Just sent to HV Forum:

Holy Smokes - Bottom Line Bob exiting the ski biz.  I hope he exits MLB ownership next.   

 For sure Holy #$^&*!

Leo wrote:

to Vail.  Holy crow.

Wow. Bob convinced me he finally is doing the right thing for our resorts.  Probably did it for the money but either way wow!

I wonder how much the pases will cost next year!

This will make it very hard for me to renew my Ikon Pass next year.  I sold my place in Snowshoe and these 3 places are 2ish hours from my house.  I assume they'll be on Epic Pass next year which opens up Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone and Breck for my annual out west trip.  I could not justify buying an Ikon and a Highlands Pass.  Now I'm not sure I can justify buying an Ikon next year 

Heck, I kinda hope they buy BK, TL and Wisp.   

Grumpy dad wrote:

I wonder how much the pases will cost next year!

oddballstocks wrote:

Wondering if they'll still keep the six/seven pack passes.  For our family those are really the best way to go, the season pass will never break even with just weekend skiing.

 They'll probably turn into the Epic Day Pass.

Wait, what? Holy cow!. I'm just finishing up a day at Timberline to find this news. Things heating up in the mid-A.

Hey all, have lurked in the past before but finally joining up with this 7Springs news. Pittsburgher here, and incredibly happy to hear that these spots may be joining Epic, while the Nuttings finally get out. I've been lucky to have access to a house out in Utah the last few years so it's been weird to fully snub the local hills. I just couldn't bring myself to shell out the money they were asking to ski there a few days a year. Looking forward to random weekday trips in 22-23. :) 

I feel like it's stupid to get my hopes up, but maybe there can finally be some meaningful terrain development at these places?

I want to add to this after thinking about this a bit and reading comments from others on social media.

I do fear that the 'spirit' of 7s and HV will go away when a mega company takes over, but let's be honest - show me the cool factor or where the spirit is at 7S?

 7S is a sh** show right now on the beginner trails.  It's a giant booze fest and dangerous for kids.  The only spirit left is the 'secret' lot behind gunnar that fills up by 8, and if you are lucky you wont get blocked in by a lifted truck with beer cans all around it.  

Im kinda hopeful that they do something toward the pritts distillery road around, they could take that and make it a longer trail with some steeper drops, leaving pritts/dist road closed for winter and the run out maybe around there or, possibly get rid of part of that useless lake there that im sure wasnt built up to safety standards.  

Not sure how to take this honestly, but 7S has felt like a vanilla rendition of a 'real' resort for a long time.  I guess if they tore down some of the old school buildings that would hurt, but the rest of the place is about as vanilla as it can get.  There just isnt much character here.  Or maybe I just skied it too much and cant appreciate it.  Dunno.

I do hope they keep putting on the lights, have the small festivals etc and expand on summer activities. 

Leo wrote:

to Vail.  Holy crow.

This sale worries me, based on others' experiences with Vail Resorts/Epic Pass. 

Granted that 2020-21 was a covid-shaped season, but it seems that Vail Resorts didn't make many friends.  It appears that large numbers were disappointed by what they viewed as cumbersome reservations policies, long waits on phone lines to get assistance, heavy curtailment of the number of lifts open weekdays, cutbacks on night skiing, extensive dismissals of management staff, termination of volunteer programs, and so forth.  I didn't ski a Vail Resorts property last season because of covid-related restrictions north of the Mason-Dixon Line until late in the season here in the East.  

Complaints this year are that many northeastern resorts that normally open by Thanksgiving weekend didn't, and that Vail Resorts currently open have noticeably less terrain open than their non-Vail counterparts (e.g., Stowe vs Sugarbush, Wildcat vs Sunday River).

For the details, here are links to two "Vail Sucks" threads I've followed:

• SnowJournal's 2021-22 Vail/Epic thread
• AlpineZone's Vail/Epic thread, starting December 20, 2020 - over 175 pages and counting

Woody

With the disclaimer that I ski at HV, the new ownership couldn't possibly be worse.

Buncher made improvements at HV which Nutting milked while letting things fall apart and making zero improvements.

7s will be full of gullible out of towners then if this org plays the squeeze every profit game. Then a ghost town. 

