All 3 Snowtime resorts have announced that today (Sunday, March 14) will be their last days open. Sorry to see it happen, but I understand. Great season!

Woody

Very uncool. They made a bundle this year. They could stay open for another week or two.

They could easily stay open for another week or two. I was there until closing tonight. Plenty of base left. Its bogus they shut down this early. Especially since their snow making expense is probably the lowest its been due to all the natural snow this season

Whitetail could have stayed open another week. There was a 3 foot base today. My forecast is that there will be snow on the mountain and skiable trails next weekend. Ugly but skiable.

If it was about the money, management would have made the call to close last weekend. We knew last week that it would be raining this weekend. Nobody has been at the mountain for the last week. The plan on Friday was to close M-F and reopen next weekend. A decision was made Saturday night to definitely wait until next Wednesday to decide whether or not to open next weekend. But if you were at the mountain today, it was obvious it was not to be. It wasn't just the 10 paying customers. The alternating steady rain and drizzle, the brown snow, the river flowing across lower Snow Park through the upper mixing bowl, the 60+ degree highs forecast for next week and the rain forecast for next weekend meant that no one was going to come next weekend even for $20 lift tickets. It might have been skiable, but it still would have been embarassing to charge for. Whitetail could have saved a bundle of money by closing last weekend or planning to close this weekend. We've got a ton of shut down work that could have been done today if it had planned for ahead of time. We tried, but it just wasn't meant to be and no one has a right to complain.

It may not have been our longest season, but it was an historic one with respect to natural snow, primo conditions and skier days. Still, I'd have been surprised if no one complained about closing "early". For those of us who go to Whitetail every week, every year, it was obvious that last weekend (which was blue bird both days) was the real end of the season. We strive to provide an experience so enjoyable you'll want to come back again and again. It's been an honor to be part of the experience. Thank you all for coming and helping Whitetail to make a bundle. The rumors are flying as to where all that money will be spent. Rusty promises there will be some surprises a lot more exciting than an extra weekend of being open with thin cover.

If you're still upset Rod, you're more than welcome to come up next weekend, don a life preserver and help Patrol bring the sleds down, take up the bamboo, tear down the lift tower padding, pick up the trash, swab the restrooms, vacuum the carpets, clean the refrigerators, scarf a burger and sneak a few runs in. My bet is you'll be waiting until next year when the snow turns white again.

I hate to be the guy to rally the troops and call BS on the shut down this past weekend. Here is why I was upset to see the resorts close out early.
#1. Massanutten and Bryce are open till at least next week and they are south of here.
#2. Whitetail, Roundtop, and Liberty have only blown 2 nights of the past month or more at around $40,000 a night, (Inside Info). That is a savings of over $1,000,000.
#3. I went skiing with gtop last night at Liberty. Base on every run was at least 3 feet. Some areas had upwards of 8 feet. I have the pics to prove it.
#4. It was shut down Sunday morning via the websites. Last minute with no respect to the people who plan their lives around skiing when it is in season. After a season of awesome dumps of snow; to close on the same weekend that they always do proves one thing. They want the money and could care less about die hards.
#5. In the previous years they have really had to work hard to keep areas snow filled. This year they have spent zero time and I mean zero, pushing around snow to cover the terrain parks and the main runs. The terrain park at Liberty still has the 2 huge jumps and other features built on both sides. These could have been pushed down to smaller features and still been skiable for the weekend.
#6. Liberty wasn't offering any end of season discount passes yesterday either. Fishy huh? Full price lift tickets. Well of course unless you buy the season pass early and you can ski the rest of the season for an additional $30. Oh, wait. It is the end of the season now, sorry. Seems funny that They shut down and they never offered any discounted spring skiing huh? That's right another way to rip off your hard earned bucks.
#7. The comments made about closing and tearing down padding, and cleaning up, yada yada yada. They do this every year and I am sure they shouldn't mind doing it a week later if they were really die hard skiers. Whats the big deal with that?
Not to disrespect Rusty at all, but Whitetail gets cruddy and ugly because of the steep pitch to the terrain. So I can understand why they may have shut down a week early. Liberty and Roundtop however shouldn't have been shut down. Also the fact that Whitetail shut down at 5 PM was a huge joke. They should have stayed open for the last day until 10 especially when they called it late.

To end my letter of discontent:
I feel that it is a sham that these guys are using the rain as an excuse to close early. You know that it is especially cheap when they close all 3 resorts on the same day regardless of snow base. End of story there. It is also sad when the lifties are calling it crap. These guys don't make jack to work there yet they still said they should have shut down during the week. Preserved the snow and had a killer bluebird closing spring weekend coming up for the 20th and 21st. P.S. The snow at Liberty last night was some of the best granular for a night ski I have had in the past 3 weeks. Really enjoyable. So don't give me any BS Snowtime about the lack of quality snow. It was far better than I ever imagined it would have been.

