Peak Resorts: The New ASC?

[drjeff]

Game on!

The 1st EB-5 applicant has been approved, and the 52 million in escrow is free to be released!

https://globenewswire.com/news-rele...-Announces-Release-of-EB-5-Project-Funds.html

 

[ss20]

Sweet. I'm all for more water and more pumping but keep it on existing trails, please. No need to expand snowmaking to current natural trails. I'd be cool with snowmaking on Fool's Gold, Overbrook, Shootout OR Hop (more out of necessity for weekend crowd relief than personal want). If they actually install a HSQ on Sunbrook they'd need snowmaking on the Dipper's. Everything else: don't freak'n touch, please!

Carinthia development looks really nice on the plans. Snow needs more slopeside housing.

 

[drjeff]

Sweet. I'm all for more water and more pumping but keep it on existing trails, please. No need to expand snowmaking to current natural trails. I'd be cool with snowmaking on Fool's Gold, Overbrook, Shootout OR Hop (more out of necessity for weekend crowd relief than personal want). If they actually install a HSQ on Sunbrook they'd need snowmaking on the Dipper's. Everything else: don't freak'n touch, please!

Carinthia development looks really nice on the plans. Snow needs more slopeside housing.

The plan, as I have heard it explained by multiple Peak/Mount Snow admins, is to over the next FEW SEASONS, (NOT FOR NEXT SEASON) expand the snowmaking coverage to 100%. But that doesn't mean that they're going to constantly be maintaining and grooming all the snowmaking trails. The core snowmaking trails (think ones currently with snowmaking like Cascade, Canyon, Long John, etc) they currently and will still get a fresh coat of corduroy basically every night. Some trails that will get snowmaking, such as say Fool's Gold, Hop, One More Time, Big and Little Dipper, will see a groomer maybe once or twice a week. A trail Jaws or Uncles or Ledge will probably see then make snow on it, and then leave it alone unless there's say a thaw freeze cycle with no real chance of natural snow for a while after or no need for more snow to be made on it that season - think how they manage Ripcord or Yardsale now! They get the appeal and importance of having many options of non super buffed terrain, and look at the chance to expand to 100% snowmaking not as a threat to that appeal, but as a way to enhance it with just helping mother nature get the trail started for the season and then generally letting her run the show from there!

As for Sunbrook, part of the plan, once snowmaking back there is increased to 100%, is to upgrade to a high-speed lift, possibly even a bubble lift, and then as well add in some likely yurt like structure near the base of the Sunbrook and Beartrap lifts that would have some food and beverage service as well as restrooms, as a way to encourage people to take a bunch of runs back there rather than use it as a passthrough area to get from one side of the mountain to the other.

Personally, I'm thrilled with their master plans for on hill upgrades!

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[ss20]

Correct...as you've explained to me multiple times on here. I understand it's in phases to 100%. And I realize Snow won't groom everything overnight. But putting in pipes requires trimming, a night of bad wind can bury trees and cause them to fall. There will always be the scratch of man-made underneath whatever natural falls on blow-it-and-forget-it trails.

Like I said, I'm all for expanded snowmaking...on some trails. Ledge, Drifter, Jaws, Challenger, Uncle's, and some other small things that were a blast to ski on Monday (maybe again Saturday?) I am whole-heartedly against snowmaking on. Man-made fundamentally changes a trail...no matter how much natural you put on it. My second run on Monday was Freefall, and it was already down to its exposed man made. Same with Lodge later in the day.

 

[Newpylong]

Upper Titanium, Dippers, Shooting Star, Hop, Shoot Out, Overbrook, One More Time, Olympic yes they are all wide and could use a man made base. It will be a travesty if they touch anything else. There is no need except for marketing to say 100%.

 

[drjeff]

Upper Titanium, Dippers, Shooting Star, Hop, Shoot Out, Overbrook, One More Time, Olympic yes they are all wide and could use a man made base. It will be a travesty if they touch anything else. There is no need except for marketing to say 100%.

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As someone who skis there essentially every weekend their open, including the big holiday weekends and holiday weeks, the more acres they can have available to spread people out over, the better in my book. And that was before all the Peak explorer passes were added into the mix. And I will say that anecdotally this season, I've ridden the Bluebird with way more "bubble virgins" (the "wow" comments when you first pull the bubble down and/or having to tell that that the bubble goes up by itself at the top are give away's to the likely loss of their bubble virginity on that ride ;-) ) on a percentage basis than the last couple of seasons, so I'm expecting heavier than usual crowds, and thus why I strongly feel that more acres open predictably, even if it requires some tree removal in isolated areas to facilitate pipe installation in the coming years, with some limited snow work throughout the season, is going to be a good thing, and improve the overall experience for the majority of folks. I like the simple notion that post West lake upgrade/snowmaking expansion, the reality is one could very well be looking at having trails that used to be open maybe 4 to 6 weeks in a normal season (heck some of them NEVER opened for more than a few days tops last season, if at all) be open for 3+ months. That's more than just a marketing position, that's some tangible improvement in the modern ski industry

Heck, and when the natural snow is good, most of us are in the trees anyway, and that experience won't be changing!

