paul45

They got to 11 by yesterday (with spurs, still 4 ways from the top all weekend). Place was "God I hope they stay in business" kinda empty all weekend. Very weird, conditions and weather were incredible. Was there opening weekend last year and it was definitely more crowded. Schuylkill and slalom both look ready as soon as they feel like bulldozing the whales and starting the quad.

Just that March fizzled to such a lackluster ending. Weekends only. Lift areas had nearly nothing left on them to even load on those March weekends. The calendar reminding people they barely made it past the end of February last year other than some crummy weekends just seems like something they wouldn't want front and center on the homepage.

Also.. they really just don't even try to hire marketing people do they... How has no one told them it's maybe a bad idea to leave the reminder of what a disaster the end of the season last year was on they homepage all year long??

Looks like it's been a double digit day (i.e. 13, 15..) in December for a few years now. But damn they've been cranking since shortly after the turkey settled Thursday night and have 24/7 temps this entire week! Any predictions for a week earlier than recent years? Seems like they'll have the mountain half covered by next Saturday at this pace. Hopefully won't all get washed away by weekly warm rain storms this year!

Isn't that card discount off the window price anyway? $91 is already 20% off... At 25% off $85 is still steep for 2 trails.

60-90 days seems pretty standard for a large business + real estate transaction. Lot more due diligence required than a home inspection. My understanding is it went under contract end of June, which would have put this https://www.mcconaghyfuneralhome.com/obituary/joseph-moore-jr smack dab at 90 days. Could be the cause of the latest delays....

Yea...I saw that too but question if that actually had any more info than the rest of us. I had elk employees tell me all that 4 months ago when it first went under contract but nothing new since other than the deal is still expected to eventually close. I largely question that article because they got some basic facts flat out wrong. For example, Joe Moore is (was not is..i also have heard, as of a month ago) a lot older than 80 unless he was 17 when he bought elk and installed the first chair lift in 1961 (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/2020/01/11/local-history-scranton-ski-club-played-role-in-launch-of-elk-mountain-ski-resort/&ved=2ahUKEwiTtrXG6N-JAxVcLFkFHQ3eHZYQFnoECBIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0HdpqBYvQLjMmL0PEg9c6Q) I believe the number was 97. His son is also Joe Moore but presumably younger than 80 by a little at least, so no idea where that comes from. The rest has been posted various places on the Internet for months. I suspect that Joe Moore passing away in the middle of the deal probably didn't make it easy.. Although you'd think they'd have planned for that possibility and have it into families names or power of attorney or whatever. But rumor was he was a control freak so perhaps to the bitter end.

Feels more like an Indy mountain than Ikon. Would increase Ikon's average lift age by about 20% and decrease their average skiable acreage by the same! Seriously though, unless they decide to double down on the "feeder mountain" business model like Vail, that feels unlikely unless Alterra themselves bought them (on good intel they did not). They were hesitant enough to add camelback/blue under that business model and Alterra's parent company owns those guys. Another feeder in the same market feels like a long shot. Deal closes end of the month though, so should know soon. My personal pipe dream is PGRI... Not a mega conglomerate, business model has some desire to compete on affordability and free days at Jay wouldn't be a bad perk. But rumor is a rando non-industry real estate investor... If that rumor's true I'll just keep my hopes for whoever buys it from them out of bankruptcy in a few years 🤣.

It's under contract. Still in discovery phase, has been since early July. Straight from multiple employees. They've all been told the new owner is hands off for the first year, so no changes to how it operates this season. (As evidence from the new prices being completely unphased by multi mountain competition..chugging away at the usual 3% increase or bust). Could also still fall apart in discovery before it closes, but as of a few days ago was still progressing through the legal hurdles. The staff is all under NDA and can't say anything more. Rumor is announcement in the fall sometime (that one not from an employee, so calling that one rumor for now).

Figured. But any private investor or otherwise non-vail-entity looking to drop $10-20M on Elk has gotta know they've got another $10-20 they need to spend on lifts and infrastructure. I just read the Schaefer family dropped $15M on improvements after they bought Catamount and that was for used fixed grips - just ones that aren't 70 years old (albeit, article didn't say if that $15m was all lifts or if there was snowmaking/lodge/etc... in there). So that's probably the minimum to make Elk's lifts reliable. Triple that if you think you're doing detachable. Elk actually had a couple rough weekends this year wrt lift lines. Some bad luck on weather (every other weekend being miserable really drove up the crowds on those interleaved good weekends) and then the weekend after President's day was BEAUTIFUL and not crowded..... until the Quad decided to smoke its hydraulics and was down for nearly a week. so... self-imposed "maintenance / 'Ole Joe is a stingy ole man" problems that time. Only a few weekends this season that were not-rainy AND cold enough it wasn't too slushy AND normal elk lines (i.e. none). Small investor with 1-2 other mountains. Make even a modest attempt at making the pricing competitive. Add an Indy Pass for bonus points. Make the lifts reliable. For 960 feet of vertical I could care less about detachable, they just need reliability. That would be the sweet spot for Elk. I'm not a tree guy, but if that's what it takes to get people out to make the competitive pricing reality, then great.

"Hope it's Vail"..... not sure if that was another April Fools joke, hahaha. Pros: Epic passes for 2/3rds the price of my Elk Passes this year. Cons: Literally everything else about Vail. No interest in spending my weekends standing in #epicliftlines

Was pretty sure that was a joke. But I'm big enough to admit it, I checked the vail press release page to be sure. Now I get the day late comment... riiiight. Confusing since it was 2 days late I guess 🙂

Not sure if you've heard anything new.... but I just heard ol' Joe just blew up a deal right before it closed. Dunno if that's the same deal you heard was done or a different one. I did hear earlier in the season they had 2 offers, so could have been a different one. Hopefully investors are a bit timid on that that route after Windham's so-far-fail. They lasted something like 3 weeks of the season with their "2 day minimum for non-club members"... quickly turning into a REAALLLY expensive private lift line and not much more.

How was it this past weekend? Was there the previous one... Still a few very decent trails then (probably the last few they blew on before it got warm). Ashame, seems like they had to close just because they didn't pile enough up to bulldoze in the run outs and lift lines anymore. Particularly unfortunate considering the weather this week and that it looks like this right now..

On a weekend with people falling off. Feel free to go to camelback on a weekend for their high speed and spend that 12 and then some in line for the lift 🙂