Big Burke announcement

twinplanx said:

...and please feel free to share your kids ski school experience as well ;-)

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Yeah, exactly! :lol:

If you guys are alluding to the "other" thread I can say that the ski school kids at Burke were getting way more than two runs in. No I did not have kids in lessons but I am observant. If I had a child in lessons I would be even more observant.

twinplanx said:

...and please feel free to share your kids ski school experience as well ;-)

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And if you're up there and not happy with the number of trails open, you probably should talk to someone to turn on some more guns for you.

SKI-3PO said:

And if you're up there and not happy with the number of trails open, you probably should talk to someone to turn on some more guns for you.

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Yes. That ary sounds like a reasonable guy. Just be sure to add a "Q" to the prefix of every third word in your request lol

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thetrailboss said:

Can anyone up there confirm if they are making snow?

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This is from Andrew's blog, posted today, quoting the Director of Mountain Ops.

"In terms of strategy for this year, early on in the snowmaking season we made a decision to go for quality terrain rather than quantity of terrain. In the past, we would make the minimum amount of snow on a trail and then move on to another so that we could get the most amount of terrain open as quickly as possible. Based on my experience, if we would have executed that older strategy this year and not spent so much time on the trails we did, it's highly likely that we would have even less terrain open than we do now due to last week's weather event. Man, that thing was a snow killer - three days of heavy rain, warm temps and fog. From my past experience, that would've basically destroyed a thinly covered trail - I mean, you saw what happened to all the natural snow stuff that was open prior to it. The fact that we spent extra time on trails like Upper and Lower Willoughby is what I think allowed us to weather that storm (pardon the pun).
Believe me when I say that unless there's an issue with our system, we're making snow somewhere. We've got the lower mountain mostly done, we've created a terrain based learning area for the Snow Sports crew and we just finished up Dashney so that they were able to get a park built for the holidays. Now we're up to Open Slope, finishing up there and moving up to the Dippers and Carriage Road so we can get another route down from the Summit. Then, it'd be kinda nice if Mother Nature gave us a little boost, which it looks like we might get here soon.
If anyone asks, let them know that our snowmaking team is working as hard as they can to provide a quality product for everyone. They work a lot of long, cold nights to get this place going."

How would he know what they did last season since he wasn't there?

thetrailboss said:

How would he know what they did last season since he wasn't there?

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He is quoting the Director of Mountain Ops, Jason Lefebvre. "Jason's got years and years of experience here at Burke and knows his stuff"

The complete blog article is Here

Quietman said:

He is quoting the Director of Mountain Ops, Jason Lefebvre. "Jason's got years and years of experience here at Burke and knows his stuff"

The complete blog article is Here

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Ah, that is helpful. Thanks,

Did anyone else notice that the follow-up article from Digger indicates that Stenger is a "co-owner" of QBurke? Sounds like it isn't wholly owned by the Quiros family. Anyone actually know what the ownership structure looks like? Are we sure the investors that are being courted are for separate stand alone entities and not for part ownership in QBurke?

I only ask because the ownership structure helps answer the question on how to exert pressure to get the change from QBurke that you are looking to achieve (or whether a change of course is even possible).

noreasterbackcountry said:

Did anyone else notice that the follow-up article from Digger indicates that Stenger is a "co-owner" of QBurke? Sounds like it isn't wholly owned by the Quiros family. Anyone actually know what the ownership structure looks like? Are we sure the investors that are being courted are for separate stand alone entities and not for part ownership in QBurke?

I only ask because the ownership structure helps answer the question on how to exert pressure to get the change from QBurke that you are looking to achieve (or whether a change of course is even possible).

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My (local) sources say that Bill is a minority owner at best. Minority as in less than 10%.

Quietman said:

This is from Andrew's blog, posted today, quoting the Director of Mountain Ops.

