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I’m going to go out on a limb and say he’s being facetious with a rhetorical questionQuote:
Originally Posted by ~mikey b;[emoji[emoji6[emoji640
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All the bright mba holders out there know onesimple trick
The goal is to extract as much profit as possible before creating a dissatisfied customer
The limits of a unhappy customer are getting pushed further and further a total win
On top that reinvestment cuts into profit so not doing basic maintenance is a huge win
Ski resorts homes apartment buildings office buildings boomers and walls street all need to live their best life
My overall plan is to return to nordic and light bc. W some super small hills mixed in. As I get old that's all I'll be able to do anyway.
You should try some Altai Koms for light bc. So much fun in hippie pow.
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Howelsen Hill is an American treasure
As I look out my window today, it’s 0 degrees and no snow anywhere in sight. I have to believe that the hills around me are having a tough go of it.
Except for the one owned by Vail. I’m sure they have already gotten their cut of the Epic pie.
The tourons will surely love the drive to-from town, esp in shitty weather…Quote:
Originally Posted by Conundrum
Nobody goes there anymore, It's too crowded. (Earliest known citation was before Yogi Berra was born.)Quote:
Originally Posted by fastfred
Anyone with any actual knowledge to answer the original question--are ski areas, ski resorts, ski corps making money or losing it?
My gut is that the entire industry is always on knife edge. The little independents have all the problems common to seasonal small businesses everywhere. The big corporate cartels seem to be in an endless cycle of gobbling up every profitable resort for a decade or so and then liquidating them to generate cash as margins shrink during bad economic times.
The ‘success’ of Snow King is solely due to the capital infusions of one guy, Max Chapman.
10 years ago, it truly was looking like the place was gonna go dark. To give you an idea, I worked there designing some MTB trails, and they couldn’t even get cash together for my to buy flagging tape. Their credit had been turned off almost everywhere in town.
Max bought it, and despite a TON of opposition, dumped somewhere between $30-50 million cash (or leveraged however a billionaire structures these things) into propping the place back up, and much, much more. New gondola, New Rafferty Chailift, Tube Park expansion, Mountain Coaster, Treetop Adventure, a Planetarium, Zip Line, sweet concert venue, new chairlift and terrain on the backside, new beginner terrain, and what will be a new restaurant event space up top.
He has his motives, such as buying good will in order to develop some things around the Valley, but honestly, this has been a win-win way to do that. He was planning on tearing down and developing a leafy, green part of downtown, with historic buildings, and actually backed down when there was essentially a petition campaign against it, which was a stunning win for people trying to maintain any remaining sense of history downtown.
Sure, S.K. management can be…difficult, but the end result so far has been ridiculous.
That said, I personally think the only way that S. K. can make a true profit would be to sell it to a SkiCo, Vail, Alterra, etc in the future. There is a very tiny bit of real estate left to develop, but not to the tune of $50mm in profit, IMO.
In other words, if Max pulled out, lost interest, etc, the place would be doomed. However his kids are cool as hell, and are very good skiers that ‘get it’.
I’m cautiously optimistic, but there really crucible will simply be temperature and snowfall, which are changing, from what we can see.
The "kid who gets it" is a best-case scenario IMO. One hill a couple hours away from me, Showdown, was sold to the daughter of the original owner. She's running it how it should be run, with generosity and community spirit. A closer hill to me, Great Divide, was put on the market for a few years by the original owner Kevin. None of his three daughters wanted to run it. However, eventually one of Kevin's daughters had a change of heart and bought it from him, along with her husband, and another couple. They're all partners. Kevin raised three great skier daughters and she definitely gets it. They're doing a great job of running it. As far as I can tell they're all making a living off it, supporting their families and kids. Kevin owned some land at the base, and he carved off a chunk for each of his daughters to build houses on if they wanted. So the daughter/owner lives at the hill with her husband and three ? kids in a nice house. While they have to compete with several other ski areas within a two-hour drive, they are by far the closest option to town and therefore have a pretty captive audience, even when all there is to ski is WROD. People still go up there and spend money. A day ticket at high season is $68 (but often less, like $30-40). Night skiing on Fridays is $15, with music in the bar. Season pass is $349.Quote:
Originally Posted by rideit
I feel really fortunate to have this small ski area close to home, not because it's great skiing but for all the other reasons.
