BC-Mark

Like I said on another thread, the biggest issue is, according to their website, we won't be able to groom on slopes with snowflex covered in snow. We would like to get an answer to this question and get a quote to see if it is even feasible.

Bob, Thanks for the reply. We had a rough time retaining employees during the shut-down and, as a result, have new hires in front line positions that never received the pre-season guest service training. Seasons like this expose any weak link. Not having a full-time trainer to dedicate to mid-season training was a big oversight. Typically our guest services manager conducts the training pre-season and the department heads follow up through the season. With increased pressure put on the department manager due loss of staff/rehiring we haven't had a person to focus on training beyond department specific operational training. As you may or may not know we use a food concessionaire for the F&B operations. We typically don't get involved with their training, but we have noticed issues with guest service on the front lines. We are in the process of hiring a year-round guest services trainer this week and she will begin working with their staff as well as ours this week. We realize we don't have the most vertical or steepest terrrain, but we can offer the best conditions, a great park and unparalleled guest service. If we aren't meeting those goals I like to hear about it. Thanks again for your time.

Good eye Mini Zep, we will be utilitzing that space for next year. This year we were unable to extend the runout over due to truck traffic hauling soil from the construction site up the side of the capet lift. Thanks

Let me begin by saying we had an inexcusable communication break down last night and for that I am extremely sorry. I will offer an explanation of last night

We have been trying to contact the US distributors and manufacturers but haven't gotten any response at this point.

The ponds have been refreshing fast enough to let us make snow every night from 10pm to 7am. We won't be making the next two nights because our snowmakers will be up at a conference in VT. We will be right back at it on Wednesday night.

Just a quick tip, if you rush over to Timberline first thing on weekends it doesn't get closed until 9am and you can get in a couple runs before the race team uses it for training. Conditions have been great since winter finally arrived and the forecast looks good for the 10 day!

The story with the Planet Snow Tools rails is that they are made by Ryan Neptune and he builds them to be light and easily moved by one or two guys without a machine. They are well built but not designed to handle tons of moves and resets using groomers or skid loaders. We build our rails extra beefy to stand up to the abuse they receive at our resort. Any Planet built rails that were unrideable were built to our specs so we were the ones with the bad ideas. Since Andy has been involved we haven't had many, if any, design fiascos. I just didn't want Ryan and his products to get a bad rep so I thought I would set the record straight.

Glad you had a good time! We realized too late that the final grade in the lift line was a bit too high. Unfortunately it will have to wait until next summer to correct completely. We are working on blending it in a bit more with snow and changing the corral angles so they don't run with the fallline as much. We should have a better situation over there by mid-week when we get a bit more snow to work with.

We are making snow in our "refresh mode" where we make from 10PM to 7AM to allow the ponds to recover. It usually takes about a week of this to allow them to come back up to a level that would allow for 24 hours snowmaking. At this point in the season it is much tougher to sell 24 hour snowmaking to guests who complain bitterly when we make snow on them so we tend to only make snow at night unless we have a major thaw. With the temperatures over the next 10 days, even with 9 hours snowmaking shifts we will be able to stockpile a lot of snow. We will continue to make snow and stockpile as long as we can with the hopes of extending the season as long as possible.

Theprogram4 is right, the rails were buried. When we got the crazy cold temperatures on Thursday night our groomers couldn't keep up with the guns and we buried a lot of the features on Cascade. We really want to bury that trail so we can start building big features. Some if not all the rails should be dug out by this afternoon. The boarder cross on Black Bear will remain in place until Monday or Tuesday. The pipe should be ready to cut by mid to late week. The jump line in the Tube Park will stay all season long.

The people with flares were part of the Flying Dutchmen Ski Club. They host their winter carnival at BC every year and have a torch light parade as part of their activities.

Once Timberline opens we will be almost 100%, the only exception will be tubing and the pipe. I would guess that by the end of the weekend next weekend everything will be open.

Timberline will be closed for Nastar on Tuesday and Wednesday nights and for race training Thursday evening and Saturday and Sunday mornings. The rest of the time it is open for everyone. The cam on Timberline isn't dirty, it's enclosure is frozen! We are making so much snow over there the heater in the cam enclosure can't keep up with the accumulation! We should have Timberline open by mid-week and hopefully the pipe will be ready for next weekend. The jump line in the tube park will be open tomorrow!

Thanks for all the compliments. We hope to have everything but the pipe open with great coverage by Thursday. It has been good to finally get the temperatures and show what we can do. Just imagine what it is going to be like next year when we increase pumping capacity by 100% and the number of guns by 15% to 20%!

We have also been discussing using Timberline as a permanent mountain cross course in the summer and adding freeride park features in the upper section. It would be the easiest place to host events as well now that we have permanent timing and sound over there. The other aspect that makes the location appealing is it is out of sight and would not conflict with weekend wedding business and weekday conference business. As of right now there is no plan to even investigate water parks. We would like to keep the activities focused on adventure outdoor activities. The only info we can get on snowflex comes from their site. The install looks relatively complex and permanent and they clearly state that the weight of a groomer and/or contact with the tiller would damage the irrigation system in the matting. We have two calls and two emails into the US distributor and the manufacturer and have yet to receive any return communication. Hopefully they have a solution. We began making snow on Timberline a few minutes ago and we hope to have the new quad open for tomorrow morning with Grizzly, Sasquatch and part of Broadway. Think Cold!!!

