Edd
Well-known member
Tough one, as I’ve only skied 2 days there. Not sure what I’d rank #1.
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Burke's New Owners and New Start (2025)
- Thread starter thetrailboss
- Start date
The ranking, and video, piqued my interest.
LoafSkier19
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2011
- Messages
- 312
- Points
- 63
If it was easier to get to it would easily be at the top of my list. It’s distance does keep it pretty quiet from my experience. The place is huge and has just about everything you want in a ski mountain. Everyone talks about the view, but the terrain is a ton of fun with plenty of options for steeps, bumps, and glades. Even has a hike-to glade section off to far lookers right.
Back to Burke. Take a look at the size of these whales!
drjeff
Well-known member
Been a bunch of happy snowmakers in the East the last few days with the low temps, and more days than not, relatively light winds. Been allowing them to crank up the water flowing through each gun and get the product to stay relatively close to the gun and get some big time whale formation going on for sure
I can't wait to get back there this season!
The cats are working the lower mountain tonight.
Ski2LiveLive2Ski
Active member
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- Mar 20, 2013
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- 690
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Looking forward to my first day skiing Burke tomorrow
At the Burke Mountain Hotel tonight - super nice mid mountain ski in ski out lodging and an amazing deal for Xmas week at 285/nt for two room unit overlooking mountain and outdoor hot tub, breakfast included
At the Burke Mountain Hotel tonight - super nice mid mountain ski in ski out lodging and an amazing deal for Xmas week at 285/nt for two room unit overlooking mountain and outdoor hot tub, breakfast included
AdironRider
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- Nov 27, 2005
- Messages
- 3,844
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That is a great deal. Jay wants at least double that.
See you out there tomorrow. If you want to meet up let me know.
East Bowl today.
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The breakfast was legit.
Ski2LiveLive2Ski
Active member
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- Mar 20, 2013
- Messages
- 690
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thanks for the invite to meet - skiing with my kids today so just gonna focus on them
We did East Bowl too yesterday - good times!
I’ll be the Grateful one in tie dye today. Say hello!
Zand
Well-known member
urungus
Well-known member
Fuck yeah
urungus
Well-known member
If you have unlimited Berkshire East pass with Indy add on, I think that means you get 4 weekend days at Burke + all weekdays
You beat me to it. Yesterday's big news.
I just got done a week at Burke. We stayed at the hotel. Here are some observations.....
I skied four days. The first two (Saturday and Sunday) there was a lot of traffic but, as usual, no real large lines on the MidBurke Express. Despite low snow levels on the natural trails, they skied pretty well. Lower Dipper Doodle, the lowest part of Powderhorn, and much of the lower part of Toll Road (Deer Run) were getting pretty thin by Sunday, December 28th. The freezing r^&n incident did not net much, if any, snow loss. There was a thin layer of icing that, if anything, only solidified the base. There were frequent snow showers during our week. The best snow day was Saturday the 27th when there was about 2-4" of new snow on top of groomed runs. Amazing.
They did not open the upper mountain at all on Monday the 29th due to the icing.
Skiing on Tuesday and Wednesday this week was pretty decent overall but limited to snowmaking runs. Lower Mountain is solid. I am puzzled why they did not push to open Dashney because that is a HUGE draw. Perhaps water issues?
Upper Mountain was limited to Upper Fox's, Shoot, Middle Bear Den (Granny's) to Willoughby, Upper and Lower Willoughby, Lower Bear Den and Lower Graham Slam. If you are keeping score, that means that all traffic was funneled onto Middle Willoughby at Darling Point and the last two days Willoughby and Lower Bear Den got pretty damn icy.
For all the fanfare of the snowmaking work, they were very slow to open terrain. They blew snow on Upper Dipper on Friday and part of Saturday before moving hoses to Carriage Road and Big Dipper and then abruptly stopping during a solid 36 hour window of cold temps. That seemed very odd. I can only conclude that they were limited by water and/or were concerned about the freezing r&*n event. But for a major holiday week, I would have wanted them to push to get Carriage Road and the Dippers opened for what was a pretty busy week with a lot of newcomers. I have to wonder if staffing was an issue. The piles they did blow were effing HUGE. It was clear to me that they were pushing to build a season's worth of base before moving to other trails. No idea what the plan is going forward--I would expect that the Dippers and Carriage Road will be pushed out tonight.