And how are they able to sell Laurel mountain isn't that state funded?  

Also I read they didn't buy the golf course at 7s or hv.  Or sporting clays and other properties.  This makes me worried as others stated this group just shits in summer. And I would be worries that they won't even consider expanding as nutting still owns all the land around 

Leo wrote:

With the disclaimer that I ski at HV, the new ownership couldn't possibly be worse.

Buncher made improvements at HV which Nutting milked while letting things fall apart and making zero improvements.

HV and LM, both long neglected under Bobby, could finally get some love under Vail. I'm not holding my breath though.

Grumpy dad wrote:

7s will be full of gullible out of towners then if this org plays the squeeze every profit game. Then a ghost town. 

And how are they able to sell Laurel mountain isn't that state funded?  

Also I read they didn't buy the golf course at 7s or hv.  Or sporting clays and other properties.  This makes me worried as others stated this group just shits in summer. And I would be worries that they won't even consider expanding as nutting still owns all the land around 

I don't think 7S will be a destination resort, and a lot of the DC crowd wasn't willing to travel up there for the most part, so I don't see a significant uptick in out of towners coming. MAYBE early season as WT et al typically get a start, but not sure the regular season. If anything, Vail probably wants a resort with significant visits that they add to funnel people north and west to those resorts.

Vail probably picked up 7S's lease on LM. It's still a state park, just operated by 7S and now Vail. Unless Vail sees keeping it long term, I don't know how much investment it'll get.

I never counted on much 7S expanding. They haven't added much west of Gunnar for years and what the did add was cut from more internal terrain. In don't see much in terrain growth coming.

If anything, it'll be more incremental infrastructure upgrades. They hinted at a possible detachable on North Face sometime down the road when u asked about it when they announced the New Avalanche quad. Wouldn't surprise me if that would come under Vail as I'm sure they were in talks they then. Beyond that, maybe some other lift upgrades like Tyrol and Blitzen becoming quads, snowmaking upgrades, and maybe lighting up the rest of the back side.

7S is pretty much turnkey for them, being mostly maintenance and not much needed to remain profitable.

I was thinking the same thing.  The only good coming out of this is at least Vail WILL put money in the resorts. 

Blue Don 1982 wrote:

Holy Smokes - Bottom Line Bob exiting the ski biz.  I hope he exits MLB ownership next.   

As Woody said above I agree this worrisome. I know Woody has seen the same stuff on the other Blog I'm on too for up North. Vail has taken a beating up there from many upset passholders this year and last year. As state by many on there, the bottom line is about the corporate dollar earned for their shareholders instead of providing a product on the mountain that people will want to ski over and over again. Vail Resorts is liken t generic brand. The name of the resort may be different but the product is the same due to the business model use at their resorts.

Living here in PA within 15 minutes to Whitetail and 30 minutes to Liberty I no longer have the desire to ski them because of Vail Resorts. They are being stripped down of their unique characters and molded in a boring Vail product. The question becomes would this acquisition be contested as having a monopoly in the state and possibly the Mid-Atlantic region. It has happened before with Vail and also ASC.

My take:

Nutting owns Ogden Newpapers and Publishing as well as the Pirates. Publishing is not exactly a growth industry. And I can't imagine the Pirates are hugely profitable. 7S was valued at $87.5 mil when Nutting purchased 7S from the Dupre family, although the sale price was never disclosed. It was reported that Booth Creek Holdings offered $100 mil for 7S. So let's say Bob paid $90 mil for 7S. And he paid $7 mil for HV. A total outlay of $97 mil. It was reported that Vail is paying $125 mill for 7S, HV and LM ( I assume Vail is buying the lease). So that nets Bob some capital, he pays off some loans and he still keeps the HV and 7S golf courses, the sporting clays facility and an undisclosed amount of developable land. 

Vail gets 7S's 20,000 pass holders as well as an unknown # of HV and LM pass holders, assumed to be future Epic Pass customers. Did they get any of the developable land at HV, 7S or Laurel Mountain Village that Nutting owns? 

