KILLINGTON: The 2006 AlpineZone Ski Area Challenge

[thetrailboss]

Tom Horrocks, the Communications Manager for Killington Resort has agreed to take the 2006 Alpine Zone Challenge!!! This is your opportunity to ask questions, offer suggestions, or say some praise to the men and women who are in charge of the Northeast’s Ski Areas. Please post some suggested questions in this thread and we'll select ten to present for official responses.

Also please don't be offended if we edit/change your question for grammar, tone, or some other minor thing. In order to get in all of the questions we MAY merge some questions but we'll do our best to keep the substance of your question. If we don't get your question in, feel free to post a follow up after we get the results...we are encouraging the representatives follow the threads. :wink:

As always, please be respectful of Tom and keep it civil. Also, please refrain from asking specifics about skier visit numbers, financials, demographic information, etc. Killington needs to be discrete about certain information.

We are honored to have Tom participate in this challenge—Killington’s third and Tom's second! :beer: Please take advantage of this special opportunity!

Ask away!

Killington’s Profile
Killington’s 2004 Responses.
Killington’s 2005 Responses.

 

[Sky]

Tom, thanks for participating. I am fortunate to have a relative with a place in Pittsfield, so my family and I have enjoyed Killington a few times.

Let me start by telling you how well the staff @ the K1 Lodge were this past year. My son's snowbaord binding failed. It was installed by a local vendor using Loc-Tite. My sone was in need af a rental/demo board. Do to his height and ability...we needed a specific board. We were ready to launch a trip to Bear Mt lodge to obtain the board...but low and behold, it was RIGHT THERE @ K1. I think we got the board for free for the day. I was extremely impressed obviously. The staff demonstrated a huge customer focus and it paid off for our family...a real positive experience.

The one issue I have with Killington is for my wife and daughter. The one "designated" beginer area is a bowling alley....(Snowshed?). Alternatively...Great Northern is a great trail for them off of Ramshead...but because it acts as a linking trail to other lifts, it carries a ton of more aggressive skiers/riders. So the challenge becomes, where can I take my wife and daughter so they can ski...without being bored to tears or run over.

Thanks

Sky

 

[Vortex]

I asked last year about the plan for season opening and closing. I got the explanation that Mid November until Mid May was the plan. Is that still the case? Can Bear be open later if that is where the late Season snow is Made?

Thankx for participating. Many active members From Killington.

 

[Talisman]

Tom thanks for taking the time from your busy schedule to take the Alpine Zone Challenge.

I enjoy skiing a wide variety of places in New England and look forward to skiing Killington and Pico every season among other places in VT, NH and ME. To me skiing the Summit Glades or Giant Killer at Pico after a storm is pure bliss. I had some fabulous skiing on Devil's Fiddle last season thanks to avery gressive snow making on that trail. I did miss skiing tarils like Old Super Star and Ovation last season.

What demographic does Killington see as its core market and what is the plan to optimize marketing to this demographic?

 

[maplevalleymaster]

Any high speed lifts in the plan? I think you have a great lift system, but possibly something up Bear Mountain. It would be really great if you could put a high speed lift to connect Pico or a trail network to connect it.

 

[Geoff]

I've been a Killington season pass holder since 1981 and a property owner since 1993.

Some comments about recent changes:

* Bear Mountain is now a lawsuit waiting to happen. Lower Wildfire is now a disused terrain park. Lower Dream Maker dumps you into the new half pipe. The Viper Pit was consumed for much of the last 2 years by a kicker that was never used. All the skier traffic gets pushed onto a few turns on Wildfire, Anti-Venom below Viper Pit, to Lower Bear Claw. You often have three quad chairs feeding this. Are you nuts?

* Trail closings for events has picked up significantly in recent years. When you have trails closed for races and other events, this should be posted at the bottom and top of all the lifts. For example, when there's a race on Skyelark, I want to know about it so I'm not doing human pinball on Bittersweet when 80% of the people getting off the Superstar and K1 lifts are going that way. ...or getting part-way down Highline only to hit a rope that pushes me down the rock dance to the Mouse Trap mayhem.

* You've now degraded food service to the point where I'll never spend another dime with you. The corporate edict to hold food cost to 30% of sales price just doesn't work. You end up with rediculous situations like the Bear Bar where $10 now buys you a stale roll with a single slice of meat and a single slice of cheese on it. Your outsourced chinese and sushi in Mahogany Ridge is now so overpriced that they don't even list prices on the white board. Clearly, if you have to ask, you can't afford it.

* You really need to put your best trained lift attendants on the high-traffic fixed-grip lifts. Anybody can "operate" a high speed quad or an 8-seater gondola. Some Korean kid with limited English skills isn't going to be able to direct tourists to properly load the Snowdon quad.

* I still fail to understand your season pass pricing policy. You claim to be building an upscale base village some day where your target market is going to be shelling out a couple Million for a trophy home or $750K for a condo. At the same time, you sell dirt cheap season passes that create huge crowding on lifts, trails, and base lodges. I don't see how you can sell upmarket trophy homes when your facility is the downmarket Beast of the East.

* I guess you did what you could with snowmaking given your budget constraints. I don't quite understand the economics of blowing all that snow on Outer Limits only to shut Bear after the 2nd weekend in April. If you'd put down base on Cascade Runout, you could have had much of the mountain open until late April even in this disasterous season.

 

[thetrailboss]

Some good questions there, Geoff.

 

[Greg]

Any high speed lifts in the plan? I think you have a great lift system, but possibly something up Bear Mountain..

Aren't both the quads up OL and DF HSQs?

 

[thetrailboss]

Aren't both the quads up OL and DF HSQs?

No. Both are Yan fixed grips. I am also wondering if Snowdon will ever see an HSQ to help spread the crowd. IMHO I'd place HSQ's from Bear to Skye and up Snowdon to spread the crowds.

