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Jay Peak Conceptual Development Plan (2011-2016)

from_the_NEK

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Doppel. Not sure i get the magic carpet issue you bring up. It will be to the right (looking up mountain) of the old T- bar, way away from mountain traiffic.

The master plan has a "Beginner Conveyor" smack in the middle of chalet meadows. It sounds like the new plans for the Learning Center will move this out of the way.

JayPeak_statesidebeginnerQuad.jpg
 

from_the_NEK

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I wonder if they went Doppelmayr since the rest of the fixed grip lifts on the mtn are Doppls? And is it going to have a conveyor?

Will the HS6 be a Leitner/Poma to compliment the Freezer?
 

JPTracker

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The master plan has a "Beginner Conveyor" smack in the middle of chalet meadows. It sounds like the new plans for the Learning Center will move this out of the way.

JayPeak_statesidebeginnerQuad.jpg

The plan they showed last weekend showed the Learning Center area from the right of the existing base lodge almost all the ways back to the entrance. If you look at the plan above the area enclosed by the parking lot and the road going up to the new condos, all white on the plan, wil be the new learning area where the carpets will be.

In fact they had two carpets on the plan. One about half the length of the existing t bar but to the right of the t bar in the now wooded area. And a second shorter one all the way on the right side of the area.
 

thetrailboss

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Yes, Jay peak has taken on a whole new atmosphere, It now appeals to a new type of people.

My Boy Scout troop had a tradition of going to Jay Peak every winter for 4 days. We would rough it out in some boy scout camp 30 minutes from Jay, and then drive there everyday to ski--sometimes having to push our cars up the hills because of ice!

It has changed the way my boy scout troop does things. When I was younger, after skiing, we used to do a sledding "adventure" that involved hiking and sledding (sometimes on lunch trays!) :smile:

Now that has all changed. When I joined my troop (as an older sibling) for the campout last this past winter, no one even brought their sled! In fact scouts told me that they would rather go down a waterslide than go outside after the skiing day ended.

Some scouts never actually went skiing during that 3 (or 4) day trip! They thought it was too cold (which I guess it was, being -23 degrees with windchill on the Freezer). But hey, in the past, everyone went skiing when it was that cold on the Freezer.

So there you go--real life example of how the expansion has changed my life, and the life of those around me.

(I just kinda felt like posting this)

Ah yes, Mount Norris Scout Reservation! Lots of potential there...they just need money.
 

fbrissette

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The lifts are being moved uphill to eliminate some of the flat runout and also give them more room for the base lodge and hotel without taking parts of the parking lot. Also those flats at the bottom are some of the first areas to melt out in the spring.

This is correct. Keeping all current parking spaces is a primary concern. Too bad they could not figure out a better way to make the Jet and the new Bonnie more easily connected to one another.

Francois
 

riverc0il

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I guess I stand corrected on the skier visits thing though I wonder how they separated out folks only there for non-skiing activities compared to those there for skiing activities? I'm extremely doubtful any ski area, even JPR with their new water park, actually had an increase in skier/rider visits (at least those that actually ski and ride).

Meanwhile, I just got an email from JPR about the New England Mountain Bike Festival at Burke. Stay at Jay, Ride at Burke. "Just 45 Minutes from Burke" :lol: Apparently, they don't drive the speed limit at JPR. :D Even Kingdom Trails rather than Burke proper would just be reachable in an hour at the speed limit. 45 minutes would be guaranteed ticket.
 

jaytrem

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I'm extremely doubtful any ski area, even JPR with their new water park, actually had an increase in skier/rider visits (at least those that actually ski and ride).

Makes me wonder how they factor in the season pass holders. Do they actually keep track, or do they assign X number of days per pass. The reason being, a friend of mine went up on an early season trip and it included a full season pass. It was a VERY large group from NY/NJ area. Most of the people didn't ski much that weekend and I'm not sure how many got back up after that. My friend got up one additional weekend, and none of his friens got back up at all. It was a crazy good deal considering you get a season pass. If they're doing the same thing with multiple groups and not counting the days used on each specific pass, there is a chance some numbers could be inflated.
 

fbrissette

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I guess I stand corrected on the skier visits thing though I wonder how they separated out folks only there for non-skiing activities compared to those there for skiing activities? I'm extremely doubtful any ski area, even JPR with their new water park, actually had an increase in skier/rider visits (at least those that actually ski and ride).

