-to-almost-knee deep.....good stuff.

Magic was the usual for weekday - pull up at 9:30 and there are 10 cars in the lot.....didnt stand in line once....sad for the struggling area, but one of the reasons that keep me coming back...a self defeat theory 

Yah - some of the exposed faces were yellow ice, but for the most part coverage was good/excellent - Slide of Hans was nice, as mentioned the Hallows had LOTS of untracked..all week should be money in there.....have pics, but the 100-1 card USB card reader I grabbed this morning doesnt do SD card??? WTF...will post some later...


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## Greg (Jan 5, 2010)

Wow! Sounds like Magic is primed. Gonna have to hit it soon. When's the next dump?


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## Jisch (Jan 5, 2010)

I'm strongly leaning towards hitting Magic on Friday. Since they are closed Tues-Thursday, I would assume conditions on Friday would be the same as conditions were yesterday, assuming there's not significant wind and they pick up a couple of inches between now and then (that's what the forecast says). 

All pending approval from my son - he seems predisposed to hitting Bromley at this point. 

John


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## reefer (Jan 5, 2010)

Greg said:


> Wow! Sounds like Magic is primed. Gonna have to hit it soon. When's the next dump?




Radar is on..........................great to see the Magic Love in a couple posts!


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## polski (Jan 5, 2010)

pepperdawg said:


> Also hit up Magic yesterday - 1/4/10
> 
> Not much else to add, but lots of nice, light, light powder over on the east side on the lower incline slopes not wind packed at all....



Agreed, from what I saw. I would have hit more of the east side but I was solo yesterday so took the opportunity to ski (in some cases - like Slide of Hans and Black Line - for the first time) some west side stuff that might not have been appropriate for scouting out when I'm there with my young sons.

It really is all good there. Even the lower-incline runs don't leave you with brutal runouts as happens at some other places. That's why even if there are some changes to help Magic survive long-term (especially more snowmaking), it'll still be great - because of the terrain.


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## polski (Jan 5, 2010)

Just a handful of pics to prove this did happen ... again, framegrabs from the Flip so pardon the resolution.

Two shots from the same spot, looking up at Magician (filled in and open but still daunting) and down into Heart of Magician, which was really great:











Deep in The Hallows ...





And entering Goniff Glades on my last run of the day






p.s. I've read reports of a drizzle/rain crust yesterday on open trails at Smuggs (not so much in the trees though), and MRG reported a frozen "snizzle" crust too. The NWS report I'd seen of freezing drizzle yesterday dissuaded me from N VT mainly because I didn't want to deal with nasty driving conditions, but it sounds like it may have been enough to affect surfaces too. I'm even more satisified now with my Magic call.


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## polski (Jan 5, 2010)

Jisch said:


> I'm strongly leaning towards hitting Magic on Friday. Since they are closed Tues-Thursday, I would assume conditions on Friday would be the same as conditions were yesterday, assuming there's not significant wind and they pick up a couple of inches between now and then (that's what the forecast says).


There may be a little more compaction with time but it's not supposed to go above freezing all week, so no thaw/freeze to affect conditions.



> All pending approval from my son - he seems predisposed to hitting Bromley at this point.


I've never skied Bromley and don't know what kind of skier your son is but Magic has plenty of friendly greens and blues on the east side. My kids had a blast there. The advanced terrain is top-notch but far from the only thing Magic has to offer.


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## Jisch (Jan 5, 2010)

Polski  - thanks for your reply, it helps a lot. 

I would consider both my son and I advanced intermediate skiers, and this is our first time skiing this season. Both him and I have other passions (tennis/mountain biking respectively) but we love to ski a half dozen times each winter. 

John


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## Powdahound (Jan 5, 2010)

Carpe diem.....all the pics look Sweeet!


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## Brewbeer (Jan 5, 2010)

Magic is awesome - I ski there more than any other resort.  We all should do what we can to get there and buy lift tickets.  It would be a real shame if this place went silent again.


