Greek Peak Conditions (2018 - 2019)

Right on Billy

It's all about the snow. "Back in the day" the Valley had constant snow, none of this freeze thaw BS.
Can you imagine GP with the snowmaking power of Hunter? The place would be mobbed because the terrain is damn good. Granted it's not tons of very, but it's darn good when there's snow.
You get people there and they will spend money. IMO it's all about volume, or a numbers game. Sell passes for $299 until the end of April and pack the place.

campgottagopee wrote

 Sell passes for $299 until the end of April and pack the place.

Ha - that'll never happen. At $350ish a pass would be a no brainer for me. Once it starts with a 4 it becomes a slightly more thoughtful decision. Now that it's approaching $500 it really makes one pause and consider other options.

I guess they must be content with the level of revenue they get from season pass holders Camp. Although there's no way the would have of knowing how much of their food or ski shop sales come from pass holders vs day ticket buyers.

They aren't very creative with their pricing structure. A "night" season pass is $450...$25 less than a full season pass. Umm...why the F even take the time to put that on your website? I'd consider purchasing a night pass for $250.

I'd also like to see them offer something like a pass that can be used by more than one person (just not at the same time obviously) - so say for $600 a pass that could be used by anyone. That would make sense for a couple people to share who may want to ski on just one day a week...one person during the week one on the weekends, something like that. Those people might not buy a full season pass but would split the cost of that type of pass that could be used by multiple people. Right now I'm considering not buying a pass for next year - but I'd buy a product like that with another person if it were available.

That's what I figure as well. Must be they've found their sweet spot, or at least what works for them.

Lift 4 has also been down quite a lot. It's the one that blew a ton of oil when it died on a busy Saturday. When the Pony motor failed to get it restarted a ton of people had to be hand evacuated. Then last week it was down when a bearing blew on a wheel on tower 12. I was got stopped on the tower after it started screaming and got a nice close look. Fortunately (for me) it was stop and go to the top, and not an evac. But yeah, they need to somehow fix up the lifts..... somehow.

Haven’t been this year been outta of the country how will the rain coming up affect the mountain.

Plan on skiing Saturday  and Monday with my girls.

billyymc wrote

They should have a five year plan...

They did have a five year plan, but were unable to afford it. It included a HSQ in the fifth year.

I also believe they used consultants, but not sure which firm they hired.

You really are something. How in the hell do you know they were unable to afford it.

 Is it possible they were unable to justify it?

 Is it possible they are spending money in areas we can't see it repairing a much abused/neglected infrastructure?

 And there's one other lil thing --- they pay their taxes, so there's that. As a resident that's a welcome change.

March Daylight Savings Time Rules

I was there from 10am till 6:30pm yesterday. Taught beginners until 2 and free skied the rest of the day until the sun started going down. That extra hour of sun is really nice. Anyway, Nature added about 2 inches of fluff in the morning, but skiing was on a fast refrozen surface. It was below freezing all day. Groomed trails were a nice frozen corduroy that was easy to ski, but noisy.  Non-groomed trails had a harder surface of frozen granular and chunks.There were spots of solid ice on Hercules and Zeus. All trails were open except those serviced by lift 5 and the place was still covered in snow on all trails. No bare spots. Chairs 1, 5 and 2 were not running. 2 continues to have some sort of electrical issue. After the school field trippers left the place was close to empty.   Today things will soften up with warm weather. Tomorrow will bring some rain and a small group of field trippers in the morning. I'll be there teaching never-evers -- unless they cancel.

Thanks, Dougski. I have only been posting on the forum for a year, so I'm a bit of a newbie, but I really appreciate your inside information and positive attitude!!! I hope that I get meet you one day!

campgottagopee wrote

You really are something. How in the hell do you know they were unable to afford it.

 Is it possible they were unable to justify it?

 Is it possible they are spending money in areas we can't see it repairing a much abused/neglected infrastructure?

