Wildcat behind the pack this year

dlague · Mar 10, 2014

yeggous said:
They can make snow on a very limited basis on Upper Polecat when temperatures are just right. That is where they were blowing yesterday.

Word at my club is Thursday was awesome, Friday sucked.

This will be the third year in a row where I go there on this very weekend and it seems to always have thin spots and woods that are very hard. With the snow on the way - this weekend might shape up the trails just in time for me to get there! They were reporting 100% open so fingers are crossed for a good time!

yeggous · Mar 10, 2014

I was there Saturday. Snow was great. Cover was decent. Stayed firm but not hard all day.

On the down side I badly damaged my E88s hitting a hidden rock on Cougar -- bad enough that I bought new skis on Sunday.

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yeggous · Mar 31, 2014

Light your torches and grab your pitchforks!

Passholders received this email yesterday:

To our Wildcat Mountain and Attitash Mountain Resort Season Passholders,

Although the season is winding down at Attitash Mountain Resort and will end Sunday, April 6, Wildcat Mountain remains open and a closing date has not been set. We still have significant base snow that will last well in to April and most of our trails and terrain remains open. One of the many benefits of your season pass is that Wildcat Mountain has been the last ski area open in New Hampshire offering lift-serviced skiing and riding for many, many years and I want Wildcat Mountain to stay open as long as possible to offer endless spring skiing. Did I hear Wildcat may be open for skiing and riding in May? We'll see!

This coming weekend, Wildcat Mountain is giving one final celebration for the season recognizing the 80th Anniversary of the original Wildcat Trail and we have many special events planned. Also, on this special weekend, we are extending a courtesy to all of our current, valid midweek Attitash and Wildcat Season Passholders and your pass will scan valid on Saturday, April 5 and Sunday, April 6 as well.

All of the events scheduled for this weekend are going to be great! Live music and an outdoor snow stage, an inaugural freeride mogul competition, grilling outdoors, ticket deals, and more. Please visit our Events Page at skiwildcat.com for details and information on this weekend's planned events.

One thing that we have just added for the weekend, that I would like to personally invite you to, is a season passholder meet and greet. This will be on Sunday morning, April 6 from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. in the Wildcat Pub and it will be a "town hall" style event, where you and other pass holders will have an opportunity to address John Lowell (President of Wildcat and Attitash) and me with questions about Wildcat and Attitash. I hope you will join us and please enjoy a complimentary Mimosa, coffee or other non-alcoholic beverage when you arrive.

Also, we want to extend the offer to all passholders to enjoy our final Blues and Brunch scheduled for Sunday after the meet and greet and receive 50% off the normal $14.95 per person brunch rate (A current, valid 2013/14 or 2014/15 Attitash/Wildcat season pass will be needed for discount). Brunch is available 9:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. and live blues music, featuring Erik Ray, will be 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.

The "King of Spring" is ready to go and we are looking forward to a few more great weeks of skiing and riding. I hope to see you this weekend at Wildcat!

Brian Heon
General Manager - Wildcat Mountain

Edd · Mar 31, 2014

yeggous said:
Light your torches and grab your pitchforks!

Passholders received this email yesterday:

You lost me. What's the issue here? Granted, I'm on beer 5 today.

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yeggous · Mar 31, 2014

Edd said:
You lost me. What's the issue here? Granted, I'm on beer 5 today.

Sent from my iPhone using AlpineZone

Allow me to pin-point:

One thing that we have just added for the weekend, that I would like to personally invite you to, is a season passholder meet and greet. This will be on Sunday morning, April 6 from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. in the Wildcat Pub and it will be a "town hall" style event, where you and other pass holders will have an opportunity to address John Lowell (President of Wildcat and Attitash) and me with questions about Wildcat and Attitash. I hope you will join us and please enjoy a complimentary Mimosa, coffee or other non-alcoholic beverage when you arrive.

Sunday will be open season. There are plenty of unhappy pass holders that are going to line up to take their shots. You've inspired me to start beer #1.

Edd · Mar 31, 2014

yeggous said:
Allow me to pin-point:

Sunday will be open season. There are plenty of unhappy pass holders that are going to line up to take their shots. You've inspired me to start beer #1.

Ah, got it. I've been a passholder in the past but not this year. I'm not sure how pissed I'd be knowing the goofy crap they've dealt with. That's just me, though. I'd give it one more year before getting too pissed.

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ss20 · Mar 31, 2014

Can someone film this passholder's meeting?

Hey, maybe Wildcat can get some $$$ and a few management changes. That's all it takes. Case in point- Killington.

yeggous · Mar 31, 2014

ss20 said:
Can someone film this passholder's meeting?

Hey, maybe Wildcat can get some $$$ and a few management changes. That's all it takes. Case in point- Killington.

Wildcat exists in an entirely different financial world. They rely solely on skiing operations and basic food sales to generate revenue. There is no on-mountain lodging or fine dining of any sorts. When conditions suck then nobody shows up and it hurts their bottom line. Like most of New Hampshire they lack the hotel and condos that force people to pre-commit to showing up.

ss20 · Mar 31, 2014

yeggous said:
Wildcat exists in an entirely different financial world. They rely solely on skiing operations and basic food sales to generate revenue. There is no on-mountain lodging or fine dining of any sorts. When conditions suck then nobody shows up and it hurts their bottom line. Like most of New Hampshire they lack the hotel and condos that force people to pre-commit to showing up.