As to operations, there are some significant issues. First, they are really understaffed EVERYWHERE. Both chairs only had three lifties at most. One for the top, one to man the base loading area, and maybe one to help with the lines. Most of the time I only saw two people. This meant that the Sherburne had bad line management. The Hotel is very understaffed. They ran out of food on our second day (e.g. french fries, chicken wings, etc.) and were slow to restock. I felt so bad for the customer service folks and the ticket office staff. Literally everybody showed up on Saturday to go skiing and either needed an RFID ticket (more about that) or to get their season pass processed. The line for the Sherburne Ticket office was, at one point, over two hours long.
The Hotel was SOLD OUT all week and not at all ready for primetime. We had issues all week with cold showers and no hot water. Staff were thin and frazzeled. The front desk often only had one overworked staff member. Breakfast was included with the room and they were generous but not prepared. One cashier and two staff trying to keep up with demand during the 7:30-9am rush times. Every meal was made to order and slow. They ran out of yogurt parfait on the second day, and each day thereafter ran out of more and more items. I felt so badly for the staff. Guests were pretty patient, but on Monday folks were waiting 30-45 minutes for food. They do not clean the rooms AT ALL during your stay. If you called you got a response that "our folks are really busy". The Hotel store by the front desk was pretty bare. No items with the new logo but instead holdover items from last year and empty shelves. Limited beer and food. When you went to buy something they did not even have the retail system set up, so it took forever for staff to figure out what to do. The View Pub was packed every day. They opened Willoughby's over the weekend and it had the same menu as the View Pub and was full. Lots of Indy Passholders and Ski Racers in the Hotel. The new Hotel GM was only onsite New Year's Day for a brief period.
The Mountain has leased the retail shops in the Hotel (the Vertical Drop) and the Sherburne Base Lodge to Sporthoma. Hours were sporadic at the Sherburne. There were no Burke logo items for sale--a major missed opportunity IMHO especially with so many new visitors. The Sherburne store had very limited selection of items. The Hotel Store had more items but was getting new stock. No real ski tuning services--yet. It appears that Sporthoma was creating a space in the Vertical Drop for that.
Similarly, it appears that Sporthoma is doing the Rental Operation. You have to book your rental 48 hours in advance. My sister and nephew had to wait 45 minutes to get his rental (skis, boots). They had one person doing intake and two handling out equipment.
The RFID rollout has been a disaster. The site crashed on the evening of the 26th forcing every person to go to a ticket counter. EVERY visitor NEEDS to be in the system and sign a waiver. So every Indy Passholder has to provide their DOB and sign a waiver. This makes for a very slow process that is done in-person with limited staff resulting in the long lines on Saturday the 27th. They do not have staff manning the gates or addressing problems--so folks who have pass issues just stand there until they either give up or the system gives up. The website, theoretically, will be awesome when it is running. But on my first day it charged me for a full day ticket even though I applied a voucher to cover the cost. I gave up on reloading my RFID card after that and just went to the counter (which again is counterproductive considering that the point of the site is to AVOID going to the ticket counter). The staff were very helpful in resolving my issues. Note that if you buy online that you pay a $5.00 "booking fee" for every transaction (that is not charged if you purchase at the counter). There are ticket dispensing machines but they were not working or out of cards.
And nearly every person I spoke with had the same story--Indy Passholder who is visiting for the first time and was going to or from Jay Peak. That should be a big positive for Burke assuming that these folks are happy....
There was a major US Ski Team presence this week. Multiple race training programs with racers from all over. The T-Bar and Warren's Way never opened to the public at all, even during windholds for MBX on the 30th. Finally, it got progressively colder as the week went on...with it being -10F this morning.
The new Mountain GM was out manning the Sherburne lines on a couple of days. I did see Jon Schaefer in the Hotel on NYE doing a call with another mountain it sounded like.
I offer these critiques to set expectations for folks and hope that they get on top of these things. A lot of us Burke natives are horrified as to what the initial reviews from new Indy Passholders will be with these issues. There were a lot of angry people on the 27th with the ticket lines. They were issuing refunds for us Hotel guests due to the lack of hot water. Give them some time to work these bugs out.
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Some other notes:
They also put new carpet in both lodges and did a lot of repainting.
Tamarack reopened for some of the week and when I went up the Bar was pretty full.
Bear Den was pretty full most days.
They also put new carpet in both lodges and did a lot of repainting.
Tamarack reopened for some of the week and when I went up the Bar was pretty full.
Bear Den was pretty full most days.