Green Peak at Waterville

[Jully]

Hey Jully can you buy me some lotto tickets! :lol:



http://www.newenglandskiindustry.com/viewstory.php?storyid=510

I still say they won't even get the lift running this year. Towers not in place yet? This whole expansion is half-assed. No HSQ as planned. No snowmaking this year. Trail work won't be done. Lift might get open. Bullshit. I feel for any of the WV skiers.

Haha well what do you know. It'll be interesting what exactly their temp system can cover. That's too bad as I was planning on doing a day at WV this year to check it out / go to WV for the first time over decade. Probably will still go as the terrain isn't really that expansive for anyone who's not an intermediate cruiser anyways, but the principal of it, I agree.

Setbacks are certainly common in expansions, but this one does seem rather slow/odd with their work last summer and the triple plus now snowmaking.

 

[doublediamond]

Well, it's not uncommon for even the wealthy well run mountains to not complete excavation and install snowmaking all in one summer. I recall that being the case with a trail or two on South face at Okemo. Same thing in Sunbowl at Stratton.

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If they didn't half-ass this it would have been done. Clearing didn't begin until late August and parts of the triple were still standing as of early October despite them having the permits for years.

Ski areas routinely add additional trails/snowmaking at a later time due to costs (and to keep the new terrain PR machine going longer), not due to time constraints. Snowmaking pipe is very expensive. Whiteface quoted $500k for pipe, hydrants, and valves for a 4600 ft trail a few years ago. If your new trail can't provide an immediate $75k+ return (on top of the additional snowmaking and grooming costs), you're going to wait until you have the cash to do so.

So was this half-assed because Sununu is incompetent (sucks to live in NH if so), or because he was distracted by his campaign?

 

[deadheadskier]

Who knows. Only someone close to the owners could provide a truthful answer.

Could be the campaign. It could be they lost a ton of money last year during the worst season in recent memory and became gun shy on taking on more debt. Any number of reasons. I mean look 40 miles to the west. Ragged started cutting trails on Pinnacle in spring of 2012 and we still don't know when the lift and snowmaking will go in. And Ragged is owned by a pretty massive company

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[machski]

Does anyone really think the current Green Peak adds all that much value to WV either for the business or perspective visitors? Yes it's new terrain but not much of very high interest. May cause a day visit to check it out but doubt it holds much more attention than that. With that, I'm sure that is why this crawled forward. I also wonder if it got pushed late this year by Chris not for political gain but if he won, he'd be stepping down. Perhaps he was the strongest voice to go forward with the expansion in the ownership group?

Who knows for sure. The only interest this expansion has for me personally is if the future proposed phase happens with the link to the village to the top of Green. If that happens, it will be big for WV. If not, the current expansion is nice but not a huge attraction in itself.

 

[Jully]

The step forward to future expansion is why the project has any value I think.

 

[deadheadskier]

To me, the Green Peak terrain just offers a bit more variety for lower intermediate level skiers as a step up to progress towards the summit. Though some of the trails on the map are rated black. That seems like a stretch looking at topo maps. Doesn't appear to be all that steep

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[Los]

Not to get off topic, but did anyone ski Waterville this weekend? Curious how it was... We're debating whether it's worth it to go this weekend (as opposed to cannon or Bretton..)


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[doublediamond]

Does anyone really think the current Green Peak adds all that much value to WV either for the business or perspective visitors?

If it was served with a HSQ, it would be valuable terrain. But right now, you have an expansion served by a fixed grip lift that is essentially parallel to a shorter HSQ which serves a majority of the new terrain. No one will ride on the new lift except for a handful of people seeking to ski the new green trail from its top.

The problem is they had a great asset -- their youngest FG lift with only 16 year old electronics due to the lightning strike -- that was unused, so they wanted to put it in a place to use it, which they failed at.

A smart frugal businessman would have moved the Quadzilla over to Green Peak and sold the WC Triple to a ski area in need of a FG lift, or would have used it to replace the Northside Double -- which could use a capacity increase -- or split it and used it for replacements of both the Lower Meadows double (good luck skiing as a single parent and 2 kids there now!) and the High Country Double, both of which are the oldest lifts standing (along with the J-Bar) back to when the place opened!