7S snow making system and some of the lifts are getting old and there will be a need for capital outlays in the future to replace these facilities. HV also has aging lifts and snowmaking. Thus, 7S will need to invest in ski infrastructure upgrades. Kind of like owning an aging car, at some point the repair costs make it worthwhile to sell the car. Thus Nutting gets to avoid the capital outlays for upgrading lifts and snow making. The Avelance lift replacement is an example. That lift was getting too old to repair. Similar with some of the other lifts at 7S and HV.

As with everything, there is good and bad. We really don't know at this point what that is. We do know that Nutting was not investing in HV or LM. Will Vail have the capital to invest in improvements at 7S/HV/LM while still investing in the 30+ resorts they already own? I am cautiously optimistic that Vail will invest more the Nutting did in HV and LM. I think 7S did a good job of operating the ski areas. Hopefully Vail will do the same. 

It should be interesting, either way and it looks like next year I'll be getting an Epic pass which actually cost less that 7S Highlands Pass.

To each their own. On a good snow day 7 springs skis much much bigger than whitetail. If everything is open the north face is really a ton of fun. 

I wouldn’t let the vertical be the reason you won’t ski there.

wfyurasko wrote:

I've skied all over Pennsylvania and never made it out to 7 Springs. This thread is making me fill like I've made a good decision. I could never justify driving that far (from DC) for less vertical than Whitetail.

- Would agree with Snowsmith's comments about how the numbers have worked out for Nutting.  Was likely a good time to sell, since they likely had a stellar last year they could point to as travelers stayed closer to home.  While he may have recovered  his initial investment and then some, he would have likely been better to put his $ in an index fund and would have done much better with less cycles invested, so its not like he made out like a bandit.    The bonus is that he has ended up with some golf courses and real estate (more on this below)

-  From Vails perspective, their model for the past few years has to pick up regional resorts, and add them to their Epic pass program as feeder resorts into their other properties.  This has likely become even more central to their plan since visits to some of their large western resorts have been down over the past year.   Assuming $125M, this is no small amount for 3 mid-atlantic resorts, (of which one is a concession rather than full ownership).   Consider that 2 years ago they bought all 17 Peak Resort Areas for $264M.

- 7S is really quite different from the Peak Resorts, with a 400 room hotel and convention complex.  It also differs in that these resorts are very close to each other, especially 7S and HV being an easy shuttle bus ride away, making for more of a critical mass.  While it is local to the Pittsburgh market, is a  mid tier destination resort good for 2-3 days for visitors  ranging from DC thru Cleveland, thus fitting in between the Day Resorts such as Liberty and Whitetail and a full-on 5-7 day stay more typical of the large western resorts.   

- So the question is what plans they have?  Will it be just status quo but w/ Epic pass, where all 3 resorts are treated like cash cows to feed into the mothership, only getting upgrades as needed as a footnote to the bigger focus elsewhere? (ie. HV relationship with 7S)   Or do they view this a strategic investment they will invest and build on it to make it the premier mountain getaway for the region?   Believe that the fact they did not pick up the golf courses and all the developable land says something in this respect.   However, somehow I don't think that Nutting wants to be a Golf course operator, and also will be looking to monetize whatever property he has.   I can only hope that there is perhaps more of a plan than we currently know.     

In taking in more of the first 24 hour feedback/reactions here and on other social media, it is clear that the 7S reaction is different from the HV reaction.  Which I guess makes sense.

For HV skiers and homeowners, IMO, worst case is a lateral move.  What drove me crazy about Nutting's ownership is that there absolutely WAS potential to invest and grow and expand.  The last few seasons have been very busy ski seasons there and definitely busier than normal Spring, Fall and Summer seasons.

Yet: 

1.  We have no real amenities other than the well run ski shop.  The Clock Tower is awful.  Glaciers was converted to a carry out bar where you had to buy a hot dog and chips to get a beer.  So the once $12 beer was now $20 and there wasn't even somewhere inside to sit down and drink it.  Granted, that was partially COVID, yet somehow the Foggy Goggle marched on at 7S with money being spent to make more of it open air etc.  I can't tell you the number of times last ski season someone visiting HV complained to me that at 7PM on a Saturday there was basically no option for food and beer.

