The Hermitage Club 1-25-14

So the townhome complex my wife and I own in at Mount Snow received an invite for owners to come check out The Hermitage Club for a free day of skiing, with a bit of a sales pitch thrown in. We decided to take them up on their offer today.

To make a true comparison, we started off at Mount Snow at 7:30AM for their passholders AM Express access only until 8AM to get fresh tracks. It was COLD, single digits with a brisk wind blowing UP the hill at you as you skied down If it wasn't for the Bluebird Express there was no way I would made it break free until I had to drop my son off at 9:15 for his park program! After 8 runs on very nice machine groomed packed powder and about 12k verts, I was very happy to head for my car and warm up a bit heading about 2 miles down the road to The Hermitage Club.

We arrived, dropped my car off with the valet parking attendant (yup, free valet parking at The Hermitage Club) and headed into the membership center to pick up our complementary day passes. We walked by the side of the under construction MASSIVE timberframed 40,000+ sq ft base lodge set to open in November (this looks like it will be IMPRESSIVE!!)

We had our tickets scanned, by a very nice host who told us that the snow is great today and to be careful of the cold! We boarded the to the mid mountain Hayfever triple, and our backsides were greated with a plush, Hermitage Club logo embroidered seat and back pad! Very comfy for the slow ride to mid mountain. On the way up, we noticed the fleet of yellow techno alpin fan guns lining the Needle trail under us, my wife even commented on how from a distance they look like minions from the Dispicable Me movie series!

We unloaded and started our 1st run down route 100 South to The Shaft to Needles Eye. The snow was GREAT, very soft, dry edgeable machine groomed snow and not a slick spot to be found. We discovered that this was the standard all day!

We explored the open trails off the Mid Mountain Hayfever lift, the summit Barnstormer lift and the "expert" area Witches lift for the next 3hrs totaling 13 runs with a short break in the very nice, but small summit warming hut (complete with a BIG 15 foot long oak table and high backed leather chairs for lunch parties!)

The terrain is fun, not overly challenging, with most of the "steep" pitches being maybe 3-400 vertical feet before you encounter some flat/flatter terrain. Regardless of the trail difficulty rating the mix of ASC era ground air/water guns, HKD Impulse tower air/water guns and a variety of techno alpin fan guns had the open trails covered with very good quality, dry snow. The thing that I kind of chuckled about was any trail that hadn't been groomed had a "Warning: Variable Conditions" sign on it! :lol:

Favorite trails were the "ungroomed" Fever Pitch off the summit (a few hundred verts of legit black diamond pitch with a couple of drops too) and Gandalf right under the Witches Lift (a few hundred yard long pitch with perfect "ski me at mach 1 with super G turns" machine groomed packed powder! )

My runs there today had me wishing I was on full out GS race skis! The mountain skis small though, basically a few 3-500 vertical foot "mountains" with some flat areas connecting them instead of straight top to bottom verts. They did a very nice job of clearing out their on the map tree terrain, and while it was lacking the good extra foot of snow it currently needs to be skiable, it looks like it will be fun ski with enough snow.

Did today sway me or my wife to fork over the now 45k (bumping up to 55k in about 3 weeks) initiation fee + just over 5k annual dues? Nope. Was it a fun day of cruising VERY nice snow? Yup!

I'd be curious to try The Hermitage Club again when the trees are open and the lodge is complete! They're closing in on 300 members now, with a 1000 member maximum and an increase over the next year or so to an initiation fee of just over 100k

After seeing what's been done so far today and hearing about the grand vision for The Hermitage Club, I don't doubt that it will make it.

I'll post some pics from today once my wife gives my lap top back to me and I can upload the pics from my camera from today!

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Great report! I loved Haystack when I was in college.

I used to always ski haystack on Saturdays years ago to avoid the massive mt snow lines

Nice report. Was that your first time there?

She's really hogging that computer huh?

jaytrem said:

Nice report. Was that your first time there?

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First time in it's current "Hermitage Club" motif! I had skied at Haystack probably about a dozen times or so back in the 80's,90's and early 2000's.

Last time I had skied their prior to yesterday was MLK Day of '05. The terrain is still what I remembered. Fun, but "small" feeling. The snow surface I will say was top rate yesterday. Just as good, if not a bit better than the early AM snow surface I had at Mount Snow yesterday prior to heading down to The Hermitage Club, and also just as good if not slightly better than what I'm skiing today at Stratton, where I'm currently trying to to freeze off any body parts as I watch my daughters slalom race

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Thanks for the report. Am anxious to see the pics.

drjeff said:

First time in it's current "Hermitage Club" motif! I had skied at Haystack probably about a dozen times or so back in the 80's,90's and early 2000's.