And so it has been written by, "The Jamie",!

I was actually thinking of skiing tomorrow at WT. Looks like I'll have to spend my $ else where.

I'm not sure WT has ever offered end of the season discounts. They like to extract the full priced tickets from their customers until the very end.

I actually like to ski at WT, but the prices and the management's lack of customer appreciation has kept me away. I'll ski close to 30 days in the Mid-Atlantic, luckily none of them were at any of the Snowtime ski areas.

NOOOOOO!!!!! They needed to have at least ONE of the ST resorts open this coming weekend!!! Previously LIBERTY reported that their would in fact be open the 20/21 march weekend, right on their website, so this is a bit of a change.

The excuse of "no customers" is a weak one. As previously stated by others, they have made a tidy profit on snowmaking alone. It's no mystery why people didn't come out and ski in the deluge this weekend... Is ST management brain dead? What did they expect this weekend?

In the past they have temporarily closed and re-opened, I would have suggested that as a means of staying open yet another weekend. At least one resort (WHITETAIL would have been preferable) could have been open this coming weekend.

Pathetic move on the part of SNOWTIME.

chuckie

Jamie's points are spot on, especially 1,3,6 and 7. I'll add one more that they never seem to be "embarressed" or have safety concerns to charge full freight for a WROD in Dec. compared to a few brown spots March.

Chuckie's right shoulda left one open--understand an early closing for WT, but RT traditionally is open later than her sisters.

Bad move. Oh well, I guess I'll have to drive a little further this weekend, but at least I may get lei-ed.

Jamie,

I don't speak officially for Whitetail or Snowtime. These are my own personal opinions based on years of experience as an employee of Whitetail, including one on one discussions with management.

We don't like upset customers. It is a sign that we could be communicating more effectively. Whitetail should have announced the 5PM Sunday planned closing on Saturday. I'm sorry for that.

You are right that all 3 resorts could have stayed open through next weekend and that if they had, a handful of hard core skiers and a few beginners could have had some fun. Of course, it also would have been easy to complain that the conditions were crappy. This is a fact of life for late spring skiing. It's a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't.

We don't need to see the books to know that Snowtime resorts made money this season. If you saw the radar this weekend, you know that Snowtime resorts lost money this weekend. Anyone who saw the forecast last weekend could have fore-casted the bust this past weekend. Snowtime resorts did not stay open through last weekend expecting to make money. WT staying open till 5PM yesterday was a joke. We could have shut down at noon and refunded all the paying customers at triple what they paid and still saved money. If it was only about the money, all 3 resorts would have ended their seasons on 3/7.

Most resorts operate by plowing profits back into improvements. At some point resorts have to draw the line and say that money would be better spent on improvements than on serving a handful of customers at a loss just to be open few more days under marginal conditions. Making these decisions is not easy. The original owners of Whitetail weren't good at it. They went bankrupt. Snowtime is very good at it. The differences at Whitetail are plainly visible.

You may think this stuff is BS, but you are wrong. We always close with more snow on the mountain than when we open. We always spend the last couple weeks pushing around a ton of snow and yet still have massive mounds of snow left over. We do try to preserve terrain park features because "park rats" hang on till the end. We always stop blowing snow near the end of the season. The schedules for other resorts don't impact when Snowtime resorts open or close. Just because they're further South does not mean they have less snow or less customers (Ski Beech has not closed for the season).

We wanted to stay open through the 21st. We had plans for $20 discount tickets for next weekend. We had contingency plans to shut down during the week this week. Roundtop usually stays open longer than Whitetail. Sometimes Liberty does too. It's not like we're ignorant of these things. It just did not work out this year. This is not BS. It's the ski business.

It's great that you care enough to voice your concerns. You are free to believe it's all BS, funny, fishy, a ripoff and a sham. But it would be really cool if you channeled all that negative energy into learning how things really work in this business.

Uhhhhh, how about passholders and real estate owners. Record consistently low temps for snowmaking and record snowfall this year and Snowtime closes----early? Res ipsa loquitur ("the thing speaks for itself").

El queso está viejo y ptrido

wow - when is the last time those resorts closed with that much terrian open - whitetail was only down 1 trail - i think the other 2 where 100% (although im sure monday morning that changed with all the rain and warm temps)

I have seen the resort suffer through really bad seasons and closed with very little base left. This really does not look good to shut down with amount of snow that is still there. How much could another week of operation cost? If WT can not stay open a little longer this season, then when?