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## ski_resort_observer (Jan 5, 2010)

Great to hear some positives things about Magic. Hopefully they got some decent numbers of skiers/riders over the holiday week. Anyone there Sat to Sat? With most of the large resorts in the area very busy, hopefully would help Magic. What about Bromley? I got a feeling outletville AKA Manchester Center had a busy holiday week. I am sure there will be news in the next week or so. VPR's report was the first that I have seen, starting on a positive note is a good thing..


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## foofy (Jan 6, 2010)

Was there all week (Monday after Christmas through Sunday).  Dust on crust early in the week with some skiable powder on the East side lower angle slopes.  Fabulous as the weekend snows arrived, as already reported above.  Many grins all around.

Crowds seemed to increase each day throughout the week, with Saturday being busiest.  Many comments Saturday about the existence of a lift line - 10 deep, that was.  :-D  On a few occasions we actually needed to share the trail with other people - imagine that!  Sunday, it was back to empty as everyone headed home or avoided the cold, whatever.

This is my first year skiing Magic.  Love it so far, but if this is what holiday crowds look like, well...they really do need all the help they can get.


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## polski (Jan 7, 2010)

I heard the bar was hopping over the weekend, but as Magic currently leases out that concession (and the cafeteria) it brings them little $$$ unfortunately. According to their business plan they plan to run the cafeteria/bar themselves when the lease expires after this season.

Anyway, brewbeer is on to the solution: Support Magic by SKIING THERE. (No offense to any AZ advertisers; I can't imagine anyone wants to see the NELSAP list grow.) Not only does it provide Magic revenues but if they can show they're continuing to increase their skier visit numbers, that can help them raise investor cash in the future, whether through partnership share sales or other means. Per their business plan, the last two seasons they had 16k visits per season (up from less than 5k in 2005-06); they say they need 25k to hit break-even; and their five-year target is 35k.

While I'm on the general topic, I presume this has been discussed here before but allow me a moment of spamminess for a good cause: Buy t-shirts & stickers from http://savemagicvermont.com (direct link to store). Here's how proceeds will benefit Magic, as it unfolded at TGR:

A mag at TGR, uppernotmaster (which refers to the "true" name of the top of Magician), had this nice-looking schwag made; he reports he's already made back his costs, and any additional revenues he's putting into Magic partnership shares. He's bought two shares with the proceeds already (in addition to one he paid for himself). Note, currently Magic is holding all the share money in an interest-bearing account and using none of it because they have not not yet hit their target for the first round of share sales. If/when they do they'll have a nice initial infusion of cash ($900k) to expand the pond and make other vital snowmaking and other capital improvements that hopefully will start to put them on a sound footing long-term. See the business plan for much more detail.


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## SkiingInABlueDream (Jan 7, 2010)

I'd be careful about linking to TGR from here, they're likely to JONG you over there.  But on the other hand it's to promote Magic so maybe it's ok.  But then that implies that gAperZone gapers are worthy of Magic.  Oh conundrum - how would a mag react.  

<tip - this is all sarcasm>


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## pepperdawg (Jan 7, 2010)

*Attn Greg*

Tried to upload a couple of pics from Magic I took on Monday but got out of space.....

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 11392 bytes) in /home/alpinez/public_html/forums/gallery/image-inc.php on line 99



33 Gig doesnt go to far these days I guess


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## Greg (Jan 7, 2010)

Try resizing the images down to a max size of 1024 pixels (long side) using an image editor before you upload.


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## Jisch (Jan 7, 2010)

I'd love to see those pics as I plan on heading up to Magic tomorrow too.


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## severine (Jan 7, 2010)

polski said:


> While I'm on the general topic, I presume this has been discussed here before but allow me a moment of spamminess for a good cause: Buy t-shirts & stickers from http://savemagicvermont.com (direct link to store). Here's how proceeds will benefit Magic, as it unfolded at TGR:
> 
> A mag at TGR, uppernotmaster (which refers to the "true" name of the top of Magician), had this nice-looking schwag made; he reports he's already made back his costs, and any additional revenues he's putting into Magic partnership shares. He's bought two shares with the proceeds already (in addition to one he paid for himself). Note, currently Magic is holding all the share money in an interest-bearing account and using none of it because they have not not yet hit their target for the first round of share sales. If/when they do they'll have a nice initial infusion of cash ($900k) to expand the pond and make other vital snowmaking and other capital improvements that hopefully will start to put them on a sound footing long-term. See the business plan for much more detail.



