Stowe announces new Adventure Center, ice skating, underground parking

sorry boss

mbedle said:

As much as I love Stowe and plan on being there for the month of February, I'm always weary of continue expansion at ski resorts. I've seen it happen down here in PA and NY, that big expansion results in bankruptcy down the road (Montage, Greek Peak, Hidden Valley, etc.). I hope AIG has and will continue to support Stowe if things go south with the larger debt load. Our local hill (Blue Mountain) is doing just this and it scares the crap out of me, thinking they may be over extending themselves.

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Many would consider that a best case scenario.

millerm277 said:

I'll disagree there. Montage was doomed by mismanagement, and Greek Peak by a mixture of the economy and mismanagement.

Montage/Sno's prior ownership was simply fiscally irresponsible, and lacking in experience and common sense from beginning to end. The waterpark was the final tip into bankruptcy, but the management would have gotten it there regardless. Spending millions of $ you don't have on SMI fan guns for one example. (The snowmaking needed work....just the drastic overspending at once was absurd).

Greek Peak committed to the lodge/waterpark in a good economy, and by the time it opened the economy was a wreck and no one was buying. Their lender also went under, preventing them from following through with plans for on-mountain improvements that would likely have drawn real estate buyers, especially under the assumptions of the pre-recession economy. That said, I think they overestimated their market. Some mismanagement, some bad luck.

Stowe has none of these issues. They've got a loyal (and lucrative) client-base, solid management that has successfully followed through with various previous plans which were even larger in scope, all indications and reports are that they turn a good profit and need no support. AIG is back to turning massive profits and I am certainly sure they are not planning on letting go of the playground they've owned for >60 years.

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As much as I want to agree with you and limit these kind of failures to mismanagement and bad economy, history has proven that AIG and much larger companies have and do fail all the time. Stowe mountain resort is no different than any other company operating in this economy. As such, they can fall just a fast as other big companies. It wasn't that long ago, when Stowe was in financial crisis under direct AIG ownership. According to a couple of WSJ articles, back in 1997 Mount Mansfield Co was failing. You are correct that the new management has dramatically turn the company around and started turning profits. But, as far as AIG goes, they were pretty quick to get rid of Stowe and spin it off to one of their subsidiary in 2009, around the time when they had to borrow and repay billions of dollars in loans from the government to stay afloat. So, I'm not to sure how much commitment they have for the place. It is one of their smallest assets and really is not worth much to them.

No matter what - I love the place and it would be tragic if something bad ever did happen. Not only to skiers, but to the entire community of Stowe.

snoseek said:

Many would consider that a best case scenario.

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What would be the best case scenario?

Ok here's the expansion we need. Smuggler's Notch; expand to the left of the village up Sterling (Whiteface Mountain) and Morse. Then reconnect the Sterling /Spruce crossover. Lump them together under one ticket. Best ski complex east of the rockies:flag:

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ

That would be pretty damn nice!!!!

Yes, I missed it. Too tired from skiing.

steamboat1 said:

"With the material left over from excavation, the resort plans to add new beginner skier terrain."

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That's awesome! :lol:

I read on another forum that in addition to the already announced upgrades at Spruce Camp (ice skating rink, shopping, parking etc.), refurbished gondola cars & new cable, installation of a zip line at the gondola & additional snowmaking upgrades Stowe will be removing the Alpine & Easy Street double chairs. They will be installing a new carpet loaded fixed grip quad in their place which will terminate in the same area as the Alpine double chair did. They will be regrading the top portion to make it more beginner friendly. I guess this is the expanded beginner terrain they mentioned & where left over excavation material will go. They are also permanently removing the Alpine slide & rumored to be replacing it with a mountain coaster sometime in the future. Quite a full plate of upgrades I would say!

steamboat1 said:

I read on another forum that in addition to the already announced upgrades at Spruce Camp (ice skating rink, shopping, parking etc.), refurbished gondola cars & new cable, installation of a zip line at the gondola & additional snowmaking upgrades Stowe will be removing the Alpine & Easy Street double chairs. They will be installing a new carpet loaded fixed grip quad in their place which will terminate in the same area as the Alpine double chair did. They will be regrading the top portion to make it more beginner friendly. I guess this is the expanded beginner terrain they mentioned & where left over excavation material will go. They are also permanently removing the Alpine slide & rumored to be replacing it with a mountain coaster sometime in the future. Quite a full plate of upgrades I would say!

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I'm staying at Stowe Mountain Lodge now. The old bathrooms and discovery center are long gone and foundations are going on. The two double are behind the fenced in area so they seem to be safe.....for now. Alpine slides are fully intact but not operating.

4aprice said:

Ok here's the expansion we need. Smuggler's Notch; expand to the left of the village up Sterling (Whiteface Mountain) and Morse. Then reconnect the Sterling /Spruce crossover. Lump them together under one ticket. Best ski complex east of the rockies:flag:

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ

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mbedle said:

That would be pretty damn nice!!!!