It's a business. It would be nice if they operated on weekends for a while longer but I am quite sure they could not bring in enough skiers to cover operating costs. We are lucky to have someone like Doc who will keep Timberline going as long as possible, even while losing money. This has both its upside and its downside.

I was at Whitetail Saturday about 4PM. It sucked. Bad. Stick a fork in her. Fog and torrential rain are death. There were about 15 cars in the parking lot - many, many more in the employee lot.

But can agree with any pass holder who still wanted one more weekend somewhere in the Snowtime family. Seems that's usually the case..but not this year. So boo on that.

Meh. I'm having a hard time getting all worked up over the closing. Guess I like the idea of the money saved being put back into the operation.

Maybe they use that money to figure a better way of channeling traffic at the base area (I ranted elsewhere before, won't hijack the thread with a repeat).

Overall, Snowtime does a great job running those three resorts. They don't give it away, but it's kind of hard to argue with their management practices. They've brought a great deal of stability to those resorts and served the region well in an industry subject to significant operating costs, consolidation, volatile weather, and unpredictable profit margins.
Of course, that's easy for me to say, I'm not a passholder there.

Well just to clarify a few things for TheRusty. I know that you don't like me calling it BS. I did however agree with you on the condition of Whitetail. Whitetail usually needs to shut down earlier than the other 2 resorts. It is completely understood. You can't make an argument though for shutting down at noon instead of 5pm as if it would have been cool to do that at Whitetail. I hope you do realize that it was raining pretty hard in the early am till noon. Liberty and Roundtop both saw the rain taper off for a nice night sesh. The next thing I would say is, If you aren't in management then what do you do for Whitetail? How do you claim to have an inside idea of their money situation at all? If you are going to mark my observations as irrelevant than you really need to make sure you are spewing facts and not propaganda. I also have a degree in business so I highly doubt that I know nothing about their operations and procedures. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that they made a heap of money this year and that one more week wouldn't have killed them. It isn't the end of the world that they shut down. It's how they did it. Very unethical in my viewpoint. A real buzzkill. Also, the snow conditions are not unsafe at Liberty or Roundtop. Grooming would take care of the bare spots and shutting down 2 backside trails would not keep people from skiing. Especially when thewy are all lined up to welcome us to their fabulous resort early season when they only have 2 trails open.
Here is the somewhat simple breakdown of economics for ya:
10 park rats at $35 discount passes = $350.
Liftie Pay: $7.49 an hour (lifty friends pay rate confirmed)
1 Lifty for a full day = $104.86
7 lifties pay for one weekend = $1,468.04
It would take 41 park rats to pay for the lifties for a weekend. Now tell me where I am missing something. Lodge food makes more money. Beer sales make more money. Locker rentals make more money. ski instructions make more money.
Other costs would be groomers wage for 2 days. Maybe $500 for the weekend
Fuel for lifts to run. Lets call it $3,000
Heating and sewer charges for operating lodge and rental shops etc.
Ski Patrol = Ha Ha $zero dollars
So did I mss something? It looks like you could operate for a weekend with a blowout closeout spring bluebird party for a profit or break even at least. The truth is that it would only take about 300 skiers max to make money for a weekend. I am pretty sure that they get that amount on a sunny spring closeout day. So yes I call BS on them all Rusty. It was done because they don't care what any of us think, and that is their deal. I just know that I don't think anyone is drinking the Rusty brown noses Snowtime Kool-Aid. Sorry Rusty! I'm not signing up for my hooded robe and Addidas sneakers to take a trip to the snowtime mothership with ya. And I highly doubt anyone else here is going to either.

JamieGrose79

Some of your calculations re: Whitetail costs are incorrect.

First of all - pay for 7 lifties - the wage numbers are correct, but where do you plan on putting these lifties - at the top or at the bottom of the lift? To safely run the lifts at least 3 lift operators per lift are needed. If you eliminate the new magic carpet lift and don't run the small carpet lift in front of the ski school you will need at least 18 lifties to run the lifts safely. The hours lifties would be needed is roughly 7:30 AM to 10:30 PM - or 15 hours. That is 270 lift attendant hours per day if Whitetail is open all day/night. At $7.49 per hour that comes to $2,022.30 per day (not including payroll taxes, etc.) You also have to pay the lift supervisors.

The Patrol/Safety Team are mostly volunteers. However you have to have at least one paid patrol on mountain when the mountain is open.