And if last season's bottom line really stalled them on the expansion, why not just wait another season and do everything right?

Only logical explanation is this was a campaign move to try to stave off criticism of Sununu's leadership at WV by pointing to WV being the only area expanding.

 

[mbedle]

If it was served with a HSQ, it would be valuable terrain. But right now, you have an expansion served by a fixed grip lift that is essentially parallel to a shorter HSQ which serves a majority of the new terrain. No one will ride on the new lift except for a handful of people seeking to ski the new green trail from its top.

The problem is they had a great asset -- their youngest FG lift with only 16 year old electronics due to the lightning strike -- that was unused, so they wanted to put it in a place to use it, which they failed at.

A smart frugal businessman would have moved the Quadzilla over to Green Peak and sold the WC Triple to a ski area in need of a FG lift, or would have used it to replace the Northside Double -- which could use a capacity increase -- or split it and used it for replacements of both the Lower Meadows double (good luck skiing as a single parent and 2 kids there now!) and the High Country Double, both of which are the oldest lifts standing (along with the J-Bar) back to when the place opened!

And if last season's bottom line really stalled them on the expansion, why not just wait another season and do everything right?

Only logical explanation is this was a campaign move to try to stave off criticism of Sununu's leadership at WV by pointing to WV being the only area expanding.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the HSQ does not serve the majority of the new terrain. All of the blue and blacks off the peak can only be access with the triple.

 

[Jully]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the HSQ does not serve the majority of the new terrain. All of the blue and blacks off the peak can only be access with the triple.

Yeah I thought everything except the new green trail was triple only.

 

[doublediamond]

IDK it looks like you can ski about half of the new trail "milage" (and more considering only the green off the top will open) from the current Quad.

 

[deadheadskier]

IDK it looks like you can ski about half of the new trail "milage" (and more considering only the green off the top will open) from the current Quad.

really?

That's not the way the trail map looks to me. I agree that having the terrain serviced by a HSQ would be optimal, but 4300' isn't a terribly long fixed grip lift. Both the new Valley House at Sugarbush and the Skyline Quad at Sugarloaf are of similar length and were installed as FG with conveyor loading to make them a little faster. Maybe WV can add a conveyor to make it a little more tolerable.

 

[slatham]

Everything above Trail 51 requires the Triple. I think the map is a bit off and in reality that terrain is 80% of the new available acreage.

 

[machski]

If it was served with a HSQ, it would be valuable terrain. But right now, you have an expansion served by a fixed grip lift that is essentially parallel to a shorter HSQ which serves a majority of the new terrain. No one will ride on the new lift except for a handful of people seeking to ski the new green trail from its top.

The problem is they had a great asset -- their youngest FG lift with only 16 year old electronics due to the lightning strike -- that was unused, so they wanted to put it in a place to use it, which they failed at.

A smart frugal businessman would have moved the Quadzilla over to Green Peak and sold the WC Triple to a ski area in need of a FG lift, or would have used it to replace the Northside Double -- which could use a capacity increase -- or split it and used it for replacements of both the Lower Meadows double (good luck skiing as a single parent and 2 kids there now!) and the High Country Double, both of which are the oldest lifts standing (along with the J-Bar) back to when the place opened!

And if last season's bottom line really stalled them on the expansion, why not just wait another season and do everything right?

Only logical explanation is this was a campaign move to try to stave off criticism of Sununu's leadership at WV by pointing to WV being the only area expanding.

The change from a new HSQ to re-using the world cup triple for green was hatched two years ago. Was not a campaign rush decision.

 

[deadheadskier]

I still say they won't even get the lift running this year. Towers not in place yet? This whole expansion is half-assed. No HSQ as planned. No snowmaking this year. Trail work won't be done. Lift might get open. Bullshit. I feel for any of the WV skiers.

I somewhat agreed with you that the lift wouldn't be likely this season when you made this post.

We were wrong. The Green Peak Triple opens at Waterville this weekend. It was advertised on the radio today.

 

[SIKSKIER]

Its been on their website all week also.