Aspen / KSL acquired Mammoth Resorts

[Smellytele]

Well Callifornia certianly has multi resort pass options options as well as Colorado where there are multiple multi mountain options as well as discount opportunities. The Max Pass and the Peak Pass seemed to be the initial answer for New England and now it looks like that will be expanding. However,, I wonder if there will be a dismantlement of Max and MC Passes if this continues.

The Gems Card is a perfect example of how the smaller places are competing for visits - buy a card for $25 and get two 2 for 1s at eight different places.

Even places like Monarch are partnering with this type of deal

View attachment 22448

Smaller areas also grouped together for the Freedom Pass

 

[Glenn]

I think the issue ASC had with those multi mountain passes was the cost. They were actually too cheap. They oversold and mountains were pretty crowded on the weekends. IIRC of course.

 

[thetrailboss]

I think the issue ASC had with those multi mountain passes was the cost. They were actually too cheap. They oversold and mountains were pretty crowded on the weekends. IIRC of course.

Yes, at the end this was the case. By then though the end was near anyways.


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[4aprice]

Asked a guest services representative at Winter Park what he thought was going to happen with passes (RMSP and Max) this past weekend and he had no solid information on what Aspen will do.

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ

 

[machski]

Asked a guest services representative at Winter Park what he thought was going to happen with passes (RMSP and Max) this past weekend and he had no solid information on what Aspen will do.

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ

Why would they rush this? Passes for 17-18 are already locked in products due to early sales. Aspen-KSL has plenty of time to explore their options for this. I would not expect to hear anything official until midwinter the earliest.

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[dlague]

It is official!

https://www.skimag.com/ski-resort-life/aspen-ksl-continue-buying-spree

 

[Jully]

It is official!

https://www.skimag.com/ski-resort-life/aspen-ksl-continue-buying-spree

New name to be announced around the start of the 2017 - 2018 season too. Looking forward to that. Excited to follow this. There will probably be more acquisitions. I'd love to see a strong connection to the southern hemisphere too, though who knows if we will see that.

 

[deadheadskier]

Adding Winter Park will be big for Aspen. Now they are in on the weekend / day trip skier market from Denver. I'd imagine most Denver folks aren't regularly traveling to Aspen on weekends because they have to drive past too many great areas to get there and deal with bad traffic.

The Eastern components of Stratton (too crowded on the weekends) and Tremblant (too far of a drive) don't excite me too much. What if they were able to snap up Jay/Burke though? Now that they have Tremblant, I'd have to imaging Jay is well on their radar. That would give them the two best resorts in the Montreal market. I'd have to imagine that Vail or Aspen are the two favorites to eventually purchase Jay/Burke.

 

[machski]

Adding Winter Park will be big for Aspen. Now they are in on the weekend / day trip skier market from Denver. I'd imagine most Denver folks aren't regularly traveling to Aspen on weekends because they have to drive past too many great areas to get there and deal with bad traffic.

The Eastern components of Stratton (too crowded on the weekends) and Tremblant (too far of a drive) don't excite me too much. What if they were able to snap up Jay/Burke though? Now that they have Tremblant, I'd have to imaging Jay is well on their radar. That would give them the two best resorts in the Montreal market. I'd have to imagine that Vail or Aspen are the two favorites to eventually purchase Jay/Burke.

I think they have enough to invest in with their current Eastern areas. Tremblant is way too crowded weekends (they need lift investment heavily) and Stratton probably needs some inventive redesign. I don't really see them focusing on the east, some western targets are more likely.

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[deadheadskier]

Upgrading the Snowbowl quad to a high speed chair at Stratton would help a lot with crowd dispersion. Moving the Shooting Star lift to the old Kidderbrook line would help too. That lift wasn't very well thought out. You can only lap like three trails off of it. There are some great glades on that side of the hill. It just sucks you have to do the long run out back to the base of the Sun Bowl when you ski them.

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[drjeff]

Upgrading the Snowbowl quad to a high speed chair at Stratton would help a lot with crowd dispersion. Moving the Shooting Star lift to the old Kidderbrook line would help too. That lift wasn't very well thought out. You can only lap like three trails off of it. There are some great glades on that side of the hill. It just sucks you have to do the long run out back to the base of the Sun Bowl when you ski them.

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Lets also add in getting a gondola, that can run at a decent speed, in more than about a 3.2mph wind, on the list of lift needs for Stratton....

 

[dlague]

I think they have enough to invest in with their current Eastern areas. Tremblant is way too crowded weekends (they need lift investment heavily) and Stratton probably needs some inventive redesign. I don't really see them focusing on the east, some western targets are more likely.

