Middlebury College Snowbowl to Get New Triple

[thetrailboss]

According to a friend of mine, and the NELSAP board are reporting that the Worth Mountain Double has failed inspection and is going to be replaced. This has been under the radar, even for a Midd alum such as me.

Middlebury has THIS page up asking for donations.

In sum, $1.7 million for a new triple that follows the same lift line. Doppelmayr is doing the work. The Snowbowl has a Poma Double, a CTEC Triple, and the old Worth Mountain Double, which is a Poma Double with CTEC chairs and other hardware.

 

[thetrailboss]

The 7/24/09 letter to the College Community:

Dear Faculty and Staff Colleagues,

In late spring, we learned that the 40-year-old Worth Mountain double-chairlift at the Middlebury College Snow Bowl no longer meets state licensing requirements. After considering the options—repair the existing lift, replace it, or close the Snow Bowl—I recommended to the Board of Trustees that the best course is to replace the Worth Mountain lift. In making this decision, we weighed the recreational value of the Bowl and its economic importance to the region against purchasing a new lift when we are making significant budget cuts elsewhere at the College due to current economic conditions.

Replacing the lift is a significant capital investment; the estimated cost is $1.7 million. Each year, we routinely set aside more than $8 million in a renewal and replacement reserve (known as "RRR") that we use to maintain the campus infrastructure. We will tap this reserve in order to begin work on the new lift immediately, but we plan to reimburse the fund through a special fund-raising effort. Replacing the lift, therefore, will have no direct impact on our operating budget, since we set aside funds each year to cover these kinds of repairs.

Vice President Mike Schoenfeld and his colleagues in College Advancement have developed a plan to solicit longtime supporters of the Snow Bowl, including members of the local community, and I am pleased to report that generous donors have already pledged $600,000 toward the project. In seeking additional contributions, we will approach alumni, parents, and friends who have particularly strong connections to the College through skiing and the Snow Bowl. We also plan to sell a limited number of lifetime passes to the Bowl, which will further reduce our use of the RRR fund.

Since 1934, the Snow Bowl has been an integral part of our students’ and our community’s winter recreational experience. Countless children, students, faculty, staff, and townspeople have learned to ski at the Bowl and enjoyed the thrill of winter sports over the decades. In recent seasons, the Bowl has recorded annually between 50,000 and 60,000 visits by skiers and snowboarders. Our alpine ski team practices and competes there; the NCAA championships have been held there; and local ski clubs and scholastic teams call it their home mountain. The Snow Bowl is an asset that sets our College apart from other institutions. It also creates dozens of jobs—directly and indirectly—and generates hundreds of thousands of dollars for the local economy via meals, lodging, ski and snowboard equipment rentals and purchases.

The new lift will be a fixed-grip, triple-chair transport system engineered and manufactured by Doppelmayr CTEC, an international firm that has built nearly 14,000 ski lifts in 80 countries. The per-hour capacity of the new lift will be the same as the existing double-chair Poma lift.

The project will require very little site work, as the new lift will follow the same pathway up the Allen trail as the existing Worth Mountain lift. We expect the new lift to be operational in time for this winter’s ski season, as we begin a new chapter in the history of our 75-year-old ski area.

If you would like to learn more about fund-raising for the Worth Mountain lift, please visit http://go.middlebury.edu/worthmtchair.

Sincerely,

Ron

 

[KingM]

There's enough terrain up there for a triple if they would only open the Bailey Falls Chair more often. It seems to be closed every time I'm up there.

 

[tcharron]

According to a friend of mine, and the NELSAP board are reporting that the Worth Mountain Double has failed inspection and is going to be replaced. This has been under the radar, even for a Midd alum such as me.

Middlebury has THIS page up asking for donations.

In sum, $1.7 million for a new triple that follows the same lift line. Doppelmayr is doing the work. The Snowbowl has a Poma Double, a CTEC Triple, and the old Worth Mountain Double, which is a Poma Double with CTEC chairs and other hardware.

If their web page is accurate, at 50 grand per student per year, I don't think they need any donations.

 

[KingM]

If their web page is accurate, at 50 grand per student per year, I don't think they need any donations.

They've also got an endowment of 885 million dollars, or $377,000 per student, according to Wikipedia.

 

[thetrailboss]

They've also got an endowment of 885 million dollars, or $377,000 per student, according to Wikipedia.

We had that much last year before the downturn. Most of it was invested with Lehman Brothers. That number is now down to about $500 mill or so IIRC.

 

[WJenness]

We had that much last year before the downturn. Most of it was invested with Lehman Brothers. That number is now down to about $500 mill or so IIRC.

Better than with Bernie Madoff...

-w

 

[tcharron]

We had that much last year before the downturn. Most of it was invested with Lehman Brothers. That number is now down to about $500 mill or so IIRC.