Last time I had skied their prior to yesterday was MLK Day of '05. The terrain is still what I remembered. Fun, but "small" feeling. The snow surface I will say was top rate yesterday. Just as good, if not a bit better than the early AM snow surface I had at Mount Snow yesterday prior to heading down to The Hermitage Club, and also just as good if not slightly better than what I'm skiing today at Stratton, where I'm currently trying to to freeze off any body parts as I watch my daughters slalom race

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I wondered for a long time why anyone would pay the $$ for the Haystack experience, but recently I realized that it makes total sense that multi-millionaires would wan't to do this. If you've got the $$ to drop and you like to ski, why on earth would you battle with ten thousand commoners to ski on the boilerplate? Makes a lot of sense to drop $50,000 a year for a season pass at a mountain that you only have to share with a couple hundred others. Without anyone skiing on the freshly groomed snow, the snow surface will stay nice for a loooong time.

Euler said:

I wondered for a long time why anyone would pay the $$ for the Haystack experience, but recently I realized that it makes total sense that multi-millionaires would wan't to do this. If you've got the $$ to drop and you like to ski, why on earth would you battle with ten thousand commoners to ski on the boilerplate? Makes a lot of sense to drop $50,000 a year for a season pass at a mountain that you only have to share with a couple hundred others. Without anyone skiing on the freshly groomed snow, the snow surface will stay nice for a loooong time.

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50k is the rough INITIATION fee (paid only once) right now. Annual dues for all your skiing and riding, as well as the other ammenties the Hermitage Club offers, for your entire family is just over 5k a year currently.

Members also get 180+ free passes that they can give to friends and other non immediate family over the years

thetrailboss said:

Thanks for the report. Am anxious to see the pics.

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Pics will have to wait until I get back home to CT on Monday night. I forgot to bring the proper digi cam cable and/or usb stick transfer card up to VT! D'OH!!!

do they give tribute to the old Haystack legacy at all or is it completely new only Hermitage Club branding now?

gmcunni said:

do they give tribute to the old Haystack legacy at all or is it completely new only Hermitage Club branding now?

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The trail + old lift names are unchanged from the Haystack era. My guess is when the BIG snazzy timber-framed clubhouse, complete with private members lockers, a lap pool and a media center that will allow kids (and adults too ) to grab the memory cards out of their GoPro's and quickly edit and upload them from the lodge, is complete later this year that they will have some nostalgia from the past history of the resort. Right now there wasn't any that I noticed in the temporary trailers that serve as the base lodge this season

Nice TR! I was wondering how that place skied, and if it would be worth it (relatively speaking) if you have that kind of money to blow

I unfortunately never got a chance to ski haystack back in its day either, so I doubt I'll ever ski there now when I come home and visit.


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Did they demolish the old lodge? I thought it was a somewhat new lodge and very nice.

They allow people to just drop in? Not looking to ski just poke around

skifree said:

Did they demolish the old lodge? I thought it was a somewhat new lodge and very nice.

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That lodge is gone. There was a tax dispute between the town of Wilmington and a couple of owners ago, where the end result after the lien was placed on the lodge was that it was demolished. I did like that old lodge with it's 80's modern style and big open feel.

The new lodge, based on what's been built already and the artists renditions on site will be about 180 degrees opposite architecturally from the old lodge

skifree said:

They allow people to just drop in? Not looking to ski just poke around

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The gate house off Coldbrook Road is now once again staffed, with "guests" instructed to stay to the left and members to the right. Based on how little info the Hermitage Club Employee staffing the gate house yesterday asked my wife and I, I don't think that it would be that difficult to just poke around, especially when the ski area is operating. Mid week, when it's an ACTIVE construction site, there might be some issues with folks poking around

I also liked the old lodge. Very friendly to brown baggers and the upstairs bar was small but enjoyable. Like coops

Thank you for the TR.

I think the biggest question for a prospective member would be whether the club would survive. You would not want that kind of initiation fee to disappear. But this kind of thing is somewhat sell-fulfilling. If everybody thinks like that, then you don't get enough members.

There could be solutions, though. For example, is there some kind of escrow with statute of limitations to establish credibility? That sort of thing would help with getting members quickly, and as you have more people, others would feel more confident to get in.

I guess I just don't see the value, at least in southern VT. For that kind of money you could do multiple vacations out west, or anywhere else, for like 20 years, even with a family of 4.

I'm basing that on around $150k. $50k initiation + $5k/year x 20 years.