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Upgrading the Snowbowl quad to a high speed chair at Stratton would help a lot with crowd dispersion. Moving the Shooting Star lift to the old Kidderbrook line would help too. That lift wasn't very well thought out. You can only lap like three trails off of it. There are some great glades on that side of the hill. It just sucks you have to do the long run out back to the base of the Sun Bowl when you ski them.

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Lets also add in getting a gondola, that can run at a decent speed, in more than about a 3.2mph wind, on the list of lift needs for Stratton....

I will be curious to see where they invest first. My guest with places like Mammoth, and Winter Park, and Steamboat would be likely targets with them being in the top 20 resorts with the most skier visits.

The operator, Aspen Skiing Co., really only wanted Winter Park, Steamboat and Intrawest’s Canadian Mountain Holidays helicopter skiing operation. But Intrawest wanted to sell the entire company — six resorts in Canada, Colorado, Vermont and West Virginia, 1,113 acres of land, the 12-lodge CMH and a real estate business — in a single transaction.

So technically, they were kind of forced to buy the others.

Side note:

Intrawest CEO Tom Marano, who joined the company in November 2014, will make more than $33 million in the deal off his more than 2.64 million company stock options, not counting a severance package.

Not bad!

 

[Jully]

Upgrading the Snowbowl quad to a high speed chair at Stratton would help a lot with crowd dispersion. Moving the Shooting Star lift to the old Kidderbrook line would help too. That lift wasn't very well thought out. You can only lap like three trails off of it. There are some great glades on that side of the hill. It just sucks you have to do the long run out back to the base of the Sun Bowl when you ski them.

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I cannot for the life of me understand the shooting star lift purpose at Stratton other than being directly across from the sunrise lift. You can't lap the trails on the left and the right of the lift and its a really short lift. The Kidderbrook area could really use a lift IMO. The place would ski a lot bigger with it.

That run out is also one of the worst run outs in the east IMO.

 

[Jully]

I will be curious to see where they invest first. My guest with places like Mammoth, and Winter Park, and Steamboat would be likely targets with them being in the top 20 resorts with the most skier visits.



So technically, they were kind of forced to buy the others.

Side note:

Intrawest CEO Tom Marano, who joined the company in November 2014, will make more than $33 million in the deal off his more than 2.64 million company stock options, not counting a severance package.

Not bad!

How much investment is needed at WP? I know Mammoth needs a bit. Is the goal going to be to maximize skier visits at the already cash cow resorts or try to leverage the success of those resorts to try and upgrade resorts that are close, but a little bit away from being truly successful?

 

[4aprice]

I think they have enough to invest in with their current Eastern areas. Tremblant is way too crowded weekends (they need lift investment heavily) and Stratton probably needs some inventive redesign. I don't really see them focusing on the east, some western targets are more likely.

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I wonder if Copper might be one of those targets. I would imagine that RMSP has been a pretty good competitor to Epic in the Denver area. I think they would need more then just Winter Park to compete against the trio of Breck, Keystone, and A Bay. Keeping Copper in the fold would help.

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ

 

[Jully]

I wonder if Copper might be one of those targets. I would imagine that RMSP has been a pretty good competitor to Epic in the Denver area. I think they would need more then just Winter Park to compete against the trio of Breck, Keystone, and A Bay. Keeping Copper in the fold would help.

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ

Just have them buy all of POWDR. Simplifies everything.

 

[deadheadskier]

I cannot for the life of me understand the shooting star lift purpose at Stratton other than being directly across from the sunrise lift. You can't lap the trails on the left and the right of the lift and its a really short lift. The Kidderbrook area could really use a lift IMO. The place would ski a lot bigger with it.

That run out is also one of the worst run outs in the east IMO.

IIRC they put in the Shooting Star lift while the Kidderbrook chair was still in place. The idea was to offer a faster way to the summit from that side of the hill instead of the long slow KB chair. What they really should have done is just replaced the KB chair with a high speed lift.

Yes, that run out blows and then you are rewarded with a massive line at the Sunbowl chair to get back up the mountain.

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[thetrailboss]

Interesting article on what might happen....Holding has been gone for some time now.

http://unofficialnetworks.com/2017/...shopping-spree-finally-over-we-dont-think-so/

 

[Jully]

IIRC they put in the Shooting Star lift while the Kidderbrook chair was still in place. The idea was to offer a faster way to the summit from that side of the hill instead of the long slow KB chair. What they really should have done is just replaced the KB chair with a high speed lift.

Yes, that run out blows and then you are rewarded with a massive line at the Sunbowl chair to get back up the mountain.

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That would make sense, but I agree. Odd they did not look to replace that chair.

 

[Jully]

Interesting article on what might happen....Holding has been gone for some time now.

http://unofficialnetworks.com/2017/...shopping-spree-finally-over-we-dont-think-so/

Snowbasin would really fuel the idea that they are trying to compete with Vail, IMO.