AZ Challenge 2011: Fred Baybutt of Granite Gorge

[Nick]

Fred Baybutt, Owner of Granite Gorge in New Hampshire, has agreed to participate in the 2011 AlpineZone Ski Area Challenge!

The AlpineZone Challenge is your chance to offer up questions, suggestions or praise to the people who run the mountains in the northeast. For more information on the challenge itself, please see the stickied post at the top of the forum.

We will pick ten of the questions asked here and submit them for review and response, and post them in the Challenge area when complete!

Caveats: we may edit/change your question for grammar, tone, or something similar. Questions may be merged. If we don't get to all the questions, we will encourage followup from the representatives, but no promises.

Please be respectful as well to those answering questions - please refrain from asking specifics about skier visit numbers, financials, demographic information, etc. as these may be confidential to the mountain.

This is Granite Gorge's first time, and I noticed they aren't even in our database yet - I will update this post when I get it added in.

 

[thetrailboss]

Fred--thanks for taking the Challenge and welcome as this is your first time! Last year I took my parents to the Keene Pumpkin Festival and I saw your VW van advertising the mountain. It is great to see that your hard work is paying off. Can you tell us what has been the best thing about reopening Granite Gorge? The biggest surprise? And what do you wish skiers and riders, like us, would know about owning and operating a ski area like yours? Thanks.

 

[bobbutts]

There's not usually much talk about Granite Gorge here and I've never been and know very little. I guess my questions are:
What's the terrain Granite Gorge like? Is it steep, narrow trails, flat, wide open, etc?
What's the average snowfall?
What's your typical opening and closing date?
Are there any trails left purposely ungroomed? Moguls?
Does the chairlift close very often in wind? Would GG be a good place to go on a storm day where upper mt. lifts may be closed at larger mtns?

 

[roark]

I recently moved away from Keene, but I'll offer up a few hopefully in line with the AZ demographic.

The target market for GG is obviously the after school park kids (well, and tubing). The rail jams and big air events seem to draw well, and are great for the local kids. A couple years ago the chair was put in which enables access to the full hill again. However, even living in Keene I have only skiied GG once as the pass price and day rates were so much higher than competitors like Crotched (I had a pass there for 2 years) and Pats Peak (best beer league racing around) relative to the product (vertical, open terrain). There were only a couple others riding the chair, while the park handle tow saw quite a bit of action. What efforts, if any, are being made to greater utilize that uphill capacity (and capital expenditure)?

Many areas are relaxing uphill traffic restrictions (eg Magic). Given the size of GG and narrow width of some of the flatter trails I can certainly understand prohibiting uphill traffic during operating hours. However, there are many days where the area is not operating and no mountain ops work is being done - what is your policy on uphill traffic at those times? I would have loved to skin a couple laps before work...

 

[djspookman]

ditto, but I still live locally and would love this!

 

[deadheadskier]

I'd like to know a bit of history about Granite Gorge.

How long it had been closed when you reopened it?

What made you decide you wanted to own a small 'feeder' area?

Also....

What are your thoughts on Maple Valley trying to reopen? Will MV cut into some of your customer base?

 

[Nick]

Awesome questions everyone. I'm not personally familiar with Granite Gorge but I'm also interested in the general, "What is the "hot ticket item" at Granite Gorge that I should come for? "

 

[thetrailboss]

I think that you have night skiing. Do you find that night skiing is successful? If so, what do you attribute that success to? Location? Price? Special events?

 

[Black Phantom]

Awesome questions everyone. I'm not personally familiar with Granite Gorge but I'm also interested in the general, "What is the "hot ticket item" at Granite Gorge that I should come for? "

They have excellent pizza.

 

[Nick]

Questions have been sent to Fred! I'll post back when they are up!

 

[Nick]

Granite Gorge results from Fred Baybutt have been posted! Please see more here:

http://skiing.alpinezone.com/articles/challenge/2011/