Edd
Well-known member
I think you’re correct. I’ve hiked Black Cap a few times but it’s been over 10 years.
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Cranmore Plans $50 Million Base Expansion, Condo Development
- Thread starter Edd
- Start date
I think you’re correct. I’ve hiked Black Cap a few times but it’s been over 10 years.
ThinkSnow
Member
Mt. Cranmore elevation is ~1680', Black Cap is ~2367'
Jully
Active member
My thought as well.
Skiing from the summit of Black Cap to the brook would be vertical of approximately 1,400 feet. Cranmore mountain is about 1,200 total vertical. Skiing from Black Cap to the South Slope base would be approx. 1,700 vertical feet if the base is 200m. That would make Cranmore have a bigger vertical than both Sunday River and Bretton Woods. Attitash is 1,750 ft. and Bear Peak is 1,450 ft. The Black Cap expansion is very typical of geographic expansions that we have seen at other resorts. Further, Attitash and Black Cap are basically identical in total elevation, even the main area base elevations are similar.
White Cap: 1,630 ft.
Locke Mountain: 1,460 ft.
Barker Mountain: 1,400 ft.
Spruce Peak: 1,500 ft.
North Peak: 1,000 ft.
South Ridge: 500 ft.
Aurora Peak: 1,100 ft.
Oz: 1,100 ft.
Jordan Bowl: 1,490 ft.
Bretton Woods: 1,500 ft.
Attitash: 1,750 ft.
Bear Peak: 1,450 ft.
Sunday River 870 Total Acres versus Bretton Woods' 464 Total Acres (Cranmore 170 Total Acres). Attitash is 311 acres, which would be surpassed if Black Cap was expanded onto. So Cranmore would have most acreage in the valley with Black Cap. Wildcat is 225 acres and easily has the most vertical, but that is a different type of mountain.
I think Black Cap checks a bunch of boxes for Cranmore, it would more than double acreage, it adds net vertical (including skiable *total vertical*; meaning total mountain vertical drop would become 1,700 ft. from Black Cap to South Slope base versus 1,200 ft. now, that is a big increase. It also would exceed Bretton Woods' 97 trail count.
All these things taken into account, along with proximity to the village, top to bottom night skiing infrastructure, current snowmaking capability, etc. and Cranmore becomes a different resort altogether when they finally commit to this expansion.
So what's your official title over at Cranmore anyways?
Edd
Well-known member
Jully
Active member
Agree here. Have you found a master plan for the resort? I'd love to see the Black Cap plans. Unfortunately many resort expansions onto other peaks recently has been just a few trails - unlikely to double the total acreage of the resort. I'd love to be wrong here though! Having Cranmore with a 1700 skiable vert / the size of Attitash/BW would be an awesome thing.
Jully
Active member
Do you know anything about what the pitch of Black Cap is? Looking at pictures it doesn't look like anything too impressive, but that can be very deceiving.
http://www.hillmap.com/m/ag1zfmhpbGxtYXAtaGRychULEghTYXZlZE1hcBiAgIDEmd25Cgw
Looks like 1k vert for the Black Cap lift.
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As the crow flies, its about 2.5 miles from summit to summit, with the brook closer to Cranmore than Black Cap. So as far as pitch goes, cutting trails similar in style to Ledges should not be an issue, at least towards the top of Black Cap (and with respect to 'is it steep enough to cut a full bodied black diamond trail?'). The topo map for Black Cap shows a longer front face than Cranmore's ~1 mile base to summit distance, but that makes sense considering the vertical drop is larger. What will be more interesting is what will the "sidecountry" cuts look like when the team gets out there to survey. The Black Cap "Basin" is not a small land area, so there is ample room for a variety of different difficulty trails; but I think the big issue is the drainage... if you hike behind where the old East Chair double was, you will see that they will need some combination of bridges or in-fill to create a pad area to site the new Black Cap quad on. It isn't a massive issue, but they will have to deal with it right out of the gate. Also, I can't imagine that they will need to build any services on the new Black Cap terrain, they can use the East Bowl as a staging area (with a Black Cap summit patrol station). This is a project that could happen pretty quickly after they solve the new Black Cap base area issues, since all skiers will exit Black Cap terrain on existing trails and extensive infrastructure doesn't need to all go in at once (snowguns, pipes, compressors, outbuildings, flood lighting, etc.).
Killkaky,
I admire your enthusiasm and think the expansion on to Black Cap would be great not only for Cranmore, but the MWV in general. It would bring some more skiers over from VT and ME for sure and hopefully push the other valley resorts to up their game. Maybe we finally see a summit HSQ at Attitash. Perhaps some more snowmaking upgrades and base lodge amenities at Cat.
That said, I'd temper your enthusiasm about Cranmore becoming the biggest ski area in NH anytime soon. Or even challenging Attitash as the biggest in the valley proper. To add the lifts and terrain necessary to dethrone Attitash would probably cost $15-20M maybe more. There's just not a huge ROI on adding new ski terrain in the East in 2018. This is especially true for the MWV. It's just a pain in the ass to get to and the ski industry is flat on participation.