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There used to be a combo pass years ago where one lift ticket got you both ski areas. Not sure what caused that to go away or how it was structured.

Here is a quote from an article written 11/29/03 - I found it on another website, posted by a guy who said he lived in Stowe/Smugs.

"The case of Stowe and Smugglers' Notch, two ski resorts that share a mountain range in Vermont, is more perplexing. For decades skiers were allowed, formally or informally, to pass between the two ski areas; and in 1995 the resort managements came to an agreement that involved a joint lift pass and a groomed link. Now there is no joint lift pass, and no groomed link. And according to a spokesman for Stowe the high-altitude trail I followed last season - from the ski area boundary on Sterling Mountain at Smugglers' Notch to the "Closed" sign on Stowe's Spruce Peak - "does not officially exist". Snuffy's Trail has been snuffed out."

I would guess that the reason they no longer allow this is due to costs or lack of income from the combined lift tickets. They also may have figured out that one of the resorts was seeing more traffic than the other. Which I would guess makes revenue sharing difficult to figure out. 2003 was the last trail map that had Sunffy's and the return trail to Stowe shown on it. Relocating the spruce peak lift (lower on the mountain) really put the potential future connection to bed.

The 2000 trail map for Smugs actually discusses the connection trails and the combined lift ticket.

mbedle said:

Here is a quote from an article written 11/29/03 - I found it on another website, posted by a guy who said he lived in Stowe/Smugs.

"The case of Stowe and Smugglers' Notch, two ski resorts that share a mountain range in Vermont, is more perplexing. For decades skiers were allowed, formally or informally, to pass between the two ski areas; and in 1995 the resort managements came to an agreement that involved a joint lift pass and a groomed link. Now there is no joint lift pass, and no groomed link. And according to a spokesman for Stowe the high-altitude trail I followed last season - from the ski area boundary on Sterling Mountain at Smugglers' Notch to the "Closed" sign on Stowe's Spruce Peak - "does not officially exist". Snuffy's Trail has been snuffed out."

I would guess that the reason they no longer allow this is due to costs or lack of income from the combined lift tickets. They also may have figured out that one of the resorts was seeing more traffic than the other. Which I would guess makes revenue sharing difficult to figure out. 2003 was the last trail map that had Sunffy's and the return trail to Stowe shown on it. Relocating the spruce peak lift (lower on the mountain) really put the potential future connection to bed.

The 2000 trail map for Smugs actually discusses the connection trails and the combined lift ticket.

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I remember reading somewhere that a groomer fell through the ice one time. The connecting trail does cross a high altitude lake between the two areas. If a groomer can fall through so could skiers. I'd think that's a pretty good reason for closing the trail.

Stowe was home 95 to 01. IIRC correctly, they only offered joint mountain use lift tickets for a couple years and on the Stowe side, it was only available for use on Spruce Peak terrain and not Mansfield. This was because Stowe charged more for a lift ticket, so they didn't want people taking advantage of the situation by buying tickets at Smuggs to use primarily over on Mansfield. I don't recall it being a specialty lift ticket; just a joint agreement. I had friends who worked at Smuggs and they said the reason they offered it was primarily for marketing. If they could get some Stowe day ticket skiers over to Smuggs, maybe they'd like what they saw and would consider vacationing there instead of Stowe.

The joint agreement was only for day tickets and not for season pass holders. However, both mountains did offer a complimentary lift ride back for season pass holders who wanted to make the trip across. In years they didn't have the full day ticket agreement, day ticket skiers could also get the one lift ride back. If you went over from Stowe, Smuggs would use a hole punch on your lift ticket and tell you had to go back to Stowe or pay for a Smuggs lift ticket to keep skiing there for the day. Same thing at Stowe when a Smuggs ticket holder went to the Big Spruce chair. If you had a season pass, when you got to other side, you had to go to the base lodge and get a one up lift ticket voucher to present at the chair when you went back. We used to take advantage of this by playing dumb and lap the back bowls at Smuggs until they checked our passes and asked for a voucher, in which case we went to the lodge and got one.

Over the years, I probably made the trip across Sterling Pond 100+ times. It was rarely groomed. Maybe during vacation weeks and that was it for the season. The snow on the pond would get pretty wind swept and then just packed down by skiers. The trail to Smuggs, which was/is basically the Long Trail was maintained by Smuggs and groomed a couple of times a week. Stowe would groom the trail on the other side of the pond a couple of times a week. Breaking trail across the pond and back to Stowe on a powder day was a real chore. I recall a couple of times it taking damn near a half an hour to get back to Stowe's Sterling trail. I do remember the groomer incident. I don't remember any issues with skiers falling through the ice. The realignment of the Spruce lift would have basically zero effect on reopening the access across. It's basically a 50 foot slightly uphill walk to the Long Trail from the Quad now. It's more difficult to get from the parking lot to the lifts at Stowe than to access the trail. The program could very easily be brought back.