"In terms of strategy for this year, early on in the snowmaking season we made a decision to go for quality terrain rather than quantity of terrain. In the past, we would make the minimum amount of snow on a trail and then move on to another so that we could get the most amount of terrain open as quickly as possible. Based on my experience, if we would have executed that older strategy this year and not spent so much time on the trails we did, it's highly likely that we would have even less terrain open than we do now due to last week's weather event. Man, that thing was a snow killer - three days of heavy rain, warm temps and fog. From my past experience, that would've basically destroyed a thinly covered trail - I mean, you saw what happened to all the natural snow stuff that was open prior to it. The fact that we spent extra time on trails like Upper and Lower Willoughby is what I think allowed us to weather that storm (pardon the pun).
Believe me when I say that unless there's an issue with our system, we're making snow somewhere. We've got the lower mountain mostly done, we've created a terrain based learning area for the Snow Sports crew and we just finished up Dashney so that they were able to get a park built for the holidays. Now we're up to Open Slope, finishing up there and moving up to the Dippers and Carriage Road so we can get another route down from the Summit. Then, it'd be kinda nice if Mother Nature gave us a little boost, which it looks like we might get here soon.
If anyone asks, let them know that our snowmaking team is working as hard as they can to provide a quality product for everyone. They work a lot of long, cold nights to get this place going."

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Oh come on... Wachusett went into that warmup with 100% of snowmaking terrain open and came out with snowmaking terrain 100% open. 3 days in the 60s followed by 1.5" of rain. It doesn't take 40 freaking days of snowmaking to cover a trail in "quality" snow, even with Burke's snowmaking. God, this BS is worse than Killington's when Powdr took over.

No improvemnt in sight

Painful to be at Burke these days. The lack of snow making is mind boggling. They have managed to open Carraige Road and the Dippers from Toll Road down. Pretty good cover on the lower part of Dippers, but to get there you have 2 choices: Carriage road- decent snow-making cover, but very narrow in spots and skied off quickly. Good skiers practicing kinetic slalom around novices who have no real choice if they want to go to Dipper unless they pick option 2: Toll road. Plenty of black top (yes, this is the summit road) showing. This morning the ski patrol shoveled snow onto about 100 yards of black top, right under the chair in order to make it passable. The upper section of the Dippers has piles of snow at the very top and the first Toll Road cross, but nothing in between. But, the new administration has declared victory and there was NO SNOW-MAKING after they got Carriage Road/Dippers open on Thursday. Perhaps not cold enough? Perhaps too cold? Perhaps to cheap to make snow?

I could go on and on, but season pass holders don't need a damned apology for stupid decisions w/r/t Kingdom trails. They do not need Ary to drive off heroically to New Jersey for a part so the J-Bar could run a day sooner over Christmas week.

Season pass holders paid money to ski. That product is not available. The snow-making effort has sucked. Andrew can say what he wants about quality over quantity but there have been way, way too many cold days and nights in East Burke when the single compressor they are running this season as been silent.

pass holders and day ticket buyers DO NOT pay money to have more staff then ever scanning tickets, less staff on the lifts and NO F'ing snow.

Upper Dipper?, Upper foxes?, Little Dipper?, Upper Warren's? Add some rain to upper Willoughby and it will be just as icy as ever. Some would say that some snow making could help there.

If Anyone has Bill Stenger's ear it is time to send in the cavalry, because this sucks. Or maybe they really are trying to drive the old girl under and take the lifts up to Jay?

Sad.

They're too focused on "QBurke". That new CEO sucks, Burke is going down just as fast as jay.

At least they have some snow at Jay.

And to top it all off, local school programs are starting this week. In full disclosure, this was how I learned to ski, now 24 years ago. Burke has hundreds of local school kids from many needy families come up for very discounted ski lessons and half-day skiing and riding with some cheap rentals...they do it for midweeks between January and March. It is a PR thing and a way to get good will. Well, Q2 has increased the prices on rentals (many can barely afford to do the program) and they are making the teachers/chaperones wait downstairs in that bag lunch area that they just made instead of the (empty) main lodge floor.

History has shown that resorts who make "brown baggers" eat in a separate place don't keep that policy for long....

Sad to hear so many bad things coming from Burke these days.

And as for snowmaking, Christmas was probably a loss, but they need to gear up for the next two big periods, which is MLK weekend and President's Week. They CAN'T lose those weeks.

Were I a chaperone on ANY day they would have to call the Sheriff to get me away from the windows in the base lodge and move into the basement.

What is wrong with these people?

canobie#1 said:

Burke is going down just as fast as jay.

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huh? Jay is going down fast?

And here's the lowdown from what I can see...

Jay has 63 trails with active snowmaking under the Flyer.

Burke has 17 trails with thin cover and no snowmaking.

Well, I'm going to Burke tomorrow. Icy WROD or not. I'm already depressed about the whole situation so it can't get any worse. Even with 30mph winds.