Do they share Attitash's profits? I'm not exactly sure how connected the two mountains are.

yeggous · Mar 31, 2014

ss20 said:
Do they share Attitash's profits? I'm not exactly sure how connected the two mountains are.

Great question for the passholder meeting. The short answer to your question is that they are very connected and seemingly operated as one entity. All lift tickets and passes are interchangeable. The prices are largely identical. In theory each mountain has dedicated staff, but you'll often see sharing staff for areas like ski school, lift maintenance, and snow making. The use Wildcat's operating season as an excuse to open Attitash late and close early.

Outside of prices and passes the two mountains are very different given their different history. Wildcat was family owned and neglected for many years. Attitash was an ASC mountain. Since being purchased by Peak Resorts neither has seen any notable capital improvements. No new lifts. No notable snow making expansion. No change in operating season at Wildcat, though Attitash now opens notably later.

Attitash is crowded with a SLOW summit lift. Wildcat is often empty with a very fast lift -- the backup lift (Tomcat Triple) at Wildcat is taller and faster than the summit triple at Attitash.

Wildcat has awful snow making by modern standards. Despite starting to blow in early November it took until President Day weekend to open a second (and still only) route off the summit. Attitash waits until December to start making snow, but eventually does a respectable job of covering the entire mountain.

Wildcat's lodge is a very spartan single building. Attitash has 3 distinct lodges plus the hotel which are in decent shape.

Wildcat is high elevation for New England with 2,100' vertical and a summit above 4,000'. The base at Wildcat is roughly the same elevation as the summit at Attitash (which is a curse in January).

Attitash has only advanced terrain off the summit which quickly gets skied off. Wildcat has a long beginner trail from the top -- once they finally get it open. Despite the better beginner terrain being at Wildcat, beginner skiers flock to Attitash due to its closer proximity to North Conway. This is a mistake. Attitash has steeper terrain and little space for novices to explore.

Newpylong · Apr 1, 2014

To be fair, Peak put Polecats on all major trails at Attitash the year they were bought. Haven't done anything since though.

bobbutts · Apr 1, 2014

Newpylong said:
To be fair, Peak put Polecats on all major trails at Attitash the year they were bought. Haven't done anything since though.

Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. I drove by on the way back from Wildcat a couple weeks ago and there is a large amt of snowmaking infrastructure (polecats) visible from the road there.

yeggous · Apr 6, 2014

Some highlights from the passholder town hall today:

Attitash
* they will be buying 100 new snow guns over the summer to be placed in "strategic locations" like Tight Rope
* Zipline construction starts in 1-2 weeks
* The Summit Triple will not be replaced any time soon. This has nothing to do with permitting or volume. It is strictly a return on investment question. A new lift would be $7-8M with a $700-800k annual debt service. Peak Resorts does not believe "if you build it they will come" as the Bluebird Lift at Mt Snow was a total bust in that regard.
* the last few years their snowmaking plan was to wait for cold weather to blow. They regret this decision this year due to the spike in electricity prices when the cold hit costing them $$$. They're lobbying Peak Resorts to let them start blowing early to stockpile snow and then push it out for a December opening.

Wildcat:
* When the Lynx pipe froze in November it was the build up of pressure that blew out the casing on the pump. The pump that broke was one of two that was rebuilt that summer.
* Snowmaking upgrades are planned for this year, mostly pipe replacement and gun purchases plus fixing the Lynx pumps. The purchases are currently being held up by lender approval.
* They'll be buying HKD and Snow Logic guns.
* The temperature of the water at Wildcat is a real problem. It comes out at 28 degrees which is as cold as you can physically get. Two of the four companies that were in their trial this year withdrew because they could not handle the supercooled water. HKD had to redesign their guns.
* Most of the pipe on the mountain is 30-35 years old and has a life expectancy of 20 years. They've been blowing pipes all over the place.
* The plan for next year is to try to be (one of?) the first mountain in New England open top-to-bottom. They specifically said that they want to leverage their express quad and beat Killington top-to-bottom. They'll start with Lynx and then move to Polecat. They talked big talk but we'll see if they can follow through. They claim to want to open as early as possible and close as late as possible.

xlr8r · Apr 6, 2014

Disappointing that they won't upgrade the summit lift at Attitash. Its the one thing everyone seems to complain about, and they refuse to do anything about it. It seems as though Peaks doesn't like building new lifts. Did the Crotched Rocket see a return on investment, I know it was used. I think the Crotched Rocket would be a better comparison than the Bluebird, as Mount Snow already had a summit high speed lift, it was just overcrowded.

deadheadskier · Apr 6, 2014

Did anyone ask why Wildcat has such cold water?

I've never heard of other mountains making similar claims.

Is what it is I guess, but it just seems weird.

