millerm277

Out of curiosity, is there any sort of college pass going to be offered or no?

On the Billboards topic: You need to think about where they're going to be being seen from and how fonts/color choices look from a distance and in different light conditions. The one I saw looked nice (either on 380 or 81, can't remember where), but the important part, the NAME of the place you're advertising, was in a font and color that was very hard to read from actually driving on the highway. (I think it was in that lighter blue you sometimes use on other materials). Most people driving past would likely have never actually found out what the billboard was for.

They're blowing snow. To me, that's a better indicator they're opening than any announcement is anyway.

Lets go over what we know: - The power was shut off for a period of time, but was also turned back on. Could be an indicator of either money problems, poor management, or both. It being turned back on would seem to indicate that they found enough cash somewhere if they didn't have it before. - They have significant debt, significant portions of which appear to not have been paid on time/potentially in default. However, none of the lenders in question appear to be pushing for payment/action prior to the ski season. - The mountain has held a job fair. If you know you can't open for the season, I'm not sure why you would do this. Given that it is a reasonable assumption to believe that operations at the mountain for the length of a season are profitable, unless they are so broke that they can't afford the power/employee salaries for the period of time before money starts rolling in from operations in late December, that it would be very unlikely that they aren't opening for the season, regardless of what their debt situation is like, as I can't see even their creditors wanting such an outcome. (Since operating for the season would bring in more money for the creditors). Continuing on: - The mountain has made an announcement indicating that they believe they are financially secure/healthy. - Santa has heard such things firsthand and presumably been given details. - I have heard such things from someone well-connected to the area as well. - They now have someone answering the phone again. So we have two possible answers. Everyone involved with the mountain is taking a page from the Madoff playbook, and declaring nothing is wrong until the house of cards collapses, and that they are doing a very good job of keeping the "real" answers from even people deeply involved with the area, or they're not wrong when they say they expect everything to be fine for reasons that haven't been announced yet.

I meant it as Ride Delaware suggested, sorry if I was unclear. And I think Montage/Sno is one of the newest ski areas on the East Coast, if not the newest entirely on the EC. I can't think of anything that's opened since.

The place is most likely not losing money. It was full on the weekends and does a good night business. That owners have made poor business decisions and taken on too much debt for the amount of money Sno makes, is not the same issue. Assuming I'm right, it's not a terribly unattractive place to buy. It's got a good market and skier base, it'll clear a good amount of money a year, and assuming you can run it halfway competently, you shouldn't have to worry about it losing value. The infrastructure is in pretty good shape as far as ski areas go, it's got a good snowmaking system and the lifts are in fine shape (with the possible exception of Long Haul) even if they're slow.

Sorry for one last bump, but holy shit...8 days of snowmaking and look at the trail report. They've gone from a brown mountain to opening 90%+ of the main face in 8 days, with only White Cloud and Lower K-27 closed. (Mad Box is not a trail, it's a 100ft long connector). And they're still making snow, in places that don't even usually get snowmaking...E lift, Highlands, and 42nd St.

Hunter's up to 24 trails, and it's looking like they'll have 13+ more by the weekend.

While it's not like I spend any time over there other than getting to/from the Summit Lodge for food occasionally, it's probably not a bad move. If it'll draw some of the beginners off Easy Out, it'd help traffic over in the area, there's too many of them for the width of the trail normally.

I'm sorry, but as per the official information, they HAD too many jobs. No area in the Catskills needs a dozen maintenance staff and ten mechanics. That's more than a mechanic and maintenance guy per chairlift/lodge. And what the hell do two full-time Ski Patrollers do in summer? Secondly, they aren't cutting jobs. They turned them into seasonal jobs, still with benefits (from my understanding), which is STILL better than what any private resort does with the majority of their staff.

Skiing both, I agree. I think Hunter's got an advantage, because talk as they might, they don't seem to have the skills to go to Hunter West much. Honestly though, there really isn't that much problem the past few years. And obviously, midweek anywhere is awesome. Anyway, they're opening tomorrow, ton of snow being laid down and the guns are on on Belt Pkwy and being turned on Minya Konka. They'll probably be at 80%+ open by next weekend.

Current photo (24 hours of snowmaking) from DMC at AlpineZone: I expect that they'll probably be able to open late on Saturday. Also, they've got a fairly cool video up their blog, they have a very interesting physical plant....1700hp 90 year old water pump, and a lot of other 50+ year old ex-mining compressors and pumps.

I figure I ought to chime in since it's my home mountain. -6-pack replaced the quad and is ready to go, it also shortens the ride time by a minute or so (6.5 to 5.5) -The old HSQ is being changed over to fixed grip and is going to replace the Y double on the West Side for next year. The base terminal will be a couple hundred feet lower, so you can get to it easily from Clair's and Wayout. Now then. If any of you watched Windham's webcam yesterday and saw it go from white to mud with two blobs of snow left, it's pretty obvious that they made the right move not wasting $$$ before. (And I'm in Binghamton at the moment, it was 60F and we got 3in of rain, they had similar). I don't quite get the "separation of trails" comment, the really wide area midmountain is the only spot where it's like that, and Hellgate + Cliff are the only two trails that feed into it. Generally, the people who don't like Hunter are intermediates and the experts that hate moguls. Anyway, they're making good progress, I'd expect they'll open Sat, you'll probably see Belt Pkwy for Monday (maybe Tuesday), and by next weekend they'll probably have almost all of the main face + Way Out open. To conclude my overly long post, here's 6 hours later from the morning picture above.

