Extended seasons may interfere? When ski seasons go long, the downhill mountain biking season gets cut short. Of course there's lots of stuff to do at these resorts that doesn't require as much access to trails.
-
For more information on how to avoid pop-up ads and still support SkiTalk click HERE.
Colorado Powdr Has Purchased Eldora
- Thread starter SBrown
- Start date
Extended seasons may interfere? When ski seasons go long, the downhill mountain biking season gets cut short. Of course there's lots of stuff to do at these resorts that doesn't require as much access to trails.
I agree it will be the other way at resorts that don't hold a lot of snow up high late into spring and are pushing four season models, although in runoff/mud season most places won't do either and I'm not sure there is truly a four season model - it's really skiing and summer.
http://www.vail.com/info/epic-discovery.aspx#/TheAdventurePass
^^^$89 single day pass.
But back to the idea that you want one late season resort in your portfolio, you probably only want one in any given market. The rest you want to convert to compete against beach vacations. So agree that A-Basin and Vail are really a perfect marriage. Vail now has the summer theme park, and Breck and Keystone already have gondolas so why not add those as well once the idea proves out?
Yeah, on massive front range powder days you have to either be in the parking lot before the lifts start spinning or just admit defeat and roll in at noon (or - take the bus!). On regular days, however, you can be on your couch in Boulder at 8am and on the lift at 9am, which gives it a solid hour advantage in couch-to-chair time over A-Basin. I *love* having Eldora up there.
New Daily Camera article, also. Sounds like the pass situation will not be changing in the near future.
http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_29985627
^^^I really wish I had a resort close like Eldora is to Boulder - I'd get a ton of days out of it, probably double my days. I can get zero hours of skiing out of four hours of ski time (all driving). You can get the better part of 3 hours. That's huge. But Eldora for me is zero time savings (farther than Loveland).
I hope they do well under Powdr...
I hope they do well under Powdr...
Um. Breck already charges $77 for a day at their adventure park at the base of Peak 8. It's been around a while. I think you have the direction of proving out backwards (although I don't know when Vail actually started).
http://www.breckenridge.com/info/breckenridge-summer-adventure.aspx#/TheAdventurePass
Keystone also has some base activities, but I don't think at the same level.
Wasn't the 14/15 season the Epic Pass season? If so, not fair to judge Eldora based on that. I suspect it's a major reason they are no longer on the Epic Pass. I love being able to be door to lift in about 50 minutes on a good day and 75 on a really bad day. Would I have Eldora as my home mountain ever? No. Do I love being able to go there quickly when I can't stomach the I-70 shitshow? Hell yes!
The season I'm thinking of, I skied with Rachel and Kim, so it would have been RMSP. I think epic was the yeast before that.
Powdr has done a bang-up of removing old chairlifts at Killington with one of the old Snowshed Double chairs getting pulled out this year. One of these years we are hoping they may actually put in a new lift. The alpine coaster is cool but not the yeast that gets a rise out of most skiers.
Powdr Corp's purchases of both Mt. Bachelor and Killington started disastrously and earned well deserved emnity from the locals.
In both cases the reactions were so severe that Powdr Corp had to take corrective action and reverse some of the initial decisions:
1) Killington's early/late seasons have been restored.
2) Bachelor's late season operations were expanded a little bit though not to the level of prior ownership.
3) After having lift maintenance issues in the first years of Powdr Corp, Bachelor as noted is actually putting in a new lift and opening new terrain for next season.
I know a Boulder local from another forum, and prior Eldora management had an extremely negative local reputation. So as much as I've ragged on Powdr over the years for Bachelor and Killington, they could easily represent an improvement at Eldora.
Also, let's hope Powdr has learned from its past management mistakes. The one they made at Park City must the the worst in the history of the ski industry.
Reading the thread drift above, I agree that a Loveland/RMSP partnership could be fruitful for late season. If A-Basin sets its all time attendance record in May (as it did Mother's Day 2015) I think there is room for Loveland to be viable in May. Once Pali is closed, Loveland may offer as interesting a ski experience as A-Basin.
In both cases the reactions were so severe that Powdr Corp had to take corrective action and reverse some of the initial decisions:
1) Killington's early/late seasons have been restored.
2) Bachelor's late season operations were expanded a little bit though not to the level of prior ownership.
3) After having lift maintenance issues in the first years of Powdr Corp, Bachelor as noted is actually putting in a new lift and opening new terrain for next season.
I know a Boulder local from another forum, and prior Eldora management had an extremely negative local reputation. So as much as I've ragged on Powdr over the years for Bachelor and Killington, they could easily represent an improvement at Eldora.
Also, let's hope Powdr has learned from its past management mistakes. The one they made at Park City must the the worst in the history of the ski industry.
Reading the thread drift above, I agree that a Loveland/RMSP partnership could be fruitful for late season. If A-Basin sets its all time attendance record in May (as it did Mother's Day 2015) I think there is room for Loveland to be viable in May. Once Pali is closed, Loveland may offer as interesting a ski experience as A-Basin.
Pretty much all of the small Colorado ski areas were severely stressed in the 1980s and early 1990's and of surviving ski areas, Eldora probably came the closest to going under. While they expanded into Corona in the 1970's, they were operating so far into the red throughout the 1980's that they only operated the front face- Corona did not reopen until 1989. Amid ownership woes, the resort didn't operate in 1986-1987.
Things have been smoother sailing, but Eldora has never had a great relationship with the local government/forest service over expansions, road maintenance, etc. Most recently this was seen in the FS scrubbing most of the (pretty modest IMO) expansions in their MDP.
I am sure the shitshow that occurs whenever an upslope storm hangs in the forecast (where Eldora may get 3 feet while Breck/Copper get 3", and thus the whole world descends on little Eldora) doesn't help things.
So yeah, there is probably room for improvements in how the resort operates.
But, is Powdr the company that can do that? Maybe I am wrong, but when I think of Powdr and their resort philosophy, I always think "Just like Intrawest, but without any money." Maybe the no money is temporarily changed with the influx of Park City mercy money for the infrastructure, but I haven't seen Powdr in a big hurry to spend any of that...
How about a decent restaurant on the hill???
Or should I say descent ?
Screw the restaurant, build the damn Tucker lift and move the cat skiing to Jaques.