 

[andyzee]

This past season there appeared to be a lot of problems with lifts. If I had more than a handful of non stop rides up either of the Snowdon lifts, that was a lot. The North Ridge Triple had many problems throughout the season and at the end of the season I was stuck on the Superstar quad for at least 20 minutes on a day where it was the only lift left and it was down for most of the day. Two questions:

1. Why all the lift problems?
2. Is anything being done in the off season to resolve this?

 

[maplevalleymaster]

No. Both are Yan fixed grips. I am also wondering if Snowdon will ever see an HSQ to help spread the crowd. IMHO I'd place HSQ's from Bear to Skye and up Snowdon to spread the crowds.

Yes, that is another place I would like to see a HSQ, Snowdon. What lift to replace, I don't know. The Snowdon Triple could take some pressure off of K-1, but a lot of skiers are directed down to Snowdon Quad.

I also agree, good question Geoff, those should be submitted.

 

[Greg]

No. Both are Yan fixed grips. I am also wondering if Snowdon will ever see an HSQ to help spread the crowd. IMHO I'd place HSQ's from Bear to Skye and up Snowdon to spread the crowds.

Hmm. Thanks, Boss. It been a few years since I skied Killington...

 

[Tyrolean_skier]

Yes, that is another place I would like to see a HSQ, Snowdon. What lift to replace, I don't know. The Snowdon Triple could take some pressure off of K-1, but a lot of skiers are directed down to Snowdon Quad.

I also agree, good question Geoff, those should be submitted.

Those of us who ski the less frequented trails at Snowdon do not want the quad replaced with a HSQ; rather, we would like the current one operational and with lift attendants that know how to operate it. A HSQ would put too many people on that hill - as it is, the Mixing Bowl and the Bowling Alley are very dangerous areas because too many trails come together.

 

[skiadikt]

No. Both are Yan fixed grips. I am also wondering if Snowdon will ever see an HSQ to help spread the crowd. IMHO I'd place HSQ's from Bear to Skye and up Snowdon to spread the crowds.

maybe we should take this discussion to another thread but sorry to disagree, the last thing k needs is more hsq's. they don't spread the crowd. they increase the crowd. k's problem is not with uphill capacity/liftlines but with skier density. the areas you mention are already dangerously overcrowded. if anything they need more trails to spread the crowd. as andyz mentions the one thing lacking is lift maintenance. i also get very few non-stop rides up either of the snowden lifts or the skye peak quad. and the bear quad often had problems as well. my sense is you don't see these type of lift stopages/breakdowns at okemo or stratton.

geoff pretty much covered my complaints/questions. one question might be: given the constant problems with breakdowns/stopages on both snowden chairs, has any consideration been given to replacing both chairs with one high speed quad that will provide the riders with a more reliable & comfortable experience yet without increasing the skier density in the already overcrowded snowden area.

 

[Tyrolean_skier]

I am a bond pass holder and a property owner since 1999.
- I would like to know where we will see improvements this coming year? Any more restrooms being redone? I do hope that the older lifts will be properly inspected and any problems fixed so that we see less lift breakdowns next season.
- Will there be snowmaking on Ovation as well as the Fiddle next season? This past season due to lack of natural snow, lower Ovation was not skiable. That trail enables skiers to get to the K1 from the Superstar area without having to push/skate across the area in front of K1 base lodge.
- If the temperature stays cold and Mother Nature delivers snow in October, is it possible to have an earlier opening than middle November? In addition, if next season we have a lot of natural snow, will Killington stay open beyond May 15?

 

[SkiDork]

No. Both are Yan fixed grips. I am also wondering if Snowdon will ever see an HSQ to help spread the crowd. IMHO I'd place HSQ's from Bear to Skye and up Snowdon to spread the crowds.

Most of the tree rats don't want HS lifts on Snowdon, myself included.

 

[Bubbartzky]

Tom -

Good of you to take questions but I hope we get more than the standard "corporate-speak" answers to serious questions. Here are several of mine:

1. Word on the street is that Killington no longer plans on staying open beyond the first weekend in May. Is this true?

2. Killington senior management talks up the need to improve quality and improve customer service, from the mountain to the lodging operations. Talk is cheap, however, and it appears that little actually changes - when faced with a decision where the choice is spending money or allowing quality/customer service to suffer, the choice is more often than not made to not spend the money. What is Killington doing to improve quality that actually costs real money? (I would exclude snowmaking from this question, although I recognize that snow quality is the first priority. I would also compliment Killington on its snowmaking last season-you guys did a great job in resurfacing after bad weather and in keeping conditions reasonable. My question is related to the rest of the skier/rider/customer/lodging etc. experience.)

3. Several years ago, in the summer and fall immediately following the formation of SP Land, Killington made approximately $5 million in capital improvements/repairs, the majority of which went to snowmaking pipe replacement and renovations at Snowshed. Last summer, the capital number dropped significantly and it's rumored that little capital will be available this year. Can you comment on capital spending at Killington this summer and fall and where that spending will take place?

4. It is often said that "you get what you pay for" and Jack Welch, former chair of GE, has said that if you look at the reward system in any company you'll see what drives the decisions. On the assumption that Killington means what it says about quality and customer service, is the senior management reward system properly aligned with these goals?

Thanks again for taking time to respond.

 

[andyzee]

Just gotta say, a ton of good questions here!

 

[pizza]

I know, I know, it's an issue that has been beaten to death, but it's also kind of an obligatory question:

what's the latest on the pico interconnect?


-steve

 

[Greg]

I know, I know, it's an issue that has been beaten to death, but it's also kind of an obligatory question:

what's the latest on the pico interconnect?


-steve

Welcome back, Steve...