They say "closed the week of march 15th". I expect they'll scrape together enough snow to run a lift or two for the weekend, have a little party/whatever, and call it quits 3/20 or 3/21.

I'll say it: I'm one of those people that leave my stuff in the locker without paying for it? Why? Because I don't really care, and that keeps it out of the way of other people. As many other skiers do...the only thing in there is a nearly destroyed boot bag with trashed sneakers. If it disappears, it was worth about a dollar. The reason for it, is to keep my boots from getting worn down from walking across the parking lot. Why on earth would you bring expensive stuff in? Oh. And make coherent posts, please. That was painful to read.

Arrived at 9, skied till 4....pulled out as the buses were pulling in. I counted about 15 to the center of Bath. Anyway, a surprisingly good day at Blue all around: Very good conditions for blue, no hardpack/ice until almost 3PM. Everything's open, skied every trail on the mountain. The upper lodge actually had decent food today from the looks of the whole chicken breast a friend got. Saw them hooking up snowmaking on Midway late in the day, so they're planning on making some snow tonight. Quad, 6-pack and one of the doubles were running all day, other one opened up late in the afternoon. Nothing much in lines or crowds until I was leaving. Weather was fairly cold (20F or so), but there was some sun today. Mountain's in good shape, looks like the base is good as well.

Phoebe Snow, is a very short lift, changing it to high speed is a ton of $$$, for not much reduction in ride time. Would it be faster? Yes. Is it worth it to get a lift that gets you to the top one or two minutes faster? Not really, especially considering the lack of crowds to make it even remotely feasible to operate $$$-wise.

lue Mountain - 1/8/10 Date(s) Skied: 1/8/10 Resort or Ski Area: Blue Mountain, PA Conditions: Soft with an inch or two of fluff on top from the weather, getting more hardpacked around 3PM. Trip Report: Skied 9:30 - 4PM, glad I left then based on the 6 buses I saw coming up the road on my way back home, excellent conditions by Blue Mtn standards (which would be "eh...not bad", everywhere else). ROTD was definitely Switchback, spent a long time flying down that. Dreamweaver wasn't bad, the bumps on Challenge were fairly interesting early on. Everywhere except the turn on Nightmare had at least decent conditions all day. Watched lots of people fall in the most entertaining ways, I even saw someone ski into the snow boulder field past the edge of the groomer track on Paradise. A couple of minor annoyances though: 1. The D chair was spinning all day, but because the lift attendant was too lazy to stand out in the cold, every time the line disappeared, he'd put the closed sign up and sit in his shack, meaning that there was always a line for the C when there shouldn't have been. I completely understand not running the lift, but if you're going to keep the lift turned on, and have the staff members paid to run it, open the freaking lift. 2. They roped off Connector halfway across, leaving the beginners to find that their trail suddenly ends and to make the decision to either duck the rope (which most didn't), or proceed dangerously through a crowded terrain park. I don't quite get how that's acceptable.

It was incredibly windy, skied from 9AM-3PM, not too much in crowds until midafternoon really (although their management of the singles line sucks, go with someone). So, a short TR: -Main street had good snow, and not many people. -Lazy Mile was....yeah, crowded as usual, but decent conditions. -Dreamweaver was mostly hardpack by the time I headed there in the afternoon. -Beginner trails were all fine but crowded. -Challenge was nice to fly down, but the light was getting too flat to see much by 2ish (didn't really matter, but everyone else slowed down a lot because they couldn't see every little detail in the snow. -Raceway>Midway was decent, nothing special. -Lower Sidewinder was a fun way to escape the crowds. Liftlines: management at the 6-pack except singles line was good, quad had no one directing for most of the runs I took, 30 second lines at C/D. Snowmaking: They're blowing the hell out of Razor's, Sidewinder Park, and Switchback. In summary: A typical day at Blue, middle of the road conditions, moderate crowds, good terrain, a good time, and the lodge burgers still suck.

Sounds like I'll be up tomorrow, and I'll get there early. Wearing mostly black, bright red boots and red Bandit BX's, if anyone else is up there.

Well, it was 60F in the middle of NJ yesterday, I don't think it was much colder at Blue, and it was pouring r*** the past few days, probably needed to resurface before expanding. I haven't been keeping track of blue that carefully, but considering Hunter is the only significant area I know of that's currently got near 100% of their snowmaking terrain open, Blue's not doing too badly...

Nope, that'd be a long drive to work every day. (I live in Central NJ).

So, any reports from today?

Sounds good, thanks!

Title pretty much says it all, I decided I don't really feel like driving the extra hour to Hunter this week...so GSS or anyone else, any ideas on if there will be much in crowds? I haven't skied Blue on weekends/holidays in a couple seasons, so I wasn't sure. I'm think the 29th (Tuesday), is probably the most likely. Oh, and have they started making snow on Switchback yet?