 

[deadheadskier]

Are the trails in question able to be groomed already with an abundance of natural snow? That's kind of my delineation point of something that should or should not have snowmaking installed. If the trail is either too narrow or has natural terrain features like ledges that prevent it from being groomed with natural snow, then it should be left a natural snow only trail even if it means only being open for short stretches in a given season. New England has an over abundance of wide, characterless, groomed terrain as is. There really isn't a need to add more of this type of terrain to the inventory.

 

[drjeff]

Are the trails in question able to be groomed already with an abundance of natural snow? That's kind of my delineation point of something that should or should not have snowmaking installed. If the trail is either too narrow or has natural terrain features like ledges that prevent it from being groomed with natural snow, then it should be left a natural snow only trail even if it means only being open for short stretches in a given season. New England has an over abundance of wide, characterless, groomed terrain as is. There really isn't a need to add more of this type of terrain to the inventory.

Yup - every trail that would have snowmaking added to it has seen a groomer on atleast occasionally when the snow depths have allowed.

And I think if my memory serves correct, I recall some of the admins saying that in order to add snowmaking pipe to existing, non snowmaking trails (roughly 150 acres of current terrain) that cumulatively less than an acre of trees would need to be removed to facilitate running the pipes along the trail. So it's not like they're planning on clear cutting and turning the existing trails without snowmaking into 20 lane wide mega trails! Heck, with a sizeable percentage of the terrain that would see snowmaking added to it on US Forest Service land, the Forest Service itself wouldn't let that happen

Edit:

Just thought of one exception to my statement above - Second Thoughts, the traverse/bailout at the top of the headwall on Ripcord, has never seen a groomer before (it's only maybe 5 or 6 feet wide) and to my understanding ISN'T supposed to receive snowmaking in the upgrade

 

[Pez]

I just hope whatever they do long term doesn't ruin the feel over on sunbrook. That's the perfect place to get away from the crouds even on a really busy day.

 

[ss20]

I just hope whatever they do long term doesn't ruin the feel over on sunbrook. That's the perfect place to get away from the crouds even on a really busy day.

The coming HSQ will end those days. While Sunbrook is great now as-is, I will happily take a HSQ and snowmaking on Big/Little Dipper, as I'm sure it'll take a decent amount of crowds away from the Main Face.

 

[ScottySkis]

Does anyone know when this year the Peaks Holiday Black out pass starts on Christmas or day after. And does it last to New years day.?

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[deadheadskier]

12-27-1/1; 1/14-1/15; 2/18-2/20

 

[drjeff]

Peak giving Hunter some expansion love! To be completed by the 18-19 season

http://ir.peakresorts.com/file/Index?KeyFile=389184796

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[cdskier]

Peak giving Hunter some expansion love! To be completed by the 18-19 season

http://ir.peakresorts.com/file/Index?KeyFile=389184796

How do they determine that simply adding additional terrain will generate additional earnings? Saying this will generate $1.5-$2 million incremental earnings per year seems excessive (but that's an outsider perspective and I have no real facts to base this on). Adding more intermediate terrain to a resort that has a reputation for being crowded doesn't exactly seem like the type of thing that is going to magically pull in that many more skiers from somewhere.

 

[BenedictGomez]

Intends to apply for permits to add additional skiing terrain to Hunter Mountain

What are the odds of this happening. New York State has plenty of Eco-extremists in government. I imagine this is a coin-flip at best.

 

[thetrailboss]

What are the odds of this happening. New York State has plenty of Eco-extremists in government. I imagine this is a coin-flip at best.

Surprised that you didn't comment on the EB-5 reference.


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[millerm277]

How do they determine that simply adding additional terrain will generate additional earnings? Saying this will generate $1.5-$2 million incremental earnings per year seems excessive (but that's an outsider perspective and I have no real facts to base this on). Adding more intermediate terrain to a resort that has a reputation for being crowded doesn't exactly seem like the type of thing that is going to magically pull in that many more skiers from somewhere.

Their major drawback for attracting people is very little good intermediate terrain. The lower mountain runs are fine, but too short to satisfy people and Belt Parkway is both a mess on a busy day and pretty challenging for an "lower intermediate" skier. This would be pretty significant if they can carve out more lengthy intermediate runs.