Meanwhile, I just got an email from JPR about the New England Mountain Bike Festival at Burke. Stay at Jay, Ride at Burke. "Just 45 Minutes from Burke" :lol: Apparently, they don't drive the speed limit at JPR. :D Even Kingdom Trails rather than Burke proper would just be reachable in an hour at the speed limit. 45 minutes would be guaranteed ticket.

With the RFID cards, it should be extremely easy to know exactly how many skiers you got. In fact, I would think that RFID counts would likely be underevaluated since it is fairly easy to pass your card or resell it to someone else, especially for day passes (no photo ID). Even with photo ID, the risk would be minimal. In fact, for the first 2 years of RFID, they screwed up my season pass and it was associated with the picture of a girl. I skied around 40 days each year before an attendant flagged me... Nevertheless, even if they can get an exact count does not mean they do not cook the numbers.

Yep, 45 minutes is not going to fool anyone. Steve Wright actually joked that it was 'Stenger time' (Bill said 50 minutes during the meeting). They also say that Montreal is 90 minutes away which is only possible if you go 80 miles per hour on the highway, forget to stop at customs, and take for granted that Montreal starts in the middle of the Champlain Bridge.

Francois
 

fbrissette

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Makes me wonder how they factor in the season pass holders. Do they actually keep track, or do they assign X number of days per pass.

As mentioned above, I would assume they don't 'guesstimate' the number of visits per season passes since they should be able to precisely track the use of season passes with the RFID. In fact, in theory, if they log everything, they should be able to tell me how many vertical feet I skied last season and which lift I prefer. I think the numbers that were mentioned were 300000 ski-day and 4000 season passes. Guessing 25 days per season passes, you get roughly 33% of all ski-days from season pass holders.

If I was in marketing, I would keep track of all those stats so I would know exactly who skis where (season pass holders, hotel visitors etc... so I can cater better to my clientele).

Francois
 

thetrailboss

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As mentioned, it is skier days that they measure, which is one skier/rider doing at least one run per day IIRC. It is just going through the turnstiles once that matters. So there is no pre-set value for a season pass...it is how many days you used it. For me, for example, I used my pass 30 days at my resort. So I equate to 30 skier days

And with the nitpicking, I think I can understand why they had an increase in skier numbers. Mind you that I was not at this meeting and have not personally seen the actual numbers year over year. I would hope that they did see an increase, or at least one that was in proportion with the season, with all the marketing, building, and expansion work that they have done. Remember that they said skier days were up, not necessarily skier revenue. They ran A LOT of promos and, like other places, probably did a lot of comps and reduced ticket price deals to get people to the hill. So that can explain an increase as well. Bottom line is I would have expected them to have a better season than most places because of their snow and rep.
 
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thetrailboss

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And 300,000 is what I would expect for a resort their size. Remember that Killington back in the day was at 1 million or just over it.
 

snowmonster

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They are really doing quite a bit. I know there have been some concerns on them maintaining their identity. I've yet to ski Jay (hopefully this upcoming winter.... will bring new baby!) so I can't really comment on it myself but I like some of the things they have going on. The waterpark looks like fun. I'm still a kid at heart. That pic of Snowmonster riding the wave earlier had me sold.

Glad that my surfing photo had some use.=) Let me know if you go there. It would be nice to have company. I'm a kid at heart too. If you think the surfing was fun, you should try La Chute -- a waterslide loop the loop. Really fun. Game arcade was fun too. They have skeeball! And, oh yeah, the glade skiing up there is phenomenal too!
 

Steve@jpr

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Clarification

Lots of fun sound and fury flailing around and I'll let you guys continue to enjoy that process--as do I. I'll jump in here only to say, and I'll be as clear as I can here--skier visits were slightly up this year. This isn't a result of some season pass modifier, us using a rubric that includes skaters, surfers or snowshoers or some other subtle slightish of hand. My two cents? It's a result of lodging based vacationers who didn't bail as a result of poor weather because they had other options (and by my two cents, I mean cancellations were down almost 100% despite the worst weather in a generation), an enormous number of splash and stay combination tickets and, possibly more than anything, people taking multiple day splash and stay vacations where they added on/integrated a single day of ski/ride--this is a market that we feel has additional upside.

