I was told by Tyson that they had a good offer but that it couldn't be finalized until February. I was also told from another source that a John Brady bought it and was going to bring in inspectors to get the lifts operating ASAP. I didn't see any Laurel posts and figured the sale was completed. I am still very interested and looking at other routes to get it going.

Scott, you hit the proverbial nail on the head but that’s just one nail. I wonder how many skiers stopped skiing locally not because of a decade or so of changing weather. My interest in local skiing waned when the local terrain ceased to be challenging. For me that means steeper terrain and natural tree runs on sustained pitch. I still can’t ski icy moguls on intermediate terrain very well. I know it’ll make me a better skier but as they say at TGR,”Bumps are nature’s way of saying too many people have been here.”

The entire ski market has been stagnant for years and only sustained itself with the influx of new boarders over the last 20 years. Is there any correlation between the closure of so many local ski areas and the decline of new skiers? How popular would golf be if you had only 1 or 2 courses within a 2 hour drive? Gone are the local areas that the kids can get to after school and the family can easily get to on the weekend. These places feed the large regionals like Laurel, Wisp, and Seven Springs. These in turn feed Stowe and Aspen and Sun Valley. Yes it was a different time. Travel was more expensive, certainly not as convenient. Snow seemed more abundant and challenge could still be found locally. The industry changed and focused on real estate and high end restaurants, hot tubs, clubs and chic retail villages. Still, not all of us can afford one or two big trips out west or could be compelled to travel more than an hour or so to try out a new sport. The ski industry has become gentrified and content with serving the patrons that can afford their product but the sport is dieing at the root.

Laurel can not compete in such a market. What Laurel has that most other Mid-Atlantic areas don’t is true expert terrain and intermediate terrain with a sustained pitch, no flat spots. What Laurel has and other places have lost is a personality, a sense of space, a connection with the living history and heart of skiing. Skiing Broadway as it rambles, narrows and rolls with the contours of the land passed the Midway cabin you can feel Hannes Schneider’s vision under your feet. To stand at the top of Lower Wildcat and see the trail just disappear at a white horizon line with the valley below prepares you for the most difficult in bounds terrain you find anywhere in this nation. Slip into the mature trees along trail edge, venture a little deeper in, where the risk managers fear and experience the singular challenges of one person, one mountain and the pull of gravity over nature’s offerings and you’ve fallen in love for life. Laurel can only be what it is, a no frills, challenging mountain. Surely there is a niche for this.

You Sold me! I hope to ski Laurel one day...& MPC of course! Sometimes you just wish that you could level some existing areas so we could resurect & Consruct the best Mtns the area has to offer. Its a shame that a better MT like laurel stands still while others of less quality keep running. One of the main arguments agains't MPC is the fact that the MT would feed off of the existing areas....Being a lot less articulate than you, all I can say is..That Sucks!

It would seem that Laurel Mt. would be the perfect resort for Snowtime to take over. They don't rely on real estate sales to fuel their business. They make money off of the skiing and the $8 hamburgers.
Canaan Valley is operated by a company that has a contract with the State of West Virginia. The contracts were competively bid and they were the 'high bidder' . I would suggest that the State of PA should put out a request for proposals which require the operator to make improvements and provide revenue to the state if the operation is profitable. I am surprised the the brain dead government officials hadn't considered that already. WV has contracts with various companies to operate their state park lodges. The National Park services does the same thing. New Hampshire has several state owned ski area which are operated by private companies. What are they waiting for????
To be honest, the likely hood that you'll find 400 folks to fork out $1,000 is somewhere between slim and none. So I would suggest that we contact the governor's office and the local government representatives to get off their keisters and start getting something going. The ski area is an important economic engine which generates tax revenue, jobs, room-nights, restuarant visits, etc.

First, I want to say that Laurel Hill Crazie's post was extremely eloquent and demonstrates how strongly people would like to see Laurel Mountain succeed. Exceptionally well put.