More than new terrain and amenities, the one thing that might increase skier visits to the valley more than anything would be if the state extended the route 16 Highway up as far as Ossipee. Hard to see that happening unless some major non-tourism employers move into the Rochester/Dover corridor and a need is created for more housing in the area from Wakefield up to Ossipee
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I admire your enthusiasm and think the expansion on to Black Cap would be great not only for Cranmore, but the MWV in general. It would bring some more skiers over from VT and ME for sure and hopefully push the other valley resorts to up their game. Maybe we finally see a summit HSQ at Attitash. Perhaps some more snowmaking upgrades and base lodge amenities at Cat.
That said, I'd temper your enthusiasm about Cranmore becoming the biggest ski area in NH anytime soon. Or even challenging Attitash as the biggest in the valley proper. To add the lifts and terrain necessary to dethrone Attitash would probably cost $15-20M maybe more. There's just not a huge ROI on adding new ski terrain in the East in 2018. This is especially true for the MWV. It's just a pain in the ass to get to and the ski industry is flat on participation.
More than new terrain and amenities, the one thing that might increase skier visits to the valley more than anything would be if the state extended the route 16 Highway up as far as Ossipee. Hard to see that happening unless some major non-tourism employers move into the Rochester/Dover corridor and a need is created for more housing in the area from Wakefield up to Ossipee
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Yep. From metro Boston WV, Loon and Cannon are so much closer than the MWV resorts and you can drive 80Mph most of the way unlike worrying about speeding tickets on 16.
ThinkSnow
Member
+1
I was under the impression that Attitash and Bear Peak were valued together at approx. $25 million, and each have substantial infrastructure. A Black Cap expansion would not be as costly as a Bear Peak since there will be no traditional base area. $10 million initial phase would be peanuts in the grand scheme of things. The new condos cost $50 million alone. Loon put in South Peak for $10M and that included multiple lifts and the Pemi base area. The money wouldn't hold this Black Cap project up, it would be the environmentalists of the Green Hills preserve. The current Cranmore owners have acknowledged a Black Cap expansion as recently as this past fall (publicly). Loon installed similar lifts and lengths to what Cranmore would have to do (1,475 vertical ft. high speed quad, and a smaller length fixed grip quad), if anything the requirements of Cranmore will be less costly.
Regarding the extension of the highway, that would be great even if it was just adding more areas where the highway is two lanes, just reducing bottlenecks would do alot like reducing intersections in places like Wakefield and making that an "exit" versus a 4 way stoplight. I don't mind Rt. 16, although I never drive during periods that will be slammed with traffic, I will normally stick around at my place until Sunday evening or Monday morning before driving back to Rhode Island.
Jully
Active member
South Peak, I believe, is a lot smaller area wise than the scale of Black Cap you're describing. Cranmore could certainly do a $10 million expansion on Black Cap, it just would be a lot smaller than your description.
A HSQ of the length described for Black Cap would be over $5 million. Ragged installed a 1000 vertical foot HSQ on spear in the summer of 2015 for that much and the price has only gone up and I think brand new lifts rather than replacements are more expensive. You definitely can't survey, cut, and grade many trails with a budget of $5 million. I think DHS's estimate is on point, if not a little under.
Attitash may be valued at $25 million now, but if you converted all the lifts and trail work and construction to today's dollars, it would be a heck of a lot more than $25 million.
Any extension or widening of 16 would be incredible. Coming from Boston, dealing with 16 makes it a lot less favorable to go to the MWV versus the ski 93 areas.
I'd say a good financial comp for this project would be West Bowl at Mt Sunapee. That's estimated at $12-15M. For Cranmore to become the largest ski area in the state, the project would have to be bigger than Sunapee's. Hence my guess of $15-20. Given Cranmores location, that would take many years to earn an ROI. Where as Sunapee's would happen much faster due to proximity to both 89 and 91 to steal market share from Southern VT areas
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Great convo here.
Does any NH, ME, or VT town/area have as many hotel rooms and rentals as North Conway? I think the ROI argument has to take into account slack capacity of lodging, since that would more likely be the bottleneck when comparing these projects from resort to resort. The traffic is only an issue on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons, neither of which affect people actually getting to the resort since Saturday is the busiest day of skiing and people are already settled into lodging at that point. We have all been to places on 93 on holiday weekends... the traffic issue is at Loon's base lol. I have never experienced such displeasure.
If the new terrain allows the resort to sell more tickets, *and* the town(s) surrounding have lodging inventory... the ROI should be there.
It's 16 that's the problem more than available lodging. A lot of people simply don't want to deal with 16. Even where it is a highway sucks on Friday due to the bridge before Dover. Hopefully when that opens in 2022 that improves, but the conga line beyond Rochester will still remain.
I should add, that as a Wildcat skier, I prefer that it's difficult to get to to keep the mobs away.
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I should add, that as a Wildcat skier, I prefer that it's difficult to get to to keep the mobs away.
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Smellytele
Well-known member
North Conway is a better destination (weekend trips/week long trips) but day skiers from Mass have an easier trip up the 93 corridor than traveling up 16. Living in Central NH I end up driving up 93 and around to avoid cutting across 25 onto 16 where I always end up behind some very slow people.
SIKSKIER
New member
While I agree with DHS about SR sort of playing with the numbers,They really do have 2300 ft of continuous vert.You can ski (allbeit traverse) from the top of Oz to the bottom of White Cap.So its not really playing with the numbers but as the verts for each mt there shows,its really skis much shorter.
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