Still.. I'm having a really hard time thinking they need any sort of fund raiser.

 

[thetrailboss]

Still.. I'm having a really hard time thinking they need any sort of fund raiser.

I understand. As an Alum they do some things with money that are just obscene. But they are trying to save the endowment for preserving the school and its core services for the long run.

And why pay for it when others will? They already have $600k pledged to it in donations.

As much as I hate to say it, the Snowbowl is NOT one of the core services and in fact is a money losing operation. If we did not have a D-1 ski team, that place would have been shuttered long ago. If anything it is a nice perk for the locals...good skiing at a subsidized price.

That said, a few years ago the management made a push to get some more interest going by offering competitive priced passes for Alum and coupling it with deals at SB. They also tried some promos. It got some business I think, but the place is still sleepy and undiscovered.

I don't ski there. I live 15 minutes away and drive to SB for the bigger resort experience with more lifts, more snowmaking, and a longer ski season. The Snowbowl is a good option, but when they only run from maybe early December through Mid or Late March, that is not enough for me. Plus their snowmaking is limited to racing terrain and the beginner stuff.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Better than with Bernie Madoff...

-w

beat me to it..lol..with the kind of squila Middlebury has, they should put in a Gondoobie

 

[deadheadskier]

If their web page is accurate, at 50 grand per student per year, I don't think they need any donations.

Another way to look at it is this.

It's better to ask for donations to support non-academic school amenities than it is to raise tuition.

I'd rather see that endowment money sit in the bank and help fund scholarships for financially challenged students than be used to buy a chairlift.

I'd imagine that less than half the students at Middlebury pay the full 50K to go there.

 

[thetrailboss]

Thanks to Betsy @ NELSAP.

The Addison Independent Article.

 

[KingM]

I'd rather see that endowment money sit in the bank and help fund scholarships for financially challenged students than be used to buy a chairlift.

I don't know about Middlebury, but most colleges do neither. The endowment is left to grow and grow as sort of a competition with other elite schools, or else possibly to build big, expensive new buildings.

 

[WWF-VT]

Middlebury Snowbowl is a hidden gem that gets overlooked as it is midway between Killington and the Mad River Valley. I ski there at least once a year and it's very affordable and offers a few legitimate steeps and challenging trails with no crowds. Glad to hear that they are moving forward replacing the double chair.

 

[thetrailboss]

One interesting point: why not a fixed grip quad? Dartmouth has one...and we at Midd have some kind of inferiority complex with Dartmouth. :wink:

 

[thetrailboss]

On Saturday I went to investigate how work was going. The bugs were terrible to say the least...all kinds were biting.

In a nutshell, nothing is left of the last lift and nothing has gone into place. No foundations, nothing. There are red stakes indicating where the new lift supprots will go.

The base area has been leveled. The components of the lift are long gone. The midstation has been razed and it would appear that they will not be building a new one. At least at this point. The midstation was originally used for the ski jumps, which no longer exist. In recent years the midstation was only used for Feb graduation and some racing.

All of the concrete bases are gone...or almost all. The ones that remain are in bad shape and it is clear why they razed the lift. The liftline..for those that haven't been...above the midstation is downright insane. It dives into a col before ascending a steep, cliff banded area. The cliffs and fall line are nasty--the lift climbs over a double fall-lined cliff with spectacular views before popping out above the old Worth Mountain Lodge and crossing the summit plateau.

Tower 11 was the only tower that was left, and its remains have come to rest in the trees just below the steepest of the cliffs. I checked out its foundation which was badly dilapidated. It appears that when they were demoing the lift, they were not able to get this tower and it collapsed into the trees. It will probably have to be plucked out by helicopter or cut into pieces and carefully pulled out.

The summit station has been razed as well.

Pictures coming soon, but in the meantime, here is my TR from 2007: http://forums.alpinezone.com/13711-middlebury-college-snow-bowl-february-10-2007-pics-included.html Note the liftline pics.

 

[deadheadskier]

Am I correct in assuming that the liftline gets poached often?

 

[thetrailboss]

The lower part, yes. The few times I have been there I have seen folks cutting in through the woods from Voter and skiing below the cliffs. But the cliff part, not really. This picture doesn't do it justice...just wait until I enter in my pictures from the weekend showing what this line looks like:

 

[tcharron]

Pictures coming soon, but in the meantime, here is my TR from 2007: http://forums.alpinezone.com/13711-middlebury-college-snow-bowl-february-10-2007-pics-included.html Note the liftline pics.

The place actually looks like it'd be worth a trip to. How much is a day ticket? :-D

 

[thetrailboss]

The place actually looks like it'd be worth a trip to. How much is a day ticket? :-D

Here is their trail map:

And their rates for 2008-2009 which were $28 weekdays for adults, $42 for weekends/holidays. Alum and students get discounts.