2.  We have had zero investment in slopes or lifts under Nutting.  Even though the trails and lifts have been overcrowded for multiple consecutive seasons.  There are new slopes that were cut by Buncher in an area that would open up some of the best terrain at the resort.  And nothing ever happened with them.

3.  The resort infrastructure was completely neglected...buildings are literally falling apart.  Below the conference center there was a resort vehicle with a broken axle that sat for years.  If you dropped into that area of the resort from another planet this summer, you would have thought the building was abandoned, literally.    

So unless Vail is going to come in and close HV completely, I just can't imagine how their ownership would be worse.

I've made the same point to several of my friends. On paper Timberline has the same vert as Massanutten and Wintergreen, so why would I drive the 3 hours to TL instead of the 1 hour to the other resorts? Because it is a much better experience at TL when things are on (and I say that as someone who likes Wintergreen and Massanutten). 

rbrtlav wrote:

To each their own. On a good snow day 7 springs skis much much bigger than whitetail. If everything is open the north face is really a ton of fun. 

I wouldn’t let the vertical be the reason you won’t ski there.

 

On Nutting's investment.

Vail mentioned in the release that this acquisition will add an incremental $15m in EBITDA, so let's just say for Nutting it was maybe $10m post tax.  If he owned them for a decade that's $100m in net earnings the company has accrued.  Maybe he makes $25m on asset appreciation plus the $100m on earnings, he doubled his money and still owns a portion of the assets.

Unlevered that's a 12% IRR, but I'd be shocked if the majority of this wasn't levered.

He could have easily levered this 4x EBITDA and had $60m in loans and $37m in cash.  That changes his IRR over 10yrs to 32%.

Seems like he did pretty well overall.  If he had more debt the numbers look even better.

What stood out to me was that $5m of EBITDA was from the hotel alone.

Vail is expecting to spend an increased $3m per year to support the resorts, so it looks like there WILL be some future investment.

Vail Resorts to acquire Seven Springs Mountain Resort for $125M (NYSE:MTN) | Seeking Alpha

I'm still trying to process it all. What a game-changer for sure. Say what you want about Seven Springs it still is a big boy in the mid-Atlantic market and not just in skiing; how about the year-round recreation: mountain bike, zip line, golf, skeet, fishing, family tourism, business outings, mini-conventions, craft, art, and food fairs, and ongoing food, beverage, and night club (to borrow an old phrase) business. In short, skiing at 7 Springs was just another amenity, albeit the largest, most expensive tourist offering. Seven Springs is a money maker. I can see where Seven Springs becomes more crowded with folks whose motivation is buying cheap lift tickets out west or up north. Maybe some of them were not interested in skiing much local, but now there are options to ski local a couple of hours drive away. Maybe just a lot more curious skier looking for something different. Will the locals begin to use HV and Laurel more? Will the presumably increased interest brought by Epic/Vail drive more skier visits at all resorts?

One thing going for Laurel...terrain. By which I mean advanced and true expert terrain, that being the other 50% of the terrain that does not have snowmaking. Add to the existing underutilized trail system a few connecter pieces, and you can open the entire area under and to the right of the chairlift. Just add water (snowmaking). That will create a lot of fun, long (by Mid-A standards) intermediate and expert terrain. 

In other words, if the aspiring snowsport enthusiast now thinks they are on the cusp of advanced, even expert skiing, then Wildcat is where you want to be to hone that skill.

I think a useful lens through which to view this acquisition is: competition for skier dollars, primarily competition between Alterra and Vail. Each behemoth is building a national network (Epic v. Ikon), and each acquisition (or partnership) is in service of the building of that network to make it more attractive than the other.

Before Vail acquired the former Snowtime resorts, Alterra's network was the only one with a presence in the mid-Atlantic through Snowshoe. Skiers in the mid-Atlantic who like to travel out west faced the following choice: buy Ikon and divert local trips to Snowshoe and western trips to Ikon resorts, or continue pre-pass patterns of consumption (maybe a season pass at a local non-Snowshoe hill plus a la carte lift tickets for trips; mountain collective/indy pass; etc.). For folks like me who actually prefer Snowshoe and the Ikon resorts (I was buying the Ridiculous pass plus a la carte lift tickets to (mostly) Ikon places in Tahoe and SLC pre-Ikon), the new networks are almost pure surplus: I get to do what I was already going to do in exchange for less money, which is just a windfall. For others - who prefer non-Snowshoe options or non-Ikon options in different geographic areas - maybe it affected their choices in some way, but maybe not. For both companies, they are trying to take dollars that go to the other. And both are actually trying to grow the pie: to get people who like skiing to spend more time (and $) doing it than they would have otherwise via their high-quality networks.