Definitely discussed before and quite a few members bought t-shirts and stickers, but worth reminding.


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## Jisch (Jan 8, 2010)

*A few thoughts after skiing Magic*

I skied Magic for the first time today. I was thinking about their financial predicament a bit as I skied. Considering the neighborhood, I think Magic needs to do one of two things:

1) Homogenize - The mountain has some pretty nice topography and could easily compete with Bromley or Pico, but they would need to neaten things up a bunch to be on the same page, both on and off the slopes. While I think they _could_ compete, I don't think anyone is going to put up the dinero to do that. 

2) Radicalize - the mountain is already a rebel, if they accentuated that even more and added some snow making, I'll bet they could attract the radical ski/board element and still have a pretty good niche. It has a bit of a "cool" image already among those that know about it, they need to use that further separate themselves from the "normal" mountains. There are plenty of mountains with man made features, very few with natural stuff to huck.

While the second option seems obvious, I think it will be difficult considering the condos etc at the bottom of the hill - surely those are easier to rent to families than radical skiers. 

John

Oh yeah, if Magic is to survive people have to start skiing there more than just when it dumps - it doesn't dump often enough to keep that place alive!


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## riverc0il (Jan 8, 2010)

Magic already has the radical down. It is no secret that they have the best terrain in Vermont south of the Mad River Valley. They have also made no secret that they let the locals loose on the mountain to thin out a ton of new tree runs. 

The problem is that Magic's best terrain is in play so rarely due to lack of snow making and lack of natural snow. This year they are off to a very good start with most of their terrain on the table at the turn of the calendar. However, it is not unheard of for the mountain to be struggling to get a single top to bottom run open by the turn of the year. Even expert level skier's that love Magic's terrain are not going to put up with a mountain that can not at least get open on man made snow and allow for a man made base for natural to fall upon. 

Magic does not really need to Homogenize either. All they are really missing is snow making and a pair of beginner friendly lifts, one to mid-mountain below the steeps (Green Chair) and another to the defunct but still cleared out beginner's area looker's right. A Magic Carpet wouldn't hurt either. Pretty basic stuff but if these things were addressed, Magic Mountain would be on the map and people would come. 

It would be great for that valley too... the three mountain marketing that could be done for the region with Stratton/Bromley/Magic all viable options would be tremendous. But that simply can not be done at this point. Its just the matter of someone wanting to make a small fortune by starting with a large one. But resort building is not exactly a growth industry any more....


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## Jisch (Jan 8, 2010)

*Hmmm*



riverc0il said:


> Magic already has the radical down. It is no secret that they have the best terrain in Vermont south of the Mad River Valley. They have also made no secret that they let the locals loose on the mountain to thin out a ton of new tree runs.....



The snow was amazing today, but I can see that's not normal if the natural snow isn't there. That said WITH the amazing conditions today, why were there so few people there? Maybe there aren't enough people looking for that type of terrain. 

John


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## 2knees (Jan 8, 2010)

Jisch said:


> The snow was amazing today, but I can see that's not normal if the natural snow isn't there. That said WITH the amazing conditions today, why were there so few people there? Maybe there aren't enough people looking for that type of terrain.
> 
> John



i think one of the problems is that the average skier looking to take his or her family for a weekend a few times a year simply doesnt know magic is open, or exists, for that matter.  Its reputation as a skiers mtn is well deserved but there are plenty of easy ways down and it's extremely family friendly.  Lets just hope and pray that it stays around and is able to find a balance between what is necessary for it to make money and what makes it special for those of us looking for something completely different.  My only fear is that those two statements will prove to be negatively correleated.


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