Ski Instructors don't get paid unless they are actually teaching a lesson. You might have a few takers on the last weekend, but my guess is that most guests would be die hard skiers and unlikely to take lessons. You would still have to have a paid ski school supervisor on the mountain.

No beer sales at Whitetail - not much food left to sell either. The pickins' were slim last weekend.

Most guests at the end of the season are pass holders/employees, very little income from actual ticket purchases.

I can't really speak to the rest of your figures, but just wanted to correct some of your calculations.

Sorry. I was just throwing numbers out there to represent something more than just to say expense. I was actually trying to throw out some numbers for Liberty. Front side chair lift with midstation.(3 Lifty's). Backside Lift (2 Lifty's). Frontside beginners (2 Lifty's). Total of 7 lifty's. I should have calculated 15 hours. My bad. You guys get the picture though. Not a ton of dough all things considered. Especially after a record snow season and great length of time without snowmaking.
I just wont follow anyone who refers to themselves in 3rd person and has a website of their own name. Sounds like an Ego problem to me so I just wont listen to the information given because it is always given to us as an accurate depiction of whats going on and we are always supposed to eat it up as the truth. I am just tired of it. I didn't like how he said we did not have the right to complain in his first post. Really upset me, as if the GOD of skiing had spoken. Sorry for going off the deep end here guys. Depressed from the end of season blues.

Creepy, eh?

Like some have said in this thread...better to shut down early and use the "savings" to improve the product for next year. I do agree the noification of the SnowTime resorts closing was ill timed, but I'll leave it up to management to figure out how to best manage and run a ski area. Each year, here at DCSki we have arguments between the "hangers-on for just one more run" and the reality that most skiers begin to stay away when temps. get springlike in the metro areas. Snowshoe is taking a gamble this year by trying to capture the Easter vacation folks, but only for those out of school the week before Easter, many districts, like Durham, NC, have their break the week after Easter.
I say, be thankful for the year we have had, for the areas still open, and go and patronize these areas as a "Thank you". If one gets a good return on their money by staying open late, others will notice and do the same, maybe next year. One reason the Shoe is giving it a try is the large base which minimizes the need for groooming to keep trails open.
The Colonel

Rusty, what exactly is your position at Whitetail? You seem to have all the "inside" info and are very defensive of criticisim against Whitetail

AFAIK, Rusty is an instructor at Whitetail.

And from what I can tell, he is a stand-up guy. I don't agree with all his opinions, but I think he's worthy of some respect. He's been posting here a while. And I believe also on Epic.

My 2 cents:

At some point, for the sake of the season pass holders (and getting the pass holders to renew in the future), Snowtime (and Timberline) need to stay open at the end of the season, even if they may be losing money on the last weekend (or two.) IMHO, Snowtime should have kept Roundtop and possibly Libery open this upcoming weekend. (Closing Whitetail makes a lot of sense.) As for T-Line, Snowy Luau is this weekend; Doc ain't losing money on this weekend. (If he is, he's in the wrong bidness.)

Simple business rule: if you worry too much about the marginal costs, you risk losing your core profit.

...John, you don't seriously think Doc will know how much money he makes during snowy luau weekend do you???

....I don't know about the snowtime resorts, I don't understand why people just don't drive an extra 2 hours to WV get better conditions and away from those horrid crowds anyway...but for timberlines seasons length, skiers are going to have to start putting there money where there mouth is if they want the season to last longer...

...hypothetically the season certainly could go well into april at t-line,especially this year...but the fact is t-slime will have an average crowd snowy luau and a marginal crowd locals cup weekend, but during the week, ateast if the last 10 years are an indicator, there will be maybe a dozen paying customer a day at most during the week...folks from DC area just don't come up in late March,its a fact and until that changes there is no reason to stay open...the theory that is beat to death around here is that in march the weather is warm in dc and folks would rather stay in the warm dc weather to play golf, wash their fancy cars,etc rather then come up and enjoy zero crowds and wonderful spring skiing in WV...Doc would be stupid to stay open in april if he ain't going to have any customers...but, it doesn't make any real difference anyway, you can almost hike herz mountain as slow as t-slime lifts "go" anyway...

JohnL - I agree with a number of your points.

Rusty does seem like a decent guy and is very knowledgeable about skiing techniques.

One item Jamie didn't figure in his calculation is that a handful of season pass or advantage card holders may not purchase passes next season due to the early closing. (5 passes at $400/ea = $2,000). I ran into my Canadian neighbor yesterday and he said he was taking his family up to WT this weekend, I broke the bad news to him and he was pissed. He couldn't believe that WT would close down during such an epic winter. He has had a family advantage card for the last five seasons, my guess is he won't purchase one next season. Besides, I took him to the Valley in January to experience some mid-atlantic pow. He is forever a changed man.