DHS' info is all pretty much spot-on from what I recall, except I dont recall a "pay one price joint use" ticket, so I'm guessing this would have been pre-1998. The only info I can add is that Stowe used to sell "single ride" tickets for Smuggs skiers that accidentally (or perhaps intentionally) came over, which were $12. I think Smuggs had a similar policy. Also, there was at that time a very little known and not much advertised (at all) program where Stowe/Smuggs skiers staying on a long'ish multi-day pass (3 or 4 days) could get 1 ski day at the other resort. I think it was only a few different travel agents or lodging resorts that offered it. My belief from being there is that it was Stowe that was more "anti-Snuffy" than Smuggs, mostly on the perception that it would benefit Smuggs far more than it would benefit Stowe (which is true of course).

Must be going back to the 60's maybe early 70's. Stowe sold coupon books for single rides pretty cheap. Don't remember the price but there were 6-8 coupons in a book. Use them anyway, anyday you like. MRG sold similar coupons to but of course you couldn't use them to connect to Smuggs.

BenedictGomez said:

DHS' info is all pretty much spot-on from what I recall, except I dont recall a "pay one price joint use" ticket, so I'm guessing this would have been pre-1998. The only info I can add is that Stowe used to sell "single ride" tickets for Smuggs skiers that accidentally (or perhaps intentionally) came over, which were $12. I think Smuggs had a similar policy. Also, there was at that time a very little known and not much advertised (at all) program where Stowe/Smuggs skiers staying on a long'ish multi-day pass (3 or 4 days) could get 1 ski day at the other resort. I think it was only a few different travel agents or lodging resorts that offered it. My belief from being there is that it was Stowe that was more "anti-Snuffy" than Smuggs, mostly on the perception that it would benefit Smuggs far more than it would benefit Stowe (which is true of course).

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If Smuggs had a policy of charging for one ups, they didn't enforce it. I never had to pay. I did the interconnect most during the "big one" winter of 2000-2001. Probably 40 plus days that season we'd start our day at Big Spruce. You could score front row parking at the lift at 9AM. We'd spend a few hours lapping the back bowls over at Smuggs, come back and take our cars back over to the Gondola lots at which point there'd usually be front row parking spots opening up from morning skiers leaving for the day. It worked out really well.

canobie#1 said:

I'm staying at Stowe Mountain Lodge now. The old bathrooms and discovery center are long gone and foundations are going on. The two double are behind the fenced in area so they seem to be safe.....for now. Alpine slides are fully intact but not operating.

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According to the VT. ski area history website both the Alpine & Easy Street doubles will be removed this year. They will be replaced with a fixed grip quad just as I said.

From the site:

Lifts
Click on lift name for information and photos

Went up up Stowe this week & spoke with an employee who seemed to know whats going on. The Zipline from the top of the gondola is presently under construction. The concrete foundations for the various sections of the line are already in (saw them myself). Basically from the top of the gondi over to Nose Dive then back to Perry Merrill then down to the gondi base. The gondi cars as many already know were sent out to CTEC & are being rebuilt & painted. There were about a dozen old gondi cars still in the parking lot that have yet to be sent out. The gondi is not getting a new haul line, the haul line was already replaced four years ago. What the gondi is getting is a new drive train at the bottom & bull wheel on top. I was surprised to learn that the new gondi is already 25 years old. Nothing much else going on on the Mansfild side except about $2 million in snow making upgrades (mostly off the triple). This in addition to the $8+ million they invested in snow making upgrades resort wide the last two seasons. Next summer they also hope to offer mountain biking off the triple in the summer.

Over at Spruce there is lots going on. Excavation for the new plaza is well underway. There is presently no public parking over at Spruce & there will likely be no public parking this winter over there either (or at least very limited). The plaza project is a two year project & will not be completed for this coming season. It's going to be a mess this winter as far as parking is concerned over there. The Alpine & East Street double chairs at Spruce are coming out this summer. As was already mentioned the Alpine double will be replaced with a carpet loading fixed grip quad. What hasn't been mentioned is that the Easy Street double will be replaced with New England's longest & most modern Magic Carpet lift (kind of an adult Magic Carpet as he put it). They were already excavating for the Magic Carpet while I was there. It's quite impressive to see all that's going on up there. The person I spoke with didn't know about the Alpine Slide being replaced with a Mountain Coaster as rumored. I kind of suspect they have something even better planned.

I wonder if there are plans in the future to replace the Mountain triple with a HSQ. The lift is fine as is, but that extra capacity could draw down some of the lines on the Forerunner.

That and upgrading the Mansfield base lodge are really the only improvements to the skiing experience the mountain still "needs". In terms of lifts, snowmaking, grooming and amenities, Stowe is just about as finished of a product as there is in the east.