Pico Will Not Operate 7 Days A Week

[Greg]

Put down the thesaurus

I barely made it past "adroitly"... :lol:

 

[Highway Star]

I barely made it past "adroitly"... :lol:

Should I stick to using small words here on A-zone?

You know, I once bought one of those little electronic dictionaries you get a walmart...20,000 words, etc. Anything I had to look up wasn't in it......

 

[threecy]

threecry....you seem like a decent guy, so I'm going to take it easy on you.

That said, you very ill informed about this situation and the facts on the ground, to the point of blatantly spreading false information. Don't even attempt to argue with me, I have the backing of some very smart people who are very well informed about this and we are not diluding ourselves about this situation.

What's your ski industry experience? I'm pretty much done playing devil's advocate in this thread.

 

[andyzee]

What's your ski industry experience? I'm pretty much done playing devil's advocate in this thread.

Almost getting knocked out by me cause he almost hit me on Superstar as he wrecklessly flew by. Next time it won't be almost, I'll flatten the lil bastid.

 

[Newpylong]

Oh brother, he made his way here now.

 

[Highway Star]

What's your ski industry experience? I'm pretty much done playing devil's advocate in this thread.

I've been experiencing it for quite a long time....there's alot to be said for being a good observer.

 

[threecy]

I've been experiencing it for quite a long time....there's alot to be said for being a good observer.

I think this topic has been debated to death, so I'm not going to bother countering each of your points, as much as I'd like to (you seem rather patronizing in that post, maybe I'm just reading it wrong).

 

[Highway Star]

I think this topic has been debated to death, so I'm not going to bother countering each of your points, as much as I'd like to (you seem rather patronizing in that post, maybe I'm just reading it wrong).

Just simply correcting you on serveral points.

If you have a come back, by all means. But make sure you have facts and valid analysis to back it up. Please.

As I said, you don't seem like a bad guy, but you're not getting enough of the facts down.

 

[koreshot]

Oh great, Highway Star is here. As if we didn't suffer enough on TGR.

Mr. HS, you seem to be marvelous at pissing people off at any internet community you go to. This is sad, cause quite possibly you are a nice, intelligent person that could have lots of good thoughts to share. I have seen videos of you (assuming it was really you) rocking your race stock skis and I gotta say, other than the slight backseat approach, you are a damn good skier... way better than me at least.

So whats the problem? Tone the attitude and ego down a bit and you should be golden.

 

[andyzee]

Screw HS, Mr Koreshot, nice to hear from you, where you been?

 

[koreshot]

Back to the topic... and this may have been voiced by other people in this thread, but im not reading 30 pages all over again.

I skied Pico twice last year and both times was big time dissapointed by the lack of challenging terrain. It could have been cause I didn't have a local or someone that knows the mountain with me, but for an average visitor that is relatively open to exploring the less popular, beat up trails and trees, I didn't find anything really worth while skiing there... I did like the low crowds, the more old school atmosphere an a generally chill environment, especially compared to K. That usually goes a long way with me, but only if the terrain is good too. For example, I love the old school feel of Alta and Solitude, but I wouldn't ski there if they didn't have the awesome terrain and snow that they do.

So from the skiing perspective, given my experience and my preferences in terrain and snow, I can't say I care all that much about Pico closing on some weekdays.

 

[koreshot]

Screw HS, Mr Koreshot, nice to hear from you, where you been?

Good to be back... I was in my summer hybernation. Actually I still am, cursing every day about the heat and how miserable summer is. 4 months to go...

I will start poking my head in once or twice a week starting now, as we slowly ramp up for the new season. Hope all is well with you and your wife (sorry, I think I forgot her name).

 

[andyzee]

Good to be back... I was in my summer hybernation. Actually I still am, cursing every day about the heat and how miserable summer is. 4 months to go...

I will start poking my head in once or twice a week starting now, as we slowly ramp up for the new season. Hope all is well with you and your wife (sorry, I think I forgot her name).

All is good with us, how's the ribs? Oh, don't be a stranger.

