Ski Southeast Messageboard

Does this look like pictures of a Ski Mountain that should be closed? When Snowshoe announced the nearly $4M investment coming in automated Snowmaking (yes!), and focus on more early season terrain, I thought, what about late season terrain? After the announcement, I had the opportunity to catch a chair ride with Frank Deberry and asked about April. He essentially said, that each time he has tried staying open in April it did not work out (assume financially).

Well, with weather like we are having, snow still on the slopes and new gun power on the way, what about this for a marketing idea for spring '19?

Have the "regular season" end at the end of March just as it was this year. Have the Ridiculous Pass and Ikon Pass sales and all of that, but have it end at the end of the regular season. If you want to go extra innings, you need a new pass, "Snow Lovers Extended Season Pass" 99 bucks or whatever, gets you extended Skiing and Riding well into April.

I say the target is to stay open for the entire month of April and I'll throw out my list of terrain/lifts to start with.

Lifts-Ballhooter, Eagle, Western
Runs-Grabhammer, Skip Jack, Knot Bumper, Camp 99, Widowmaker, J-Hook, Upper Cupp

The goal would be to take advantage of:
1) Shaded terrain,
2) Terrain with Low E guns where snow can be piled up (like Superstar at The Beast), and what exists say on Camp 99 right now.

Nobody will show right? Season is over and everybody is thinking beach cuz it is 70 or 80 in the city right?

Well how about a trial where
1) The SnowLover Extended Pass goes on sale after President's day or March 6 whatever Alterra will allow
2) Include a survey question when Ridiculous Passes are sold and see who would be interested in supporting.
3) Get enough folks to purchase to reduce the risk and sell em a bed at a reasonable rate.

Add your support to this thread and ask SS to crunch the numbers.
We are wasting good snow!!!

I expect you'll want to run one fixed grip lift with just a few trails - you don't have the customer base to support multiple liftsfor sure, but maybe you can support one lift on weekends. I would be surprised if Snowshoe could make it work. With SS's weather maybe a Snowtime resort could because of their closer proximity to population centers. Or Blue/Camelback.

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When there's snow, there's demand. Some of my top 10 days at the shoe have been in April. Not unprecedented and I expect it factored into the snowmaking improvement project, just like opening early. This season's 1 April closure was forced by capital investment projects scheduled to get underway, some for bike season.

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Well good comments, we "gotta" get April next year.
What about the idea for a whole new revenue stream, did you catch that? Your season pass ends in March. "SnowLovers" is for April, for cryin' out load, 7S went to mid April. Pile it up on reduced terrain, pre-sell the April Pass to reduce financial risk and lets go.
I'll heed input from THEFIREWARDE to perhaps reduce from 3 lifts to 1, especially as the month goes on. There would be a need though to make a little snow during the month, but mostly smart "farming"

So maybe it is Ballhooter, maybe it is Eagle-cuz you have the parking lot. There must be some subset of R pass holders (5-10%) that would go weekends. (In fact, I would only run it Fri-Sun) like Killington does on Superstar starting May 1st...

SWOOP wrote: ↑Tue Apr 24, 2018 6:15 pm Well good comments, we "gotta" get April next year.
What about the idea for a whole new revenue stream, did you catch that? Your season pass ends in March. "SnowLovers" is for April, for cryin' out load, 7S went to mid April. Pile it up on reduced terrain, pre-sell the April Pass to reduce financial risk and lets go.
I'll heed input from THEFIREWARDE to perhaps reduce from 3 lifts to 1, especially as the month goes on. There would be a need though to make a little snow during the month, but mostly smart "farming"

So maybe it is Ballhooter, maybe it is Eagle-cuz you have the parking lot. There must be some subset of R pass holders (5-10%) that would go weekends. (In fact, I would only run it Fri-Sun) like Killington does on Superstar starting May 1st...

Maybe the spring pass would work but they really only care about heads in beds and the byproduct revenue (restaurants, etc). Keeping the mountain running with local-only staff may be the biggest challenge and key factor in determining how many lifts can be kept operating. I like the Fri-Sun idea too, they kinda do that now with Silvercreek at end of season.

Well, this would be a great forum for a Poll right?
How many of you would spend $99 for an April ski pass at Snowshoe (weekends only) AND stay on the mountain and spend some $$?
I'm thinking if SS invests in a REAL mountain coaster and/or REAL zip line, that might help with April (ski morning, zip in the afternoon, band in the evening right?)