If WT made $ this season, they should give back to its customers. Sometimes you've got to spend $ to make $.

There are two reasons I don't ski the Snowtime areas:

1. They aren't family friendly.
2. Midweek lift tickets prices are outrageous. I can understand the high prices for the weekend, but during the week the place is empty. Wisp offers great midweek lift tickets prices that are around $21 for a 9-9pm ticket and the place is always packed.

Scott, I didn't realize you commuted from that far away. You must really be committed to skiing in the Valley, eh?

But once again next season we will watch TL build up this huge base with Epic early snow at times like 2 T-givings ago.. remaining closed while other areas cash in on early money ,opening anything that they can...WHY?..because they pride (ED) themselves on being the last kid on the block!..Now SS decides to close in April & TL is whining like the Stuck pig at the Luao..& trying to wimp out with all this useless snow that they have accumulated....You can't fix STUPID....

...Fish, if you want Tline to open earlier then you are going to have to do 2 things....get Doc to realize his product is skiing and not the cafeteria and get deer and bear season moved to october instead of nov....no doubt resorts are going to make more money on the front end of the season rather then the back end as far as customer visits go, especially establishing return customers for the season....as far as blowing deep base at timberline it is more of necessity because of the archaic system they have,low pumping capacities, old infrastructure and they have to move guns around physically to blow trails...if they blew 12 inches and moved on then they would have to move the guns back...moving guns off an entire trail then setting them up another wastes a lot of snow blowing time...let alone then moving the guns back to a trail that was already set up to go, and if it is early season with marginal snow blowing temps then that could be a bad move loosing the valuable blowing time while moving equipment...I hear ya though and am on the same page...

Quit your whining! All three offered up great conditions this season - over 90 days worth. Before the big storms they made snow in a major way and even made some after the storms when the base was deep, just to keep it fresh. I live near Roundtop and this year the snow was sweet until last Friday! In case you didn't notice, it rained over 2 inches with a very warm 40 mph wind this weekend. By Sunday there were HUGE bare spots all over the mountain and the snow was manky glop. With no cold weather in the forecast, there was no way they could have brought it back to something decent this time.

Gotta agree with pinheadlarry here. I was at Liberty Friday, Saturday AND Sunday of last weekend. You could literally watch the snow line retreat. By Saturday night, lower Eastwind and Whitney's had to be shut down. There was also a small creek running UNDER the lower part of Heavenly as well as three large sink holes up and down the trail. Sunday was a demonstration of the groomers' skill as Whitney's was REOPENED and Heavenly repaired. Nothing could save lower Eastwind and lower Strata was gone as well (large crevasse across the entire lower part).

Liberty promised full days of skiing both days and delivered. Patrol was NOT allowed to close early ANY of the weekend days and shut down both days (including during Saturday's torrential downpour) was not until the advertised hour of 10pm. In fact, Liberty STAYED open Saturday night for maybe half a dozen paying customers. Not enough to cover payroll OR expenses, but done because it was promised to customers.

From my perspective, I believe we had a GREAT season. Time to pull out the fishing rods/reels . . . Have a GREAT summer all and see you next season!

...I have a feeling a lot of people are feeling that way and that is exactly why t-line will close at the end of March with several feet of snow on the slopes...I had about a 1/2 inch of snow on my truck this morning...

skins and crampons- check

One a similar note, I rode up the lift with someone last week at Park City Mountain Resort who got a season pass this year at PCMR this year because they stayed open one extra weekend last year (an epic year in Utah.) Good will counts for a lot in business. He could have gotten a pass at The Canyons instead.

WELL SAID! If WISP could move an hour closer, I'd abandon SNOWTIME all together.

chuckie (hurt by the short EPIC season)

Another item not factored in is the real estate owners. As the resorts, and even the local ones, sell slope side real estate, the extension of the season also impacts these folks as well. When you build all this stuff slope side,you move from the "my mountain-my business" approach towards the member-country club model.

Although to be honest, I was at Wisp last weekend and was suprised that most of the houses off Main Street were vacant.

Jamie,

I teach skiing and snowboarding at Whitetail. I also work as a Snowtime marketing rep at ski shows, events, etc. in the fall. Marketing reps get to talk with all three resort GMs when we get briefed each year about "What's New". As a school staff trainer I also get additional opportunities to interact with management. Finally, throughout the season I make an effort to go to the source and ask management questions directly either when I see them around or by visiting them in their offices. While we don't get to see the books, we do get to hear lots of numbers about skier visits, lessons sold, snowmaking acre feet made, capital expenditures, etc. When you combine that stuff with some of the answers to the "why" questions you get get a good feel for what's really happening. This is especially true when we have events like the post season tubing hill terrain park "contests".