 

[koreshot]

All is good with us, how's the ribs? Oh, don't be a stranger.

Ribs are good - been drinking a lot of milk so they are ready to hug more trees this season

 

[Greg]

Oh great, Highway Star is here. As if we didn't suffer enough on TGR.

Mr. HS, you seem to be marvelous at pissing people off at any internet community you go to. This is sad, cause quite possibly you are a nice, intelligent person that could have lots of good thoughts to share. I have seen videos of you (assuming it was really you) rocking your race stock skis and I gotta say, other than the slight backseat approach, you are a damn good skier... way better than me at least.

So whats the problem? Tone the attitude and ego down a bit and you should be golden.

Maybe we can rehab him.

Good to be back... I was in my summer hybernation. Actually I still am, cursing every day about the heat and how miserable summer is. 4 months to go...

I will start poking my head in once or twice a week starting now, as we slowly ramp up for the new season.

There's really no good reason for leaving at all! :angry:

Welcome back, koreshot! Hope to make some turns with you this season.

 

[threecy]

That said, you very ill informed about this situation and the facts on the ground, to the point of blatantly spreading false information. Don't even attempt to argue with me, I have the backing of some very smart people who are very well informed about this and we are not diluding ourselves about this situation.

Fine, I'll bite. You have the gall to call me ill informed...one might be able to say that because I'm defending Killington in this thread (though if you read the whole thread, you'll see that I don't endorse all of their actions or the area itself).

- As Tin Woodsman has so adroitly pointed out, Powdr is not investing signifigantly more in the resort compared to years past. ASC had around $13+ million per year it could spend on capital projects at all 8 resorts, due to their debt agreements. Read the ASC annual reports. Killington got a decent bit every year, after the Canyons, Steamboat, and SR. But nowhere near enough. They tried, even though they had crushing debt. Perhaps they spent too much capital at the Canyons for questionable reasons, who knows.

No, it isn't investing signficantly more (though one could argue they're investing 50% more than the $2M figure that's been floated around). Nonetheless, they are investing some money, after only a few months of ownership. **They have not declared $3M their investment run rate.** In fact, I doubt they'll only invest $3M in their first calendar year - I bet next off season, which will start within their first year of ownership, they'll announce a more aggressive investment. If they don't, then things aren't looking good...a slight uptick in investment their first season? Not going to kill the area.

Also, if you know as much about the industry as you claim do (or the very smart people you know...I know many smart people as well, but I don't let them do my arguing for me - and in an unchecked manner), you'll know that most investment figures are inflated - its more along the lines of $3M OF improvements, not $3M IN improvements - ski areas cut corners but promote the retail cost.

- What is enough? As TW says, investing at the book depreciation figure for Killington. That just so happens to be around $8 million per year in '06, per the sales agreement with POWDR/SP. Instaid, they are going for $3 mil this year, with $3-5mil in coming years. With that kind of investment, Killington will never recover it's market postion.

I'd suggest you do some research into ski area depreciation. This is one way in which ski areas are able to show a loss or breakeven season, despite positive cashflow. Depending upon the depreciation schedule one sets up for a chairlift, for instance, much of it can be essentially written off in only a few years. Does that mean the chair needs to be replaced? Not at all. In fact, with the relative stagnation of ski lift technology (we haven't seen anything as revolutionary as a high speed detachable in decades, and Killington has a bunch of them), only maintenance is required - which is performed in order to keep the lifts in operating (and inspection-passing) condition. Thus, one can keep an area running in fine shape (I'm not saying Killington is in fine shape, but it's also not in Magic 2002 shape) with an investment of less than the depreciation.

- If you start doing the math, you'll see that Killington is in a pretty big hole with it's upkeep. About $5-6 million short per year for the last 6-8 years. Or around $30 million dollars, give or take. They have tons of capacity on the hill, but since the resort is in marginal shape, and not offering the product it used to, they can't get the skier visits to fully utilize it. They only hit peak capacity on major holiday weekends in February.