Once Vail bought Liberty/Roundtop/Whitetail, the calculus changed for many, and the 7S-HV-LM acquisition changes it further: Vail/Epic is now a much more competitive offering for mid-Atlantic skiers than it was. For each person/family (holding constant your views about Epic vs. Ikon resorts outside the area), you can now (or will be able to next season) ski six local resorts for your season pass dollars on Epic compared to just Snowshoe on Ikon. Again, holding everything else constant, this has to mean that more mid-Atlantic ski dollars are going to flow to Vail/Epic than in recent years. Presumably there are many such dollars, and Alterra/Ikon wants more of them too. I think we should expect a competitive response from Alterra. This could take any number of approaches. Acquiring Timberline might have made sense if it wasn't acquired recently (Ikon = WV, Epic = PA in this hypothetical version of the Ikon vs. Epic battle), but I think buying Wisp/something in Pa/Massanutten/Wintergreen is more likely. Another approach would be to make investments in Snowshoe so that more mid-Atlantic skiers prefer Snowshoe to the Vail-owned alternatives. I am skeptical that's the right strategy because the big impediment to more mid-Atlantic skiers choosing Snowshoe is how far away it is from the population centers, and it's hard (impossible?) for Alterra to change that with money. So I predict an Alterra acquisition or some sort of arrangement that gets more mid-Atlantic hills on Ikon (and I bet it will be more than just one). The DC metro area in particular is an extremely wealthy demographic; I've got to think that means Vail and Alterra are going to compete *hard* for the skiers in the area with money to spend.

How do we think this affects 7S/HV/LM? The way to answer this, IMO, is to think about what skier expenditures are most profitable (read: high margin) for Vail. It's not lift tickets - it's lodging and meals. I suspect (but certainly do not know) that the margin on those things is even higher at the resorts that attract worldwide customers (more demand pushes price up but not cost, so higher margin...is my reasoning). So, for Vail, I think that means: a week long ski trip at Vail is more profitable than the same at Stowe, which is more profitable than the same at 7S. I predict that everything Vail does with 7S/HV/LM will be toward the end of getting more people in the mid-Atlantic to spend more money at places like Vail/Breck/Whistler/etc. For people that regularly check this message board (i.e., people that love to ski), I think that means investments in operations like snowmaking, more efficient lift lines, etc. I think everyone would like better food at our local hills, but I have a hard time thinking that better food at 7S is going to cause someone who really likes to ski to pick Epic over Ikon. For local turns, we tend to focus on the quality of the operation/terrain (and its geographic placement). 

But not all skiers are like us. A potential strategy for Vail here *might* just be for 7S to take dollars away from Snowshoe (as opposed to Epic resorts taking dollars away from Ikon resorts more generally). You can imagine a DC-area family that makes one local trip a year. Snowshoe is probably the best local bet for that sort of thing (but it's expensive). Do you shift those dollars to 7S and buy Epic passes if it gets you unlimited access to Snowtime spots for day trips? Maybe you do even though you prefer Snowshoe to 7S. And if a local family does that for a few winters, doesn't that family become more likely to take a trip out west - and to choose Vail resorts when they do? Probably. So I could see a strategy where Vail makes meaningful amenity improvements to 7S.

Obviously I'm spitballing here, but I think this acquisition is an incredibly important development for mid-Atlantic skiing. The thing I'm most confident about is that we should expect a competitive response from Alterra. One way or another, Alterra now absolutely *has* to make Ikon better for the mid-Atlantic skier. I would think this happens in time for next ski season, and I bet it will be an acquisition (as opposed to a partnership). I think Vail will also make investments to improve operations at 7S/HV/LM but am less confident about that prediction (and have no confidence regarding whether those investments will *actually* result in improvements; I understand a lot of folks don't like what they've done at the Snowtime places). I can see a path toward amenity/lodging improvements at 7S, but I can also see that stuff staying the same. 

superguy wrote:

How do you figure that HVs snowmaking system is old? It's only a little over 10 years old ... certainly a lot younger than some of the stuff you'd find at 7S and other places.