I hope you realize I did not make an argument for closing at noon on Sunday. What I said was "If money was the main concern" that would have been done. I don't mind you calling this stuff BS. I do mind other people actually believing your BS and I'm calling you on it.

I did not claim that I have inside info on the money situation. I agreed that the money situation is obvious. Snowtime had a very good year this year. You're absolutely right that one more week would not have killed Snowtime. You're entitled to view Snowtime's actions as unethical. Along the same lines, I'm entitled to view your opinion as naive and misinformed.

Still, I'll give you credit for your math. In addition to labor (which is missing security, accounting, housekeeping, first aid, etc.), there are big costs for diesel, electricity and probably insurance. Whether it's 200, 300 or 500 people, there is a number. Would you accept that Snowtime knows "the number" better than you do? Would you accept that their guesses about expected customers are better too? Would you accept that if they thought they'd make money that they would have stayed open. So if you are right about it being all about the money, then there is either a discrepancy in your cost estimates or your revenue estimates. Snowtime's revenue estimates for next weekend could have been wrong. But it's hardly unethical for them to make estimates and act on them. The bottom line is that your argument that it's all about the money does not add up.

I can't comment on snow safety at Liberty or Roundtop. I can tell you that I heard reports of sinkholes opening up during the day at Whitetail and the volumes of running water I saw were the most I've ever seen at Whitetail. In Liberty's defense, I'm pretty sure Whitetail has more snowmaking capacity and Whitetail got 18" more natural snow. Whitetail loses it quicker do to exposure, but my observation is that this year temps and rainfall played more of a factor than normal. I'm surprised that Roundtop was closed, but I'm not shocked.

It's fair to say that I'm biased for Snowtime. I am. I won't say anything negative about them in public. But I won't lie for them and I don't need to brown nose them either. I work for them and support them because I love the sport and I like their product. I've also found it easier to make positive changes happen by working with people instead of against them.

You say that "they don't care what any of us think". You could not possibly be any more wrong. But your attitude makes it highly unlikely that anyone in management would be willing to try to prove it to you. I know this because I asked about this when the Whitetail shame thread went up. They think I'm nuts for trying to change your mind. I'm not trying to change your mind, but I am nuts. So, if you'll please excuse me, Rusty's Kool-Aid is getting warm and his web site (www.TheRusty.com) needs updating.

I can only say a few things about it Rusty! I never said my math was spot on. It just shows that if you run on a limited amount of people needed to satisfy customers you could have a killer weekend close date and keep customers satisfied.
Unsatisfied customers equal a loss of revenue next year. I for one am going to make sure that I cost them as much money possible next year. I am building a few sets of skis for anyone who wants them. I will have some nice blow torches mounted on the rear of them so I burn as much base as possible. Then they can blow every night possible. LOL.
Listen. You know it is crazy not to take a small loss at the end of a season when so many people are calling it BS. I didn't sound the BS alarm. I basically mad rational points that management should have taken into consideration. You know they will turn that money the saved around to do something great. Like build a new lodge to sell more food. Or perhaps replace an old lift with a somewhat modern but equally slow lift on the backside. Liberty has yet to impress me with expenses for the skier and boarder. Build some new trails with this years money and we will talk.
The issue I take with you is that you busted me out on Epic about my skis and I still think you are not as knowledgeable as you feel you are. I talk with many people at the resorts as well. I just don't like to wave my big stick in the air as if I am somebody special!
I like how you try to critique somebody like me for trying to promote a sport that has been dying in the past few years to that of the single plank crew. You tell me that as biz doesn't start off well if someone pisses their customer base off. Yet when it comes to Snowtime apparently that motive is OK if you are a monopoly for a local area. It may be possible to stay afloat working on that principle, but it will catch up to them in the end.
Now go fix your website. You have a ton of fans that follow you daily. Don't upset them Celebrated Skier! That's a song compliment check it out!

Piling on here....
It was handled very poorly, worse than any year I've been a passholder. As late as Sat. evening at the 'trollers party at Flannerys, the plan was to close during the week and finish out open next weekend. There were plenty of midweek days with only 15 cars in the lot. Do they close then to save $ for future improvements?

Did they make the desired 100-day goal? Ironic, in the most epic of seasons that the usual target was missed by 8 days.