Again, see the depreciation comments above. Killington doesn't need $30 of investment right now, at least as far as I've seen (maybe there are some facilities being held together by duct tape, who knows). Yes, the ski area is in marginal shape, but a slight upturn in investment isn't going to hurt them. Again, I doubt $3M is all Killington is going to see in the next few years. Don't think the people at SP/Powdr are stupid.

- There is no mystery of what needs to be done at Killington. All the top level ops people were retained during the sale, and they certainly knew what the important things were that needed to be done. They could have easily poured $5-10 million into the place right off the bat to make it work better. The list is a mile long. Maybe $2-3 million into things that people would immediately notice as in improvement to the skiing experience - that helps drive skier visits and make people feel better about paying more for a pass. Instaid, they simply fired all the top ops people, and are now running around trying to figure out how they are going to actually run the mountain next year. It's amature hour in the admin building....and it's not even ski season yet.

Welcome to corporate America. Mergers/acquisitions tend to leave things in shambles. As such, its not a bad idea to wait a bit before pouring in cash. They could have easily poured $5-10M into the place? I don't know how easy it is to just drop $5-10M - that's a lot of money, unless you're independently wealthy.

- Overall, by cutting the top operations people, cutting the ski season and everything that goes with that (ie. SNOWMAKING), marginal investment, cutting lift and lodge services.....there is no way they can drive skier visits while justifying their higher prices. That means less people will come. Way less. Even though they may think they can improve their revenue yields per visit to compensate, it will not be enough to offset the loss in visits. Overall, if Killington is not providing the product, they simply cannot put 1,000,000+ skier visits on the hill every season - no eastern resort can unless they have a spec-tack-culaar product, at a reasonable price, within reach of NYC. We've seen this with OKEMO's growth over the pas few years. Killington/Pico is fundimentally set up to put 1,000,000 to 1,400,000 visits on the mountain each year - if you're not getting that, major cutbacks need to be made to the skiing product (lifts operating, snowmaking/season length), which massively decreases the attractiveness of the product overall....because the mountain just doesn't ski right, especially to the average person.

I don't recall SP/Powdr diclosing LESS snowmaking this coming season. ASC didn't appear to put as much into it as in the past, so the baseline really isn't set that high. Nonetheless, if they aren't focussed on building a rediculous base on Superstar, maybe they can distribute that snow elsewhere - and have more trails open with a better base. If they're not seeing an operating profit (or benefit) late season, that excess snow is a waste of money.

- Want to talk about the ALL4ONE pass? Fine. Go read the ASC annual reports FIRST. It was a brilliant yield management tool. All it did was cut into their discount ticket sales, but helped draw traffic to the ski area, and get people to spend money on other things, while getting people to accept a lower quality product. Many all4one passes were underutilized. They ran an operating profit of $8-12+ million at Killington each of the last 4 years, this is reflected in the selling price of the resort, and is more than enough to be sustainable if ASC wasn't taking away all the profits to pay down debt.

Go read the ASC annual reports first? I'm not sure how often you visit the forum (2005 membership but only a handful of posts), but this has been debated to death in some recent threads. The All4One pass drove prices down NE-wide and had a lot of negative effects, not worthwhile debating in this thread.

Here's a question - if you claim the operating profit at Killington in recent is a plus, why are you implying the sky is falling by SP/Powdr (essentially) maintaining the status quo in investment? If you imply its that good, why do you imply its broken to the tune of $30M?

- Think of it like Walmart. It's a huge store with all sorts of products, that appeals to all segments of the market at reasonable value. Now, what would happen if you were to cut the size of the store in half, offer half the variety of products...but cut prices by 30%? What if they let the store get run down and it smelled funny? People would accept the lack of variety or quailty or environment, and still shop there because of the extreme value. There might also be other stores in the area, selling better products with better variety, but at the old higher prices still, or even higher.....they would do well because many people would need or want those better products. Now, what if someone came along and bought Walmart........and suddenly thought that they should be charging more for their products and variety, amounts equal to the nicest stores in the area? What if they cut their variety back even further, and were only open for few a few hours on the weekend?