Bummed to hear about the Triple at Attitash. If that's their take on it, I wonder if they've looked at adding a conveyor and increasing the line speed of the lift. I don't believe they are that expensive and even a modest reduction in ride time would be nice.

yeggous · Apr 6, 2014

They claim the water is so cold because it is all melt water from Thompson Brook or Mount Washington. Water can supercool so long as it stays moving. Because they don't have a large body of water to pull from this is an issue. They also confessed that building a larger pond is not on the table so water issues will be evident once they get their snowmaking working.

They mentioned that another resort in NH (unnamed, but the Attitash president's brother works there) was the same problem with the river water that they pull in so they have to mix it with pond water to warm it up.

yeggous · Apr 6, 2014

As for speeding up the Attitash lift, it's even worse than you think. They rarely run the lift at full speed. Most days they turn *down* the speed to prevent misloading incidents with the novices.

ss20 · Apr 6, 2014

yeggous said:
Some highlights from the passholder town hall today:

Attitash
* The Summit Triple will not be replaced any time soon. This has nothing to do with permitting or volume. It is strictly a return on investment question. A new lift would be $7-8M with a $700-800k annual debt service. Peak Resorts does not believe "if you build it they will come" as the Bluebird Lift at Mt Snow was a total bust in that regard.
* the last few years their snowmaking plan was to wait for cold weather to blow. They regret this decision this year due to the spike in electricity prices when the cold hit costing them $$$. They're lobbying Peak Resorts to let them start blowing early to stockpile snow and then push it out for a December opening.

Wildcat:
* The plan for next year is to try to be (one of?) the first mountain in New England open top-to-bottom. They specifically said that they want to leverage their express quad and beat Killington top-to-bottom. They'll start with Lynx and then move to Polecat. They talked big talk but we'll see if they can follow through. They claim to want to open as early as possible and close as late as possible.
* Snowmaking upgrades are planned for this year, mostly pipe replacement and gun purchases plus fixing the Lynx pumps. The purchases are currently being held up by lender approval.

Some of this seems pretty fishy to me.

Not replacing the Triple because of the Bluebird being a bust? That's total BS and Peaks knows it. Ever since the Bluebird crowds have been bigger than ever. I almost regret them installing it.

So Attitash has to beg corporate to open earlier, yet Wildcat claims they're ready to be the first to be open top to bottom (which also sounds like BS. Maybe a plea to keep the passholders?). Snowmaking upgrades (essentially patchwork on the current failing system) being held up by "lender approval"? This isn't an optional fix. It HAS to be done. Waiting for "lender approval" is not an option.

Peaks has been slipping in recent years. Their NH holding have always gotten the short end of the stick with improvements, but now the mountains are literally falling apart. It'll be interesting how Mount Snow's EB-5 funding plan for their master plan are gonna turn out, considering how bad it's been working for Jay.

deadheadskier · Apr 7, 2014

I'm not a Mountain Snow skier, so I have no idea if the Bluebird is a bust or not. From the sounds of it, it was not.

Unfortunately, Peaks is probably right that replacing the Summit Triple at Attitash won't bring much of a ROI if any. It's a location issue with Attitash. They simply don't have as much of a pool of skiers to draw from to grow their business as Snow does. I bet some of Snows competitors like Stratton and Okemo do close to as many skier visits if not more than all the MWV areas combined. I bet Attitash has lost some of it's market share over the past couple of decades to BW and other areas outside of the MWV, but I doubt installing a HSQ will bring enough of that business back to cover the costs.

I guess the best one can hope for with that lift is either

A. Attitash gets sold to another operator with some cash to burn

or

B. The lift eventually breaks down and needs replacing, which probably won't happen for a couple of decades.

Sad, but true. Outside of Saddleback, I can't think of any other large Northeastern ski resort besides Attitash that doesn't have a HSQ or better in place as their primary lift.

EPB · Apr 7, 2014

deadheadskier said:
I'm not a Mountain Snow skier, so I have no idea if the Bluebird is a bust or not. From the sounds of it, it was not.

Unfortunately, Peaks is probably right that replacing the Summit Triple at Attitash won't bring much of a ROI if any. It's a location issue with Attitash. They simply don't have as much of a pool of skiers to draw from to grow their business as Snow does. I bet some of Snows competitors like Stratton and Okemo do close to as many skier visits if not more than all the MWV areas combined. I bet Attitash has lost some of it's market share over the past couple of decades to BW and other areas outside of the MWV, but I doubt installing a HSQ will bring enough of that business back to cover the costs.

I guess the best one can hope for with that lift is either

A. Attitash gets sold to another operator with some cash to burn

or

B. The lift eventually breaks down and needs replacing, which probably won't happen for a couple of decades.

Sad, but true. Outside of Saddleback, I can't think of any other large Northeastern ski resort besides Attitash that doesn't have a HSQ or better in place as their primary lift.

Smuggs doesn't either. I've never been to Mt. Snow, but it doesn't even seem like the gravity of the Bluebird lift would compare to a high speed quad at Attitash because they already had a HSQ with ~3000pph capacity there in the first place. A high speed quad to the summit of Attiash would be a game changer for sure.

Wildcat behind the pack this year

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