We are investigating a lot of options, one being a summer terrain park using snowflex. The downside is you can not groom on top of snowflex so it would have to be a slope that is not covered in snow in the winter. We should have an idea of the options we are pursuing in the next 4 to 6 weeks.

I know how the rumor mill works and we have heard this from so many sources including a students in Quakertown that tell us their teacher has an entire unit based on the fact that Bear Creek is bankrupt. It is never a good thing to lose money but we are a far cry from going bankrupt. It is true that the revenue we have lost so far this season will likely never be recovered. Having said that, the owner is investing another $20 million in more hotel rooms and banquet facilities, a day spa and another restaurant and bar. We are all working on researching summer activities to drive more off-season revenue in the event we face another year like this one. Our business plan is to cover all annual operating expenses with non-ski revenue by the end of 2008. Skiing and Riding will then be pure profit. Before the rumor spreaders start twisting this message and spreading a new rumor that we are abandoning skiing and riding altogether, let me just say that we had a meeting, including the owner, on Wednesday to discuss improvements to the snowmaking system to deal specifically with years like this one. There are not many resorts I know of that are willing to build out a snowmaking system to deal with a weather pattern you see maybe 2% of all winters. The plan now is to double our pumping capacity, nearly double water storage and increase our gun count by nearly 20%. In addition, we will be implementing cooling strategies for our two primary ponds. Going into the meeting we tasked the guys at SMI and Ratnik with a goal of opening the entire resort with the exception of the pipe and tubing in 40 hours. They came back saying that is impossible but we can accomplish that goal in 60 to 70 hours at 28F wet bulb, the highest wet bulb that allows snowmaking production. A lot of the planning and preparation for the expansions had already occurred internally. We have the permits in hand for the pond enlargement, the design for the new pumping facility is 95% complete and 1/2 the pipeline changes were made this summer. We will be receiving a new gun layout that involves adding guns and repositioning a few existing guns by Feb. 15th. As you can see, these actions are not indicative of a resort that has filed for bankruptcy. Now it is up to you guys to spread the good word!

The green light is a reflection of the transmission LED's on the wireless bridge that is above the camera. I was wondering the same thing and my curiousity drove me to go up on the roof to find out.

Thanks sexkitten. If enough people are interested I will talk to Mary tomorrow and get the ball rolling.

If winter does stick around and we are able to put down a lot of snow, we could do something like that for our Spring Fest.

We are watching the temperature and anticipate firing up the guns around 4PM today. We should be able to run all day tomorrow and perhaps even all day Thursday. Right now I would guess we are looking at a 4PM Thursday or 9AM Friday opening. We will post more info as soon as it is available.

We are watching the temperature and anticipate firing up the guns around 4PM today. We should be able to run all day tomorrow and perhaps even all day Thursday. Right now I would guess we are looking at a 4PM Thursday or 9AM Friday opening. We will post more info as soon as it is available.

We have had quite a few people come in and shadow different managers for a day. Since most of the comments have been directed at snowmaking, maybe we could run a contest that would allow the winner to be a snowmaker for a night.

tell_them_nothing is exactly right about the dumptruck on the slopes. If it could actually make it up the slopes it would really do a lot of damage. In dry conditions a dump truck has problems going up Kodiak so I would say there is no possible way to take a dump up on wet/slushy trails. As for snowmaking, we ran every tower gun on the three trails we opened plus the 12 wheel guns we use to fill in the gaps. We used every hydrant on the pipelines on those trails and every gun ran during every session. We have the ability to run all 94 guns we own at one time from an electrical standpoint. We do not however have the pumping capacity to supply water to more than about 60 guns at a time at a 28F wetbulb. This is not uncommon, I do not know of a resort that is capable of making snow on all their terrain at 100% capacity. As the wetbulb drops we have to reduce the number of guns we are running to allow the guns we continue to run to run at peak capacity. Given that we had an average wetbulb of 26F during this last snowmaking period, we had some extra water capacity so we put that capacity to work on Grizzly, Drifter and Teddy Bear hoping we keep some of that snow and gives us a leg up when we can start making snow again. When the wetbulb dropped to 21.3F, the lowest we have seen this season, we shut down the other trails in order to maximize production on the three trails that were open. It is true we have an owner that is very financially stable but there isn't a business I know of that wants to lose money. We opened the trails because we saw the rain coming and knew we were likely going to lose the snow we made over the 4 day thaw/rain/fog period. We figured it would be better to offer at least a few days of riding than none at all. Looking at the forecast, we will be open by Thursday/Friday and my recommendation would be to bring your goggles because if the temperatures permit we will be making snow during operating hours.