 If you had a 10 year old car, would you consider that ‘old’? Does it require more maintenance? Would a 10 year old computer be considered old? Could you even use today’s software on a 10 year old computer? Thus, I would consider a 10 year old Techno Alpin fan gun, at least starting to be ‘old’.

The more I think about this the more I worry.  They ditched anything to do with summer, and ditched future potential for expansion.  
So now the beginner trails are going to be more dangerous and hard to ski on.

They likely want to keep enticing drunken skiing, and Im sure they showed their liquor sells, and vail said "EPIC!"

I like others probably, thought big business/big money - they are going to do cool things.  Maybe fix the central trail system, put high speed lifts on north face, build the halfpipe for more than a week before the end of the year, expand ski terrain...  But from what Ive read, these are non skiers running a business in a very soulless fashion.   At least nutting was a skier, and loved his business.

I wonder if the land they bought includes that trailer court land near lake gosling.  I actually looked at a place there, RIGHT on the snowmobile trails...but once I found out you dont own the land, you just lease it - I quickly lost interest.  And that little road, fin and feather, they look like they are blocking it, and the game commission posted a no vehicular traffic sign there too.

snowsmith wrote:

superguy wrote:

How do you figure that HVs snowmaking system is old? It's only a little over 10 years old ... certainly a lot younger than some of the stuff you'd find at 7S and other places.

 If you had a 10 year old car, would you consider that ‘old’? Does it require more maintenance? Would a 10 year old computer be considered old? Could you even use today’s software on a 10 year old computer? Thus, I would consider a 10 year old Techno Alpin fan gun, at least starting to be ‘old’.

But everything doesn't age the same way. 10 year old cars built today are still very usable and perform well, with many lasting 250k or more. If something is maintained well, or can last a long time.

Sure, they'll have to be replaced eventually, but do the newer models offer that much more efficiency, production or quality to make it work replacing? Who knows.

It's not like BK where replacing nearly everything would be a significant improvement. 😄

There are a lot of good thoughts in this thread.  Here's another perspective to consider.

In 1999, a season pass for Whitetail (and only Whitetail) sold for $430 ($714 in today's dollars) if purchased by July 30, and $605 ($1,004 in today's dollars) if purchased after November 1.

Earlier this year, I purchased an Epic Local Pass for $587.95 (in today's dollars, obviously! :).  That pass provides unlimited skiing at Whitetail, Roundtop, Liberty, Jack Frost, Big Boulder, as well as a whole slew of "big mountain" resorts to the north and west.  I can ski as many days as I want at Breckenridge, Crested Butte, Keystone, Okemo, Mt. Snow, and many others..  I can ski non-holidays at Park City and Stowe.  And I can spread 10 days of non-holiday skiing across Vail, Beaver Creek, and Whistler/Blackcomb.  In the recent past, I spent nearly $200 a day on lift tickets at some of these ski areas.

We don't know the pricing yet for Epic Passes next winter (they will likely go up), or even five years from now, but we do know that Seven Springs, Hidden Valley, and Laurel Mountain will now be added to the resorts included on many Epic Passes.

There are certainly pros and cons to these "mega passes" (as well as industry consolidation) -- and the value proposition has shifted strongly to regular skiers vs. first-time or couple-times-a-season skiers, which may not bode well for the future health of the sport.  But it's hard to argue against the unprecedented value these passes are providing.

rbrtlav wrote:

To each their own. On a good snow day 7 springs skis much much bigger than whitetail. If everything is open the north face is really a ton of fun. 

I wouldn’t let the vertical be the reason you won’t ski there.

wfyurasko wrote:

I've skied all over Pennsylvania and never made it out to 7 Springs. This thread is making me fill like I've made a good decision. I could never justify driving that far (from DC) for less vertical than Whitetail.

 

 So, it's more than the apres ski? I'm not opposed to apres ski, I'm just a commuter skier, so it's not something I get to indulge in.

