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New England Vail Resorts, INC. takeover results

mdf

entering the Big Couloir
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Team Gathermeister
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Boston Suburbs
I've only been to Smuggs a few times. I love the terrain. But honestly, it is one of the few places that really needs to be bought by the Death Star.
 

Philpug

Notorious P.U.G.
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Reno, eNVy
I've only been to Smuggs a few times. I love the terrain. But honestly, it is one of the few places that really needs to be bought by the Death Star.
It was old 20 years ago.
 

Erik Timmerman

So much better than a pro
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6,304
It's like antique roadshow over there. That's the main argument against Vail buying it. Do they really want to spend $200 million dollars fixing it?
 

Guy in Shorts

Tree Psycho
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Feb 27, 2016
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2,168
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Killington
Perfect for folks that don't want a RESORT, simply a place to ski ogsmile
Burlington locals flock there. My cousin lives 2 miles from Jay yet drives down Smuggs once a week get his downhill turns in. He prefers the Suggs trail selection.
 

Black Dog

Its all downhill from here..
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Joined
Aug 22, 2016
Posts
393
Location
On The Edge
What about if Vail agrees to keeps the Notch open for the winter? A big snowblower truck and a sander? Maybe snow-cats for transport? I would think this would be a inexpensive way to join the two initially?
 

Green08

Front Range Skier
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Jan 23, 2018
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666
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COS
I don't think connecting the two areas will be as large of challenge as may appear at first glance. A 3S gondola would cost loads of money, but the environmental impact would be pretty low with only requiring possibly 4 towers to clear the gap.

The bigger issue I see is the very nature of the two resorts--aside from the skiing--don't connect. Smuggs is family friendly, inexpensively build, with loads of timeshare and condo development. Spruce Peak at Stowe is about as high end as you can find in Vermont, plus all the restaurants, bars, and hotels along the mountain road. Money could spruce up Smuggs fast (pun intended).

The problem is the Notch! You can't advertise a singular resort experience. It worked in Park City, because PCMR and the Canyons were both still in Park City, UT. Smuggs and Stowe are light years apart in terms of resort services and access. You cannot simply advertise beds on the Smuggs side using the "Stowe" name, when accessing the town of Stowe might be harder during the winter than just driving to Burlington. As they say, "Ya can't get there from heeyah." If a resort guest has to get in a car and drive 50 minutes to visit the other side of the resort you can't sell it as one place.

I don't see a combined Smuggs/Stowe resort making financial sense of the investment Vail would have to put into try to avoid environmental impact and building some kind of Telluride type lift system to "seamlessly" integrate the resorts without an easy traffic connection.
 

Green08

Front Range Skier
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Jan 23, 2018
Posts
666
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COS
However, Smuggs on its own is impossibly low hanging fruit.

If Stowe sold for $50 million, my goodness Smuggs will be valued cheap!

Convert Morse, Sterling, and Madonna 2 to HSQ and you transform the guest experience for beginners and intermediates. Truncate Madonna 1 at the current mid-station, and you preserve the upper mountain expert terrain and limit skier traffic in the most problematic areas.

And the Epic Local Pass is already priced the similarly to a Smuggs season pass.
 

James

Out There
Instructor
Joined
Dec 2, 2015
Posts
24,453
It was old 20 years ago.
It was cold 40 years ago...that's about all I remember from the trip hiking with skis from the top of Spruce Peak.
Back then Mt. Mansfield had two chairs going up liftline and used to hand out those wool ponchos for the ride up. The day going to Smuggs was a two poncho day on Mansfield. I don't think they gave ponchos out on Spruce.
 

raisingarizona

Out on the slopes
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Joined
Sep 30, 2016
Posts
1,112
I don't think connecting the two areas will be as large of challenge as may appear at first glance. A 3S gondola would cost loads of money, but the environmental impact would be pretty low with only requiring possibly 4 towers to clear the gap.

The bigger issue I see is the very nature of the two resorts--aside from the skiing--don't connect. Smuggs is family friendly, inexpensively build, with loads of timeshare and condo development. Spruce Peak at Stowe is about as high end as you can find in Vermont, plus all the restaurants, bars, and hotels along the mountain road. Money could spruce up Smuggs fast (pun intended).

The problem is the Notch! You can't advertise a singular resort experience. It worked in Park City, because PCMR and the Canyons were both still in Park City, UT. Smuggs and Stowe are light years apart in terms of resort services and access. You cannot simply advertise beds on the Smuggs side using the "Stowe" name, when accessing the town of Stowe might be harder during the winter than just driving to Burlington. As they say, "Ya can't get there from heeyah." If a resort guest has to get in a car and drive 50 minutes to visit the other side of the resort you can't sell it as one place.

I don't see a combined Smuggs/Stowe resort making financial sense of the investment Vail would have to put into try to avoid environmental impact and building some kind of Telluride type lift system to "seamlessly" integrate the resorts without an easy traffic connection.

I don’t think any of that is really an issue. The uniqueness or differences between the two could probably be marketed as such.
 

raisingarizona

Out on the slopes
Skier
Joined
Sep 30, 2016
Posts
1,112
However, Smuggs on its own is impossibly low hanging fruit.

If Stowe sold for $50 million, my goodness Smuggs will be valued cheap!

Convert Morse, Sterling, and Madonna 2 to HSQ and you transform the guest experience for beginners and intermediates. Truncate Madonna 1 at the current mid-station, and you preserve the upper mountain expert terrain and limit skier traffic in the most problematic areas.

And the Epic Local Pass is already priced the similarly to a Smuggs season pass.

Yes! Shorten the Madonna lift. No need to ski to the bottom every run. That would be the best expert lift in the east maybe.
 

Wilhelmson

Making fresh tracks
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Joined
May 2, 2017
Posts
4,328
For the right price they could take buy it and take it slow. Still they could put half that money into high end condos in Stowe or wherever and get the same payoff but in two years instead of 10.
 

Tricia

The Velvet Hammer
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Reno
Human ticket scanners are at all Vail Resorts, which I find surprising because they have a hard time finding enough employees for all the positions at the resort.
The things I'd like to say... I won't say. One change is that they have a very aggressive policy about talking to press and what not. So... no comment, or maybe I should say, call Jeff Wise and get a comment from him.

.
If I still have some of my old emails from my days working at N*, I'd share. I recall a few emails when it was a drought year that we were not allowed to talk to guests about the amazing capability to make snow. Their concern was that a guest may find it offensive that they waste so much water.
Another incident when an instructor died of a head injury, we received an email telling us not to speak to anyone about the incident.
 

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