What would happen to the mighty Walmart? Would people continue to shop there?

Fact is, people are pissed to be paying more at Killington, when it's looking like POWDR is going to do very little to do better than ASC, and very well could do much worse.

I don't quite see the logic in your analogy - I don't see how cutting the top of Ram's Head and the bottom of Sunrise is 50% of Killington's terrain. Is Killington run down? Yes. Will people continue to ski there? Yes. Killington's income isn't made soley on season passes - they see a tremendous amount of revenue from day/multi-day ticket buyers. With a name like Killington, they will continue to see these skiers, many paying full price, for years to come.

 

[Highway Star]

Wow, I'm really impressed, you sure showed me.....that you're spending too much time thinking you know these concepts, and yet not actually knowing what's going on. But hey, everybody is always learning.

Fine, I'll bite. You have the gall to call me ill informed...one might be able to say that because I'm defending Killington in this thread (though if you read the whole thread, you'll see that I don't endorse all of their actions or the area itself).


No, it isn't investing signficantly more (though one could argue they're investing 50% more than the $2M figure that's been floated around). Nonetheless, they are investing some money, after only a few months of ownership. **They have not declared $3M their investment run rate.** In fact, I doubt they'll only invest $3M in their first calendar year - I bet next off season, which will start within their first year of ownership, they'll announce a more aggressive investment. If they don't, then things aren't looking good...a slight uptick in investment their first season? Not going to kill the area.

I assume you're using the term "investment run rate" to describe future capital investments in the ski area in comming business years....for us english speaking common folk. What do you have to say to this:

"Under POWDR, we’ll see upwards of 50 percent of the annual EBITDA staying right here and going toward on-mountain improvements – to the tune of $10-15 million over the next three years. So no, things aren’t bad off at all under the new ownership. In fact, we’re all excited to see something come of our hard work rather than watching other ASC resorts parley our good fortune!"

I'm not saying where that came from, but it is very REAL.

But NO, I don't think that is nearly enough money, considering the lack of investment in the previous years and the profits and margin they are going to be reaping - $8-$14M per year, or more. ASC already sucked Killington dry to pay debts. What's these guys excuse for only re-investing 30% of their profits.....debt too?.....or is it greed? Or is it....just "not getting it"?

Also, if you know as much about the industry as you claim do (or the very smart people you know...I know many smart people as well, but I don't let them do my arguing for me - and in an unchecked manner), you'll know that most investment figures are inflated - its more along the lines of $3M OF improvements, not $3M IN improvements - ski areas cut corners but promote the retail cost.

Great, so they are actually spending less than $3M? We should take that as good news? Sweet. So, the true dollar figure is internal to the accounting and all that, but we get retail figures quoted to us. NICE.

I'd suggest you do some research into ski area depreciation. This is one way in which ski areas are able to show a loss or breakeven season, despite positive cashflow. Depending upon the depreciation schedule one sets up for a chairlift, for instance, much of it can be essentially written off in only a few years. Does that mean the chair needs to be replaced? Not at all. In fact, with the relative stagnation of ski lift technology (we haven't seen anything as revolutionary as a high speed detachable in decades, and Killington has a bunch of them), only maintenance is required - which is performed in order to keep the lifts in operating (and inspection-passing) condition. Thus, one can keep an area running in fine shape (I'm not saying Killington is in fine shape, but it's also not in Magic 2002 shape) with an investment of less than the depreciation.

I suggest you do some more research into the concept of depriciation, PERIOD. Depriciation is an accounting tool. To extend the cost of your capital asset purchase over a pre-deterimined period of time. Every single business uses it to allow reporting of minimal bottom line profit for tax reasons, etc.

There are ski-industry standard rates - for chairlifts, it's a straight division of the capital cost over 30 years. Other years for trail changes, lodges, other equipment, etc.

Overall, at Killington, there have been capital purchases made in the past 30 years, that are or were on their books as depriciating at $8M+/year in '06. Considering that they haven't seen any signifigant investment since '00, that's ALOT. Tons, and tons, and tons of money was spent at Killington in the 80's and 90's.....and they have the CAPACITY to show for it.......but not the QUALITY OF LIFT LAYOUT.

