How many people ski Mt Snow on a busy weekend?

[Jisch]

I happened to ride up the chair at Mt Snow this weekend with someone who was part or the administration at Mt Snow. She had a walkie talkie going off the whole way up and she got a call on her cell and I overheard her talking about the number of skiers there on Saturday and Sunday this past weekend. According to her tone, they were somewhat disappointed by the number on Saturday, better on Sunday. Any guesses how many are there? At the peak on Sunday there was a 10-15 minute wait for a chair, if that helps at all.

Maybe this is public knowledge, but I was surprised by the number to some degree.

John

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

I'm guessing 20,000

 

[Jisch]

Oh, one other point. The North Face and Sunbrook lifts were on wind hold so that made the main face more crowded.

John

 

[ERJ-145CA]

Probably a lot if it's busy.

 

[drjeff]

Female Mount Snow admin with both walkie talkie and the cell phone going talking attendance numbers, my guess is that you shared a chair with the general manager, Kelly Pawlak

Take this with a grain of salt, but over X-mas week when it was REALLY busy, I shared a chair with one of the ambassadors saying that they were expecting "close to 15,000" on the hill that day, and the lines that day for all the highspeeds were WAY longer than anything I saw this past weekend.

 

[gmcunni]

Take this with a grain of salt, but over X-mas week when it was REALLY busy, I shared a chair with one of the ambassadors saying that they were expecting "close to 15,000" on the hill that day, and the lines that day for all the highspeeds were WAY longer than anything I saw this past weekend.

ug, i hope i'm not one of 15,000 this coming weekend....

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Good for them, they're making tons of money..being the closest Vermont resort to NYC and much of Southern New England is a good think for Mount Snow..

 

[Jisch]

Very could have been Kelly, she was all business, I can tell you that.

Anyway, she told whoever she was talking to that they had 8,600 on Saturday though they were expecting 9,000, and that they thought they would go over 9,000 on Sunday. As I was thinking about this, I wonder if that's tickets sold or people skiing? I suppose the way they scan season ticket holders it would be the latter.

If say 5,000 of those people bought tickets, then that's 5,000 x $65 (let's call that average ticket price) or $325,000 for one day. I'm sure that was a pretty good day for them, but if you consider that mid-week day I went a few weeks ago, I'll bet there were less than 800 ticket purchasers that day. So they probably make good money on a weekend, but lose a lot during the week.

BTW - without having ANY idea of capacity, I thought there were way more people than that on the mountain.
John

 

[drjeff]

ug, i hope i'm not one of 15,000 this coming weekend....

The way that I can tell 1st thing on a weekend at Mount Snow about how crowded it will be, is when I drop either one of my kids off at their respective ski programs and how many kids are signed up for that day. If either(or both) of the programs are sold out, then I know that I'll be spending most of my day on select fixed grip chairs.

Last weekend FWIW was roughly 2/3rds volume of both my kids programs. Next weekend, I'd bet that there's a good chance of a sellout

 

[Geoff]

Female Mount Snow admin with both walkie talkie and the cell phone going talking attendance numbers, my guess is that you shared a chair with the general manager, Kelly Pawlak

Take this with a grain of salt, but over X-mas week when it was REALLY busy, I shared a chair with one of the ambassadors saying that they were expecting "close to 15,000" on the hill that day, and the lines that day for all the highspeeds were WAY longer than anything I saw this past weekend.

Kmart used to do 20,000 on MLK Saturday or Presidents Weekend Saturday back when they were claiming a million skier visits and the place was crushed. I doubt they've broken 15K at any time since they changed owners. I can't imagine Mount Snow with 15,000 people. It would feel like the old days before high speed lifts.

 

[Highway Star]

Very could have been Kelly, she was all business, I can tell you that.

Anyway, she told whoever she was talking to that they had 8,600 on Saturday though they were expecting 9,000, and that they thought they would go over 9,000 on Sunday. As I was thinking about this, I wonder if that's tickets sold or people skiing? I suppose the way they scan season ticket holders it would be the latter.

John

Skier visits = tickets + passholders skiing.

Good info......! Sounds like they would max out around 12k or so.....can't imagine 15k.

Very busy day at Stowe is 7,500. Killington, 15k+, up to 20k+.......

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Skier visits = tickets + passholders skiing.

Very busy day at Stowe is 7,500. Killington, 15k+, up to 20k+.......

Where were you for the Sundown skioff?

 

[gmcunni]

Skier visits = tickets + passholders skiing.

Good info......! Sounds like they would max out around 12k.

Very busy day at Stowe is 7,500. Killington, 15k+, up to 20k+.......

any numbers on other mountains? i imagine Okemo gets a big number but wonder what pico, magic and bromely do compared to the big boys.

 

[drjeff]

Very could have been Kelly, she was all business, I can tell you that.

Anyway, she told whoever she was talking to that they had 8,600 on Saturday though they were expecting 9,000, and that they thought they would go over 9,000 on Sunday. As I was thinking about this, I wonder if that's tickets sold or people skiing? I suppose the way they scan season ticket holders it would be the latter.

If say 5,000 of those people bought tickets, then that's 5,000 x $65 (let's call that average ticket price) or $325,000 for one day. I'm sure that was a pretty good day for them, but if you consider that mid-week day I went a few weeks ago, I'll bet there were less than 800 ticket purchasers that day. So they probably make good money on a weekend, but lose a lot during the week.
John

Based on those numbers, and the relatively speaking few admin folks that would get those realtime numbers, that was Kelly on the chair with you. And she's real proficient at the dual walkie talkie/blackberry action - I saw that 1st hand the Saturday AM of the December icestorm weekend, when she joined me for her breakfast as I was sitting in the Main Base Lodge about 9AM - Both the walkie talkie and Blackberry were a bit busy that morning

 

[Highway Star]

any numbers on other mountains? i imagine Okemo gets a big number but wonder what pico, magic and bromely do compared to the big boys.

No....but I know that I get annoyed if I have to wait more than 2 minutes to get on a lift at Killington.......lol.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

No....but I know that I get annoyed if I have to wait more than 2 minutes to get on a lift at Killington.......lol.

there's a certain sense of entitlement among season passholders at Killington..

 

[Geoff]

any numbers on other mountains? i imagine Okemo gets a big number but wonder what pico, magic and bromely do compared to the big boys.

Okemo must do quite a few Saturdays approaching 15K to get to 600K skier visits.

Pico probably doesn't break 2,000 very often.

 

[Highway Star]

there's a certain sense of entitlement among season passholders at Killington..

We don't ride the lifts with gapers either. They might cause a mis-load or ask silly questions about our "fat" skis.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

We don't ride the lifts with gapers either. They might cause a mis-load or ask silly questions about our "fat" skis.

I'm sure my skis are fatter than your skis...anyway the 6'3 chick you were drinking a Mai Tai with at Caseys Caboose was a dude..FYI..

 

[drjeff]

Kmart used to do 20,000 on MLK Saturday or Presidents Weekend Saturday back when they were claiming a million skier visits and the place was crushed. I doubt they've broken 15K at any time since they changed owners. I can't imagine Mount Snow with 15,000 people. It would feel like the old days before high speed lifts.

Here was the line that day for the Grand Summit Express around 10AM

And for Canyon Express

IMHO, this was one of the busiest days that I've ever seen in the 25+ years I've been skiing @ Mount Snow - all the upper parking lots and the lower lots were packed BEFORE the 1/2day crowd arrived