The last time I went that way to ski, we hit Blue Knob on a day with light snow. Had a blast. Certainly one of my top 5 days in the Mid-Atlantic.

Would you recommend Seven Springs over T-Line?

 Scott, to further expand on your tread, I ended up buying the same EPIC Pass as you, but as I recall, around April in 2021 you could buy the Northeast Value Epic Pass for about that same $430.  That pass gives you unlimited access Whitetail, Liberty, Roundtop, Jack Frost, Big Bolder, Attitash, Sunapee, Wildcat and some small resorts in Michigan and Ohio.  Then for non holidays you get Stowe (10 days), Okemo, Mount Snow and Hunter.   For $430 dollars that is a hell of deal. 

People just have to face the fact that the ski model is changing and these Mega Passes will continue to grow.  If you look at Vail's Annual Report to stockholders, their long term goal is to have 75% of skiers on their mountain to have purchased an Epic Pass rather than purchasing a ticket at the window or a couple days before online.   Vail sold 2.1 million Epic Passes for this season and that is up about 900,000 from where they were last year.  I resisted purchasing a season pass for years as I just didn't ski quite enough to justify it's value.  A couple years ago, I changed my tune and bought epic passes for the family and am not looking back.  It's been a wonderful family experience for us as we are now skiing all the time all across the country.  My kids love it.  That never would have happened without these Mega Passes.    

Scott wrote:

There are a lot of good thoughts in this thread.  Here's another perspective to consider.

In 1999, a season pass for Whitetail (and only Whitetail) sold for $430 ($714 in today's dollars) if purchased by July 30, and $605 ($1,004 in today's dollars) if purchased after November 1.

Earlier this year, I purchased an Epic Local Pass for $587.95 (in today's dollars, obviously! :).  That pass provides unlimited skiing at Whitetail, Roundtop, Liberty, Jack Frost, Big Boulder, as well as a whole slew of "big mountain" resorts to the north and west.  I can ski as many days as I want at Breckenridge, Crested Butte, Keystone, Okemo, Mt. Snow, and many others..  I can ski non-holidays at Park City and Stowe.  And I can spread 10 days of non-holiday skiing across Vail, Beaver Creek, and Whistler/Blackcomb.  In the recent past, I spent nearly $200 a day on lift tickets at some of these ski areas.

We don't know the pricing yet for Epic Passes next winter (they will likely go up), or even five years from now, but we do know that Seven Springs, Hidden Valley, and Laurel Mountain will now be added to the resorts included on many Epic Passes.

There are certainly pros and cons to these "mega passes" (as well as industry consolidation) -- and the value proposition has shifted strongly to regular skiers vs. first-time or couple-times-a-season skiers, which may not bode well for the future health of the sport.  But it's hard to argue against the unprecedented value these passes are providing.

bousquet19 wrote:

Leo wrote:

to Vail.  Holy crow.

This sale worries me, based on others' experiences with Vail Resorts/Epic Pass. 

Granted that 2020-21 was a covid-shaped season, but it seems that Vail Resorts didn't make many friends.  It appears that large numbers were disappointed by what they viewed as cumbersome reservations policies, long waits on phone lines to get assistance, heavy curtailment of the number of lifts open weekdays, cutbacks on night skiing, extensive dismissals of management staff, termination of volunteer programs, and so forth.  I didn't ski a Vail Resorts property last season because of covid-related restrictions north of the Mason-Dixon Line until late in the season here in the East.  

Complaints this year are that many northeastern resorts that normally open by Thanksgiving weekend didn't, and that Vail Resorts currently open have noticeably less terrain open than their non-Vail counterparts (e.g., Stowe vs Sugarbush, Wildcat vs Sunday River).

For the details, here are links to two "Vail Sucks" threads I've followed:

• SnowJournal's 2021-22 Vail/Epic thread
• AlpineZone's Vail/Epic thread, starting December 20, 2020 - over 175 pages and counting

Woody

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Yes, the picture I'm getting about these new VR acquisitions is that if you're a customer that skis five or ten times a year at one of their smaller hills and one or two weeks at one of their larger destinations, then this whole deal is great.  However, if you're a customer that has been a long time pass holder and frequent skier/boarder at one of their newly acquired mountains, then the adaption to the new corporate management scheme can be fraught with issues.  Here in the Mid-Atlantic we might have a higher percent of the former kind of customer than perhaps New England?