Why is this a problem? If makes Killington the most disfunctional resort in the east......they have all these lifts, but if they can't get enough people on the mountain, they'll only run 30% of them, and the mountain simply doesn't ski right. They basicly sit there unused for most of the year, and they only fire them up on holidays and super busy saturdays. Les Otten was building for a 1,400,000 visit MEGA RESORT with K/P connected. He put in too much capacity, but then Oak Hill pulled the plug on him and skier visits have been in a death spiral ever since.

On top that, while Killington/Pico may have 9 detachable lifts (counting the skyeship as two, and not counting the snowdon poma), they have FOURTEEN FIXED GRIP CHAIRLIFTS, many of which are quads or a few triples. Killington does NOT like to run MANY these chairs because they are redundant, but many, many of them have a VERY MATERIAL EFFECT ON THE QUALITY OF THE SKIING PRODUCT. These will include:

- Canyon Quad
- South Ridge Triple
- Devil's Fiddle Quad (in good snow years or if they make snow on the fiddle)
- Needles Eye Quad (detachable, but redundant and not run often)
- Snowdon Triple
- Little Pico Triple
- Outpost Double

Are you beginning to see a picture here?

And on top of that, you have certain lifts that just plain don't make sense, but are too new to justify taking out or replacing with a HSQ - such as the snowshed doubles, or the snowdon quad. The NEXT lift to be put in at Killington will be a replacement for the Yan Skyepeak Quad which was put in in 1983ish.

Overall, Killington IS SHRINKING. The lift capacity will decrease, and hopefully, they can tweak the lift layout so that everything skis better with less capacity. Actually, a few fast DOUBLE CHAIRS in the right spots would work wonders for them, with some relocated lifts.

Again, see the depreciation comments above. Killington doesn't need $30M of investment right now, at least as far as I've seen (maybe there are some facilities being held together by duct tape, who knows). Yes, the ski area is in marginal shape, but a slight upturn in investment isn't going to hurt them. Again, I doubt $3M is all Killington is going to see in the next few years. Don't think the people at SP/Powdr are stupid.

Stop putting words in my mouth, STRAW MAN.

STOP!!!!!

OK?

THANK YOU!!!

There are plenty of things Killington could spend $10M on. Choose from the below"

- A raft of Fan guns.
- An upper mountain lift to the peak/top of K-1 for early/late season skiing.
- Trail intersection adjustments or grading.
- SRT replacement/adjustment.
- Skyepeak quad replacement.
- Snowdon quad replacement.
- The interconnect, at a budget price.
- A summit lodge
- MORE snowmaking fixes
- Misc lift moves and adjustments to reduce capacity while making the mountain ski better.

MANY of these are things a consultant highlighted last year, and POWDR has been involved since MARCH 2006. Do you think they had ample time to figure it out? Don't you think that some of these things need to be done, no matter who runs the mountain, or what direction they are taking it?!

Face facts here dude: THEY EAT WHAT THEY KILL.

Welcome to corporate America. Mergers/acquisitions tend to leave things in shambles. As such, its not a bad idea to wait a bit before pouring in cash. They could have easily poured $5-10M into the place? I don't know how easy it is to just drop $5-10M - that's a lot of money, unless you're independently wealthy.

Shambles?

Yes, many of us are flat out worried that Killington will be run WORSE than ASC this season....really.

Do you know who own's Killingon? Really? Maybe you should go and look. He is VERY independantly wealthy. LOOK.

Oh, and don't even START talking to me about corporate America. You have no idea about me, aside from what I choose to put out here.

I don't recall SP/Powdr disclosing LESS snowmaking this coming season. ASC didn't appear to put as much into it as in the past, so the baseline really isn't set that high. Nonetheless, if they aren't focussed on building a rediculous base on Superstar, maybe they can distribute that snow elsewhere - and have more trails open with a better base. If they're not seeing an operating profit (or benefit) late season, that excess snow is a waste of money.

