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The "Sugarbush Thread"

Blurski

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Sep 17, 2020
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Early ups, I understand this is not something everyone agrees with. After watching Early Uppers pass by me waiting in line for the past several years this was the year I was thinking of paying the premium and signing up for the season. I cant find the add on anywhere, anyone know anything about it.
 

Hawk

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I was told that they are not going to offer early ups this year. I have done early ups every year except for the first year. It is disappointing.
 

cdskier

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That's interesting...I wonder why. I wasn't a fan (mainly because I did not want to drag my ass out of bed early enough to take advantage of it although I've toyed with the idea), but I'm still surprised they stopped it.
 

Hawk

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It started at $250 the first year. I think it was up to $500 last year or something like that. I don't do the purchasing. It just shows up. :cool::daffy:
 

SkiTheEast

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Apr 9, 2019
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$400 million investment across the portfolio of resorts and the only mention of any investment at Sugarbush is "modernizing the Summit lift". No mention of the employee housing which was announced close to 3 yrs ago and still hasn't broken ground, no mention of any refurbishment/investment to North Ridge (nevermind the replacement) which was also announced years ago and quietly walked back. At least we got that new carpet over at North 😀
 

thetrailboss

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$400 million investment across the portfolio of resorts and the only mention of any investment at Sugarbush is "modernizing the Summit lift". No mention of the employee housing which was announced close to 3 yrs ago and still hasn't broken ground, no mention of any refurbishment/investment to North Ridge (nevermind the replacement) which was also announced years ago and quietly walked back. At least we got that new carpet over at North 😀
FWIW they just canceled a big project at Mammoth. IKON sales were flat for 2024-2025. I would imagine that this year will be the same if not down.
 

tumbler

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Jan 10, 2014
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Early ups is done. Friend who owns in Clay Brook said were all told it is cancelled because of low use and high hours on Bravo. It ran for an extra half hour on Sat/Sun in mid winter. They are pissed as it was a perk as part of purchasing. Things seem to be going downhill. No summer activities on the hill, early ups gone, lack of capital investment this year on critical needs, cancelled projects like NRX, Gatehouse MB flow trails. We had it good under Win and now we're just another dot on a map that is not DV or Steamboat for Alterra. The attitude has become the customer gets what they get and if they don't like it they can go somewhere else.
 

machski

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Sep 5, 2014
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Northwood, NH (Sunday River, ME)
Yeah, I have to say Alterra's lack of investment in the East is striking. It's almost as if they've said, not where we make any revenue so just let it coast. No where more evident than Tremblant IMHO. During Intrawest's time, that was considered a keystone resort. Aside from one new HSQ on the north side replacing a FGT (similar to snow bowl at Stratton), nothing else has budged. I would have thought a bubble HSS up there replacing Northside TTB HSQ at a minimum by now. But nope, same old lifts mostly and they could use some upgrades too. Sad.
 

Blurski

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Sep 17, 2020
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Early ups is done. Friend who owns in Clay Brook said were all told it is cancelled because of low use and high hours on Bravo. It ran for an extra half hour on Sat/Sun in mid winter. They are pissed as it was a perk as part of purchasing. Things seem to be going downhill. No summer activities on the hill, early ups gone, lack of capital investment this year on critical needs, cancelled projects like NRX, Gatehouse MB flow trails. We had it good under Win and now we're just another dot on a map that is not DV or Steamboat for Alterra. The attitude has become the customer gets what they get and if they don't like it they can go somewhere else.
High hours on Brovo, if they mean the additional hours because of early ups, that is weak. Early ups typically ran about 12 weekend + the Holiday weeks, so about 34 days = 17 additional hours of operation. I know every hour adds up but I hope it is not in that bad of condition that 17 extra hours is going to put in the grave.
 

Tonyr

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Jan 6, 2019
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973
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Early ups is done. Friend who owns in Clay Brook said were all told it is cancelled because of low use and high hours on Bravo. It ran for an extra half hour on Sat/Sun in mid winter. They are pissed as it was a perk as part of purchasing. Things seem to be going downhill. No summer activities on the hill, early ups gone, lack of capital investment this year on critical needs, cancelled projects like NRX, Gatehouse MB flow trails. We had it good under Win and now we're just another dot on a map that is not DV or Steamboat for Alterra. The attitude has become the customer gets what they get and if they don't like it they can go somewhere else.
It has not been the same since Win sold the resort. The experience we had over MLK weekend last season was not good an plan on hitting MRG next season instead.
 
Last edited:

thetrailboss

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Yeah, I have to say Alterra's lack of investment in the East is striking. It's almost as if they've said, not where we make any revenue so just let it coast. No where more evident than Tremblant IMHO. During Intrawest's time, that was considered a keystone resort. Aside from one new HSQ on the north side replacing a FGT (similar to snow bowl at Stratton), nothing else has budged. I would have thought a bubble HSS up there replacing Northside TTB HSQ at a minimum by now. But nope, same old lifts mostly and they could use some upgrades too. Sad.
The one notable exception is Stratton from my POV. They’ve replaced lifts there and will do another one next season IIRC.

The spending at Deer Valley is excessive, although it’s not entirely clear who is spending that money (Alterra, Extel, or both). Again a lot of unnecessary lifts and HS lifts where they are not needed considering that there are other areas with lifts that can barely operate and need replacing.

I’m very sad for Sugarbush.
 

cdskier

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The supposed logic for cancelling early ups sure is strange. In the grand scheme of things, the number of extra hours on Bravo from early ups does not seem overly significant as someone else pointed out. In terms of usage, whenever I looked at the webcams it always seemed like a decent number of people were taking advantage of it recently.

Other than the Tommy's Toy replacement, what else were they even doing this summer in terms of CapEx? The last update in the blog that I can find from Hammond stated to "Be on the lookout for project updates throughout the summer." I've seen virtually nothing of any significance posted anywhere. Just scrolled through Facebook. I see 2 updates on Tommy's Toy and that's it. In the short video of progress back in July, someone asked about Slide Brook. Sugarbush responded saying they were working on it and would have a blog post out "soon" detailing what they were doing. That was nearly 2 months ago... Unless I'm missing it, they've been very quiet in terms of any substantial communications.
 

djd66

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Sep 6, 2015
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Has the Slidebrook Express operated at all under Alterra?

Work platform is on it now.
The transaction took place in 2020, yes Slidey B has definitely run During that time. Last year was the only year it did not run.

what’s the over-under of it running this year?
 

Tonyr

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The one notable exception is Stratton from my POV. They’ve replaced lifts there and will do another one next season IIRC.

The spending at Deer Valley is excessive, although it’s not entirely clear who is spending that money (Alterra, Extel, or both). Again a lot of unnecessary lifts and HS lifts where they are not needed considering that there are other areas with lifts that can barely operate and need replacing.

I’m very sad for Sugarbush.
I believe most of the spending is being done by Extel. Deer Valley essentially just agreed to roll in and run the new Mayflower side of the resort.
 
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