A 3:30 close does not seem that big of a deal, particularly this time of year, I believe Attitash kept the lifts spinning later during those warm days at the end of March this past year.
That said, Peaks seems to have a PR fiasco on their hands and plenty of negative perception out there. The scarce open terrain at both MWV mountains at the end of December is strange. An inspection of a critial piece of equipment in mid October appears to be very late in the season for inspecting and discovering something like that. The Wildcat pipe?, all this would seem to be preventable.
I really don't care about the 3:30 closing. The scarcity of terrain is very typical for them, but is just especially evident this year since their peers are so egregiously outpacing them. This all results from a stagnant lack of investment.
Today we finally heard that Wildcat plans to move on to Upper Polecat next week, probably late in the week. I don't know whether this means the problem is fixed or they have a kludge and need some PR spin.