THE YIN AND THE YANG

Like just about everything in life, there is the good and the bad, the advantages and disadvantages and the plus and minuses. With the Snowtime resorts, there was a very high bar for VR to exceed. Snowtime resorts were extremely well run. The bar was not set high for 7S/HV/LM, especially, HV and LM. There has been little investment in HV and LM by 7S. That said, 7S help reopened then operated LM, which is a great plus for us Laurels skiers. Of course, the big advantage will be our season pass will give us up to 40 resorts to ski. And based on last years' Epic pass rates for the former Snowtime resorts, our pass could cost less than 7S was charging for a Highlands pass. 

People, by nature, are going to complain no matter what a resort owner does. Anyone complaining about VR's New England resorts not having much terrain open has not noticed the weather forecast. Thus there is a complaint that just does not hold water.  We all have our preferences and I'm sure there will be real reasons to complain. I don't think this transition year is going to be true test of how VR operates our little resorts. The 2022/2023 season when VR gets their full team and management approach in-place will be the true test. In the meantime...we need some snow and cold weather. Now there is something to complain about.

wfyurasko wrote:

Would you recommend Seven Springs over T-Line?

If it will keep the crowds away from Timberline, then...hell yeah! 

Being only about 3 weeks after the initial announcement, this has got be be one of the quickest such transactions ever.   These things can take months; , so someone wanted this to push this through in 2021 and must have been lots of people working this through the Holiday. 

Congratulations to the new owners and everyone involved in the process!    Would be great to hear some more details on what the plans and vision is for these resorts going forward.   There is a wealth of information and suggestions based on DC Skier input on this forum for these 3 resorts, and sincerely hope the new owners take under consideration. 

Scott wrote:

Just a quick update that Vail Resorts closed on the purchase of Seven Springs, Hidden Valley, and Laurel Mountain on December 31, 2021.

The state run areas in NY and NH, long considered stingy and inept at snowmaking, are (literally) blowing vail away.  In terms of open terrain, snow quality, and staffing currently, Belle>Hunter, Whiteface>Stowe, Gore>Snow, Cannon>Atticat.  Pretty pathetic showing on Vail's part.

Blue mountain is further south and 400ft base elevation; Big Boulder base elevation is 1700ft.  Blue was open later than JFBB and opened as early as JF and earlier than BB this year.  Over in central PA, Tussey Mountain is doing just as well as Vail has at any of their areas, I get it that Tussey is a bit further north, but that place operates on a shoestring budget.  Spring Mountain is just as far south, another rinky dink shoestring operation, they had half of their terrain open before New Year's rain shutdown.

I see Abeski you mention Blue Mountain.  My daughter this past year moved north of Allentown and she mentioned meeting at Blue Mountain. I live near Pittsburgh so 7S & HV are my home slopes.    How's Blue Mountain compared to these?

liketoskidad wrote:

I see Abeski you mention Blue Mountain.  My daughter this past year moved north of Allentown and she mentioned meeting at Blue Mountain. I live near Pittsburgh so 7S & HV are my home slopes.    How's Blue Mountain compared to these?

 There are lots of places for you to spend money during peak days. They may lead the Mid-Atlantic in number of places to buy food.

I have been to Laurel Mountain but not 7 Springs.  Blue is as big and tall as you get in PA, they blow massive amounts of snow at every opportunity they get, and they get pretty crowded - watch where you're skiing!  The lifts are fast even the double double.  It is a fun place, still has a good local's vibe, they get a lot of school groups too.  They often let Challenge or the bottom of Razor's bump up, the tops are pretty steep but not quite as much as Wildcat. Razors you can really rip 1000' hot laps down if they don't.  Lots of good winding cruisers otherwise.

I like to go at night, it is less crowded, cheaper, and fun.  They often stay open through March which is the best time to go in my opinion.  They have had the longest season in PA the past few years despite their location and as noted usually have pretty much everything open Christmas (not this year) to April