Lord god almightly....how can you talk like this?

ASC has been cutting costs like mad, but still keeping enough snowmaking to keep more terrain open than the competition......ESPECIALLY IN BAD CONDITIONS. That costs an insane amount of money. I just made the estimate in another post that it cost Killington $350,000 to $500,000 in "BIG AIR" snowmaking to open for Thanksgiving last year. Will POWDR want to pull the trigger on that? No.

I'm hearing vague promisies of "mo' betta' snow" for this year at Killington. That means that they fixed the water pressure probelms and are going to run tower guns more often - good! Good snow, cheap.......but that means......only when it's COLD.....ie. middle of the season.

........what about when it's NOT COLD ENOUGH? Here is where POWDR/KILLINGTON is playing with FIRE. What if we get a pretty marginal winter, with lots of thaw/freeze, and many snowmaking windows where it only gets down to 26-30 F wet bulb? LOOK OUT. Is POWDR going to want to spend the money to go "BIG AIR" and expand terrain in marginal temps, to offer more than the competiton, and drive skier visits? We'll see, but would not count on it.....really.

Go read the ASC annual reports first? I'm not sure how often you visit the forum (2005 membership but only a handful of posts), but this has been debated to death in some recent threads. The All4One pass drove prices down NE-wide and had a lot of negative effects, not worthwhile debating in this thread.

Again, don't read what people spew on the internet about what they THINK the All4One did. READ THE ANNUAL REPORTS. Very clearly, ASC was QUITE impressed with they yield management and skier visit driving success of the All4One.

Please, I'm begging you.

Here's a question - if you claim the operating profit at Killington in recent is a plus, why are you implying the sky is falling by SP/Powdr (essentially) maintaining the status quo in investment? If you imply its that good, why do you imply its broken to the tune of $30M?

What to you mean I CLAIM? Read the K/P purchase agreement - this is FACT! It was $8.2M operating profit in '05-'06, one of the worst years in the past 10. Skier visits were down, and they had to ask for more money to make snow. They still turned a decent profit. The selling price of the resort, $85M, indicates a profit history of $8m-$14m, on a industry standard resort valuation model which says a selling price of equal to 6 to 8 times the yearly operating profit. If Killington couldn't make any money, they wouldn't have bought it!!!

I don't quite see the logic in your analogy - I don't see how cutting the top of Ram's Head and the bottom of Sunrise is 50% of Killington's terrain. Is Killington run down? Yes. Will people continue to ski there? Yes. Killington's income isn't made soley on season passes - they see a tremendous amount of revenue from day/multi-day ticket buyers. With a name like Killington, they will continue to see these skiers, many paying full price, for years to come.

Again, more deceptive gibberish out of you.

Regarding my walmart analogy - Point being ASC in the last 5-6 years have CUT:

- Terrrain
- Open terrain
- Open Terrain * Time terrain is open
- Season Length
- Quality of food
- Lifts operating
- Snowmaking quality
- Snowmaking quantity........

But they CUT THE PERCIEVED PRICE TOO.

Now.....what is POWDR going to do here? Increase price, while cutting MORE of the above things? REALLY?

Do you have any idea what this is going to do? Yep, people MAY still come and ski. MAYBE. Some of them. A few.

****Skier visits are going to fall off a cliff, and it's going to be a bloodbath for the entire local economy.******

 

[threecy]

I'm not even going to debate this anymore. You talk as if you have the knowledge and experience of Tim Mueller or Jay Gamble. Thing is, nearly everyone I've met with anywhere near that experience doesn't talk with such an egotistical, condescending tone. You have what many people in the lower rungs of the industry have – some isolated knowledge and a big ego that draws unarguable conclusions, at least in your opinion. Call me a fool if you want, I’m not going to point out the abundance of holes in your rebuttal. I'll just politely nod at your conclusions and encourage you to read this thread in 2 years.

 

[Newpylong]

Sigh.. HS, never thought I would be reading your term papers on here as well.

 

[andyzee]

HS, get yourself a girlfriend, you'll feel so much better