The other aspect is that Hunter to me is right at the tipping point for being suitable for multiple days. It's just a little too small to really love skiing multiple days in a row at, I want more terrain. And that means I mostly only go for day trips or I go up and ski Plattekill or something on the 2nd day. They might see a big bump in lodging revenue with an expansion.

I'm not familiar enough with what Hunter currently generates to say if those revenue numbers are excessive or not, but I think it's a pretty strong argument that they would produce a sizable % increase for the mountain.

What are the odds of this happening. New York State has plenty of Eco-extremists in government. I imagine this is a coin-flip at best.

Pretty sure they own the land, I don't believe they're likely to get much pushback or that there's many levers to stop them. There's also active logging with visible logging roads on the other side of the valley from what I've seen, this isn't exactly pristine land.

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I'm curious about the details of how they're going to lay this out.

I'd be very concerned with how much more more crowded the peak would be if they ran this to the summit and have no idea how you'd even place it up there. I'm imagining they're probably going to structure it as a mostly self-contained pod, with a lift run from Rusk Hollow Rd up to the White Cloud/Belt/Way Out intersection. That wouldn't put too much additional crowding pressure on the rest of the hill.

It looks like it would give a ~850ft vert, and it'd be all slope with no significant runout. This could be a pretty solid expansion pod.

However, from my impression and the maps I've seen, that area is a pretty steep slope. I'm wondering how they're going to manage to get intermediate terrain out of it rather than expert.

 

[drjeff]

How do they determine that simply adding additional terrain will generate additional earnings? Saying this will generate $1.5-$2 million incremental earnings per year seems excessive (but that's an outsider perspective and I have no real facts to base this on). Adding more intermediate terrain to a resort that has a reputation for being crowded doesn't exactly seem like the type of thing that is going to magically pull in that many more skiers from somewhere.

Give the marketing department the "tools" of a new high speed lift and a 25% expansion via new terrain headlines to work with and they'll easily be able to spin that into increased visits and revenue.

The Northeast ski community rarely these days gets a sizable terrain expansion and a truly new lift (not just an upgrade of an existing lift), so the curiosity factor will be high, and the marketing folks at Peak and Hunter will enjoy promoting it

 

[benski]

There lack of intermediate terrain is defiantly holding them back. Windham has many customers for them to take and leaves much to be desired in terms of variety and snowmaking quality. The crowding on intermediate trails at hunter is a huge liability hence the expression, "if you can ski hunter you can ski anywhere."

 

[cdskier]

Their major drawback for attracting people is very little good intermediate terrain. The lower mountain runs are fine, but too short to satisfy people and Belt Parkway is both a mess on a busy day and pretty challenging for an "lower intermediate" skier. This would be pretty significant if they can carve out more lengthy intermediate runs.

Based on what I've seen in the past when I went there, I never would have said that Hunter has a problem "attracting people". To me they are already quite busy. And in fact some people that I know don't go there because they believe they are "too crowded". I'm struggling to understand where the additional people would come from. Are people going to visit the other Catskill resorts less? Are people going to go to Hunter instead of southern VT with the addition of more intermediate terrain at Hunter?

I'm not familiar enough with what Hunter currently generates to say if those revenue numbers are excessive or not, but I think it's a pretty strong argument that they would produce a sizable % increase for the mountain.

When Peaks purchased Hunter, they stated Hunter's EBITDA was around $6M in the press release (and based on this year's preliminary financial report that would mean Hunter is responsible for approximately 23% of Peak's overall EBITDA, which is believable I think given the size of Hunter compared to some of the other resorts in their portfolio). Now Peaks is saying the expansion would generate an additional $1.5-$2M in EBITDA. So simply expanding terrain is going to increase your earnings by 25%-33% at Hunter? I'm having a very hard time believing that. I do believe it will increase it a bit if they market it right to attract more intermediates and families...but I still think a 25-33% increase in earnings seems extremely optimistic. "If you build it, they will come" only applies if there is truly pent up demand for what you're building. If that demand is already being satisfied by other resorts (Windham and Belleyare for example both have a good selection of Intermediate terrain), it is going to take a lot for people to suddenly leave those places and go to Hunter.

Give the marketing department the "tools" of a new high speed lift and a 25% expansion via new terrain headlines to work with and they'll easily be able to spin that into increased visits and revenue.

The Northeast ski community rarely these days gets a sizable terrain expansion and a truly new lift (not just an upgrade of an existing lift), so the curiosity factor will be high, and the marketing folks at Peak and Hunter will enjoy promoting it

I have no doubt they'll see increased visits and revenue...my issue is just with how much of an increase they're projecting. I'm not buying it. I certainly could be wrong though.