Snow Time does make most of their money the "old fashioned way" (lift tickets, food, and related services), but their ski areas are also strategically located within 90 minutes of Baltimore/D.C., so they're going for day skiers and volume. I have justified "swinging by" Whitetail on the way home from work on many occasions (and by "swinging by," I mean going to work for half a day and then heading to Whitetail, the opposite direction of home, then coming back that night). Whitetail's proximity allows me to do this; I wouldn't be able to do this with Laurel Mountain, Seven Springs, Wisp, etc. A big draw of Liberty, Roundtop, and Whitetail is location, location, location.

But Laurel Mountain does differentiate itself in many ways, as Laurel Hill Crazie eloquently puts it, so by focusing on the bare basics and keeping costs down, Laurel Mountain could carve its own succesful niche. It will still take a risky investment to get things off the ground, and a person or company that is willing and able to stand by their investment for the long-term. The big test, I think, is what happens if the first year of operation is a crummy season.

Scott - I agree, Laurel Hill Crazie should have been a journalist (or maybe he is one). I know your the editor of DCSKI but don't forget that LM is within an hours drive of Pittsburgh, not DC and Baltimore. It is also reasonably close to Johnstown. Thus your relating the mountains location to the wrong market. LM would be more of a weekend destination for the Balto/Wash crowd, I agree.

That is true, I sometimes forget Pittsburgh. Although the D.C. metro area has a higher population of skiers/boarders to draw from, Pittsburgh is a very big market too. My comments were more geared towards why Snow Time would probably not be interested. By focusing on one major market Snow Time is able to achieve some economies of scale. For example, they do a lot of combined marketing for all three resorts, such as radio spots that advertise Liberty, Roundtop, and Whitetail, as well as joint discount cards and season passes. Over the years Snow Time has been focused on improving Liberty and Roundtop, and picking up Whitetail was probably irresistible given its location and financial circumstances. Other than that, Snow Time has not shown an eagerness to expand ownership to other areas (and, in fact, divested New York's Ski Windham, the only other ski area it owned, in 2005.) So I don't see Snow Time being a likely suitor for Laurel Mountain, but nothing would surprise me.

Scott,

Remember that Snowtime used to own Windham and they did put a bid in on Montage. I heard that the only reason why Windham was sold was that Snowtime was offered a premium price. Laurel would not be out of the question based on location alone.

From the unofficial numbers that I've "heard", Snowtime paid less than 50 cents on the dollar for Whitetail's original owners had invested (counting the original cost and operating losses until the bank took over).

I've seen the original master plan map of the resort.I don't recall seeing any trails on the "backside", if by that you mean behind the top of the high speed. Most of the trail expansion was in the bowl between Snowpark and Fanciful. It's my understanding that the original Whitetail partnership still owns the real estate operation, but that the land uphill of the existing real estate bordering the access road and the south side of SnowPark/Stalker is owned by Snowtime. If Snowtime was to develop all of this land for snowsports usage, the development cost would have to include snowmaking, lodge space and parking expansion as well. Given the prospect of global warming, I know what I would do with this property instead.

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From the unofficial numbers that I've "heard", Snowtime paid less than 50 cents on the dollar for Whitetail's original owners had invested (counting the original cost and operating losses until the bank took over).

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That's still an unanswered question, how much will they take for what? There are maybe 700 building lots in the village, sewage problems bad roads; 30% snowmaking, decent lodge the lifts are ok and the terrain is so sweet. There should be a way to make this work.

Another possible buyer might be Peak Resorts. Until recently (they just closed on Mt. Snow/Attitash), they specialized in smaller funky resorts in Missouri (Hidden Valley, Snow Creek), Indiana (Paoli Peaks), Ohio (Mad River, Boston Mills, Brandywine), Pennsylvania (Big Boulder, Jack Frost) and Crotched Mountain in southern New Hampshire. Crotched was rescued from lost status a few years ago and I have kept on their mailing list. It's hard to get a good feeling for an area without visting but they seem to be very skier oriented (early opening, late closing, all night skiing etc). When they buy in, they invest heavily on infrastructure and seem to have made good operating resorts in the "Banana Belt". They might be a good fit.