Years ago, I remember having lunch in the lodge when George came up to my wife and I to meet us and just shoot the breeze. We'd see him out there most Saturdays. Guy had a great sense of humor and embodied so much of what I love about "mom & pop" operations. I am SO glad it stayed in the family! Seems Katie's doing a great job so far. One of the few operations out there that has kept ticket/season pass prices accessible to locals! Doesn't hurt it has some of the best snow in the state. Will definitely be my preference these days now that I've been entirely priced out of all my other previous hills.Quote:
Originally Posted by yeahman
Damn those were some truly great times when we could get dirt cheap Moonlight Basin lift tix and season passes. I guess the behind-the-scenes drama with that one kind of answers the primary question of this thread, though. :(
This is the bigger issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by panchosdad
Quote:
Originally Posted by altacoup
Always a new crop of tourons to do their first and last drive to annoy the locals.Quote:
Originally Posted by TBS
^^^Have to say, I can’t think of a sketchier road to a ski hill…
What you guys describe happening at Snowdown and Snowking reminds of what’s going down at Holiday Mountain here in New York. A very nice guy with ties to the land and local community (also a long time Plattekill volunteer patroller) just rescued it from the brink and is pouring money, time and human capital into the place to bring it back to life. They’re looking good so far.
I can't help but think that at some point the pendulum swings and the little areas that rock will see more skier visits from people who actually ski and are sick of "Ski Resorts".
I tend to agree but so many of the little areas are low elevation & likely climate change casualties.
Case in point - Hoodoo in Central OR. 1k vertical over 600 acres, base elevation is 4700’ (1500’ lower than Bachelor) five fixed grip chairs. Bought out of BK over 20 years ago by a real estate investor whose SIL was head of lift maintenance at Alta for a long while. SIL runs the day-day stuff while FIL directs parking on the weekends. Fun little hill for 1/2 day and half the distance from me as Mt Brokenchair.
But it rains there now - a lot.
I think my local hill is doing fine. I have only been here 7 years. Two new chairs have been built in that time. Every year improvements are made. We are having a bad season. I was worried about the holidays. The resort was packed. Overflow lot was overflowing. It hasn't really snowed in around 2 months. The area holds snow well and provided great skiing. This place makes sense for family vacations. Wolf Creek provides a great product at affordable prices in today's market. You know what you will get. Terrain will be open, lift lines will be minimal, parking is free, traffic will be light, it will not be raining.
man, i wish we had consistency like that we’re lucky to get 3 out of those 5 at any given time.
fact
BB road ain't that bad especially if you get up there before 10 AM on weekdays and 9 AM on weekends. They sure do a hell of a lot better on maintaining the road nowadays. No more giant ice ruts in the lanes of travel sure is nice and now that they have a rotary plow, that's made the berms more square so when the tourons hit them they don't usually go off the road.Quote:
Originally Posted by TBS
Probably has been posted somewhere on this board?
https://slate.com/business/2023/12/e...poly-cost.html
Well here in Europe the small ones are dying or struggling. Southern Piemont lost one of the best treesking areas I've ever been in in 2019, Argentera. And the rest of that province has either lift hours from Thursday to Sunday ( Ponte chianale...Last Time I checked..maybe they are gone too) or is closed and for sale for a few bucks ( the area at Monte viso).
2023 saw the last days of one of my favorite low lying gems in Vorarlberg because they can't afford new lifts and somebody died on the old ones in summer. The skiing was absolutely top notch. Now there is only the other south facing half of the resort left which is operated by another village but lacks the steep north facing goodness.
Maloja only exists because st. Moritz keeps it as some sort of mascot. The lifties actually don't check whether you have tickets because they can remember the 30-50 something faces of the people who buy the paper tickets and show up on powder days.
The magic pass in Valais exists for a reason. Because nobody went to those areas before. ( I still wonder how they convinced the big 5 to join magic pass)
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the local hill has about 150 lots in the eclectic cabin colony which could be anything from a 2000sq ft house to a 60 yr old a-frame with no powr or water which I think is a great way to enough sunk costs to keep the hill going .
^ this and a few others like it is where I like to hang. Wolf Creek is a real place.Quote:
Originally Posted by BFD