Like someone else said, look how many e-mails we get to come enjoy the mid-winter conditions in early December with only a few WROD open.

Rusty (if you're still listening to this thread), you could do all of us diehards a favor and at least let Mgmt. know of the opinions and threads out here. How many people might have purchased their next year's pass while there next sunny weekend? Sunny people are happy and spendy people. Mgmt. looks pretty damn mgmt-like to me right now. Looks like Doc will be getting my weekend family $.

Camp,

I know of one Whitetail manager that reads DC ski regularly. Since Snowtime advertises regularly here, I suspect there are more management readers. "They" know. I wish they'd respond to these threads, but I don't blame them. It takes a lot of time to write this stuff.

As I've said once already. If it was just about the money, they would have closed on the 7th. The instructors got an email on Friday that the tentative plan was to shut down at 5PM on Sunday and then wait till Wednesday to make the call on the coming weekend. I talked to a patroller on Sunday AM walking up from the parking lot and bet him the plan would change by noon. He said "No way. Definitely waiting till Wed" based on a meeting with the GM Saturday night. I think what happened at Whitetail is that they heard from the groomers about the overnight damage, saw the water coming off the mountain in the morning, counted the ticket sales, looked at more rain on Monday, a string of 60 degree days with no overnight refreezing T-F and only one nice day on the weekend and decided they had to pull the plug. We wanted to stay open. Many instructors packed their gear on the 7th. We knew the 21st was going to be a stretch. But I sensed expectations from management that we were definitely going to make it because of all the snow on the mountain. We try to go 100 days and brag when we make it. It is ironic, but it's a small price to pay for such a fine season. And we do realize there is price when we lose customers to other resorts because of these decisions. It is sad that we don't say "The season is coming to an end. We hope to stay open through..., but we may not make it."

Snow wise, we won't know for sure whether or not people made the right call until Saturday AM. But looking at the web cams this afternoon, you could either say "See - there's still plenty of snow" or "OMG - look at all the brown snow. Limelight is toast already. Homerun is not going to make it." People wise, there's no way to tell for sure how many customers would have showed.

Jamie,

Apparently you have not been listening. I was trying to complement you on the math. I think your numbers were fairly close. I've tried to thank you for helping to keep us on our toes. I've tried to tell you that Whitetail does care about customer service. If you think management did not consider your rational points you are sadly mistaken. The post season tubing hill terrain park events prove that they've been experimenting with minimal operations. And this proves you have not been listening.

I gave you feedback on Epic because nobody else had and you asked for it a second time. I explained why my feedback included brutal honesty and why you should feel free to ignore it because I wasn't your target market. It's truly impressive that you've cranked out a set of custom made skis. I sincerely wish you good fortune in your endeavors. I hope that you're never forced to make decisions that suck for your customers.

No matter how knowledgeable I really am, my advice is worth every penny that you've paid for it.

We had a snowy / epic mid-season, but my informal weather database (ski notes going back about 6 years) tells me that the important bookends of the season, which are December and March, were/are warmer and rainier than normal. I had one of my latest starts to the season in December. March is normally a snowy month, and often delivers at least 2-3 powder days in WV. But it's been spring skiing since about the 5th, with only weak signs of a brief cold snap coming and no sure powder bets in the forecast. So March hasn't been great to the resorts. I think we need to temper the idea that an epic mid-season *must* lead to an extended season. Sometimes it's a stretch when it gets warm and rainy in March.

I drove right past WT today, skied Wisp instead. The snow was quite good.

More importantly, I hope Management saw this:



Camp - I hope you make it to Tline this weekend.

For you Roundtop skiers who may be wondering why they are closed...the top of Minuteman is down to the dirt all the way across, lots of bare spots in other areas. You can see the dirt from Rt 15. The snow is undermined by running water in many areas - if you even walk on it, it collapses. I'm sure Liberty and Whitetail are much the same. 65 degrees today and tomorrow. Even if they did decide to give it a try, it would be garbage snow. I for one am very pleased with the season - epic snow all year. When I figured it out with my season pass I skied for less than $9 a day. Overpriced? I think not! I already bought my pass for next year. If you choose not to get a pass over missing a couple days of total crap snow at the end of the year then you're just being stupid!

Well said and the best observation on this thread. Made me rethink my earlier frustration as I had not looked hard at the forecast for this week.

And based on Pinheadlarry's report the decision was a good one as RT has the best exposure and latitude of all three of the resorts.