Just a little light to help cut through the fog--as you will, do what you'd like with it and enjoy the start of summer.

steve
 

fbrissette

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Lots of fun sound and fury flailing around and I'll let you guys continue to enjoy that process--as do I. I'll jump in here only to say, and I'll be as clear as I can here--skier visits were slightly up this year. This isn't a result of some season pass modifier, us using a rubric that includes skaters, surfers or snowshoers or some other subtle slightish of hand. My two cents? It's a result of lodging based vacationers who didn't bail as a result of poor weather because they had other options (and by my two cents, I mean cancellations were down almost 100% despite the worst weather in a generation), an enormous number of splash and stay combination tickets and, possibly more than anything, people taking multiple day splash and stay vacations where they added on/integrated a single day of ski/ride--this is a market that we feel has additional upside.

Just a little light to help cut through the fog--as you will, do what you'd like with it and enjoy the start of summer.

steve

Hi Steve, since you're on board, can you say if you are compiling any sorts of stats with RFID data, beside skier-visits ? I can imagine lots of cool stuff you could do with the dataset marketing wise. 300,000 skier-visits times 10 runs per visit is only 3 million data points. Small database by today's standards.

Francois
 

Steve@jpr

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Yes Francois--we have tons of data to apply strategy against.


Hi Steve, since you're on board, can you say if you are compiling any sorts of stats with RFID data, beside skier-visits ? I can imagine lots of cool stuff you could do with the dataset marketing wise. 300,000 skier-visits times 10 runs per visit is only 3 million data points. Small database by today's standards.

Francois
 

riverc0il

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and, possibly more than anything, people taking multiple day splash and stay vacations where they added on/integrated a single day of ski/ride--this is a market that we feel has additional upside.
Thanks for chiming in.

Even though I know what that waterpark is supposed to do, I am still flabbergasted that it is doing it so well that people are reserving and doing more water parking than skiing. It sounds like you are saying that many folks are doing multiple waterpark days but then only skiing a single day. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. And I guess we should expect to see more of these at other resorts given Jay's apparent success during one of the worst winters ever.
 

fbrissette

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It sounds like you are saying that many folks are doing multiple waterpark days but then only skiing a single day. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. And I guess we should expect to see more of these at other resorts given Jay's apparent success during one of the worst winters ever.

From a skier perspective this is the best possible outcome. Money pours into the resort from people not competing for fresh tracks.

It was also quite surprising to watch cars arriving tramside early in the morning carrying lightly-dressed persons carrying beach bags and a cooler instead of boards and skis.

I actually met neighbours at the waterpark. As nice as the waterpark is, It's hard for me to comprehend driving 2 hours one-way to spend a day inside.

Francois
 

riverc0il

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From a skier perspective this is the best possible outcome. Money pours into the resort from people not competing for fresh tracks.
I think you are reading this backwards. Jay Peak had an increase of skier visits during the worst winter in recent memory. What is going to happen during the best winter in recent memory or even an average one. Not to mention, those waterparkers are going to want to ski the fresh powder if it snows...
 

fbrissette

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I think you are reading this backwards. Jay Peak had an increase of skier visits during the worst winter in recent memory. What is going to happen during the best winter in recent memory or even an average one. Not to mention, those waterparkers are going to want to ski the fresh powder if it snows...

Hopefully you are wrong and I'm right. The impression I got is that the extra-traffic is in large part due to families with young kids, that only ski half a day, that mostly stick to groomed runs and hit the aquapark if cold and/or snowy. Anyway, that's what I want to believe ! Steve could answer that I guess.

Francois
 

Steve@jpr

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Part of our focus, this year, will be on trying to turn Waterparkers into skiers/riders. The index of those (waterparkers) who currently ski (at least from the day trip set) is low and we think there's potential-especially in light of some new learn-to efforts we'll be introducing later this summer.

The act of protecting winter vacations, as a result of offering weather-proof options, even flabbergasted us to be honest (or maybe it was just me, Stenger just kept saying I told you so), and while our, er, apparent success is probably attributable to a lot more than a waterpark, it definitely impacted several departments-lodging far and away the bigger of the winners-in a positive way.
 
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