While the SnowTime mgt might be reading this forum, I highly doubt that the comments of the relatively few here is going to be that big an influence. The high prices/no weekday discount suggests to me that they are getting "enough" visits to not warrant such discounts. The target customer is the casual skier who will pay the premium for close by skiing. Most casual skiers stop skiing when winter ends for them. When the market is gone, it's time to stop selling.

That's the plan at the moment, though I could be at White Grass or CV as well. I assume the best snow will be at Tline, anyone think the trees will be skiable at Tline??

I strongly agree with the pinheasds comments. Iloved the skiing this year and I am always treated wll by the whitetail staff. All the staff say they love working there. Doesn'
t seem all that bad to me. OBTW it was 70 degrees today. I wasn't goinna ski this weekned anyway :-)

I gave pinheadlarry five (count 'em), five stars for his post.

OK. Rusty. I call a truce. We can both agree to disagree.
As far as pinheadlarry. Are you serious? 2 posts and then we are supposed to believe you aren't an alias for another person on here trying to agree with himself or someone else they are friends with. Let's get real. I don't care what anyone says about the view from Rt. 15 or the web-cams. There is plenty of snow to be pushed around to fill in the dead spots.
Also, Just to let some other people know that snow that has voids in it and depressed melted areas do not equal sinkholes. I can offer much geotechnical information regarding sinkholes as I have personally filled about 30 of them in my career in construction. A sinkhole is dangerous because it falls in abruptly swallowing up earth, rock, mud and water. A fissure in between Carce rock-bed formations actually deteriorates and causing water to erode mud into the fissure. If the plug of mud drops into the fissure completely then it swallows anything above it until it plugs again. This was not a sinkhole that was seen at Liberty. It was melted collapsed snow which is easily tracked in by a groomer. By the way, Whitney's was the best run of the night with the 8 foot of base down the whole trail. Even if the trails fall apart during the week it could be fixed for the weekend. Or they could have just said lets ski the stuff until its way too bad. It wasn't bad on Sunday. It is Wednesday now going on Thursday so how much has it really fallen apart? Let's go poach it and see shall we?

Plenty of options this weekend. Besides TL, BK sent an email out for $5 tickets for any season pass holder at any other resort.

I skied Wisp again yesterday. The snow is in great shape. No bare spots and lots of paying customers. The parking lot had at least 100 cars in it. I guess the $21 lift tickets brought out a lot of casual skiers.

Not trying to take sides here, but at this time of year, it's frequently not possible to get grooming equipment in position to do this without making the damage worse. Some places won't even groom when temps are above freezing, as the groomers can do more damage than they fix. They are heavy and don't get reliable traction in soft wet snow. It doesn't take much to get down to the mud and then you've totally ruined the snow in that area, potentially making the problem much worse than it was. If a groomer drops down to mud in any one part of a trail, it has the potential to make a small mess into a big mess, including tracking the mud onto other trails and connectors. Brown snow is a cancer at any time of the season, especially now.

I talked about this with one of the groomers at WTG a few years back, and he said they really have to analyze every situation carefully. In some cases they make an educated and strategic effort to re-groom a bare spot or crevasse. In other cases, they know it can only get worse if they move grooming equipment into the area and they have to let it go. So it's not unheard of for an entire trail to close down because one impassable section can't be repaired.

Yeah, there were a reasonable number of people at Massanutten as well. Not really busy, but more than I expected midweek this time of year.

A good example of this was Eye Opener at Wisp. Closed last weekend because of a collapse just above the intersection of Down Under, but plenty of other snow on the entire trail.

SCWVA did they reopen this when you were there??????

Twenty bucks at Beech Mountain, pond skimming, come on down. got some new snow this week. Closed after Saturday.

I wonder if suddenly, when the last week is announced, that a few more people hit the slopes to get in that list fix. Probably a very narrow window of opportunity to make a little dough before packing up for next year.

footnote:

So far I have 5 days at snowshoe, 3 at wintergreen, 2 at beech, and none in the valley. So I have less skiing in the one of the best years; it just works out that way sometimes. One more day at Beech on Saturday and I am thinking about Snowshoe for last weekend, and will have a couple of days at Stephens Pass and Crystal two weeks later. That will be it. Getting sad already.

No. Eye Opener and Highline were still closed. But they did have the crevasse marked. I'm assuming the snow is probably too soft to work on it. Wisp does seem to be doing some grooming at night. Coverage is great and the snow is surprisingly clean/white.

Camp

Redman says you should beat the crowds on Saturday and come hang with him at CVR.

Based on what I saw yesterday at Wisp, I'm guessing the woods on the upper half if not the entire of the mtn are still very skiable.

Tell Mr. Red he might see me w/ a kid and xc gear on at least one lift ride at CV.