That’s why you have consultants that take a look at every aspect of the business, and that’s why you develop a multi-year plan. Yes, unexpected events occur that alters plans, but I highly doubt that a used triple chair from Windham was part of the original plan.  In addition, two insurance settlements that greatly enhanced two pump houses, and base area facilities were also likely not part of the five-year plan.

I used top consultants in the industry.  I certainly don’t say that to boast, because it also cost me a good chunk of money, but I truly wanted to know every aspect of what I might be getting myself into. They ran several different scenarios, and the numbers never made sense from a viability standpoint to me.

I commend John and Marc for taking on the project, but I truly don’t believe that they knew what they were getting into.

I'd hoped Plattekill would get Windham's F.  There was quite a lot of negotiation but it was not to be.

Skied Greek for a couple hours last night starting around 5:30. Soft spring conditions with some ice patches to dodge - very nice skiing.

I think I'll add better lighting to the list of improvements I'd like to see there. They closed Zeus as it got dark, I assume because there is terrible lighting on the headwall. And frankly my eyes are getting worse as I get older so even parts of fields and Iliad could be lit better IMO.

As far as the major improvements go its probably very easy to just maintain the status quo and eek out a small return on whats' there rather than put more money at risk. Of course the fallacy there is that in not making bigger improvements, over the long term they won't keep the business they already have. The lodge/water park appear to draw in a lot of people who aren't serious skiers but who come and spend time/money at Greek with their families. It probably was a terrible idea, but if it wasn't there I'd bet Greek would be really struggling to pull in enough customers.

billyymc wrote

 

As far as the major improvements go its probably very easy to just maintain the status quo and eek out a small return  

That return gets put back into the hill. Let's not forget the owners do not take a paycheck out of the place. They're all about making GP the best it can be.

billyymc wrote

 The lodge/water park appear to draw in a lot of people who aren't serious skiers but who come and spend time/money at Greek with their families. It probably was a terrible idea, but if it wasn't there I'd bet Greek would be really struggling to pull in enough customers.

That's valid point. They are forced into being open, something everyone benefits from especially during the shoulder seasons.

And the current owners got it for a fraction of the cost. Win Win  It is good for the hill.  Bad for the original bank that wrote the loan buy they are big boys they knew what they were underwriting.

campgottagopee wrote

billyymc wrote

 The lodge/water park appear to draw in a lot of people who aren't serious skiers but who come and spend time/money at Greek with their families. It probably was a terrible idea, but if it wasn't there I'd bet Greek would be really struggling to pull in enough customers.

That's valid point. They are forced into being open, something everyone benefits from especially during the shoulder seasons.

Camp, are you finally seeing the light with respect to HLL?

Billy, let's also keep in mind that these are timeshares, so the the fractional owners are footing a large portion of the operating/maintenance bill via their association dues. In addition, shares are still available for purchase, despite the fact that the new owners dumped a large percentage of them for pennies on the dollar in order to generate some quick revenue.

Taught and skied yesterday. Chairs 5,4,3, and Visions were on. I left at about 5 and did not see 2 rolling at all, despite what Wes said on the phone at 6am. Although I know that the sun and 55 degrees was quickly melting the snow, I have to say I enjoyed every minute, as long as I stayed on the steeps. Despite the beautiful day the place was empty after the kids from a Cortland school left. I only saw bare spots where no snow had been made all season under the bottom of chair 5. But cover was getting thin in the usual places: Olympian, East Meadow. Alsos Glade off chair 5 and Labyrinth were still decent.
Weather forecast for tonight thru next week looks like we will see a few inches on top of whatever is left after today.

Skied GP today.  It was about as bluebird a day as it could get.  

The run of the day was Mars Hill.  Nice carveable corn snow that got softer as the day went on.

Coverage was still good on most of the snowmaking trails.  All the glades were closed as was Olympian which was covered in bare spots.

The lifts were running fine.  There was 1 long stop on the quad.  It restarted after an employee on a snowmobile raced up Alceme to the top.  Chair 4 seemed to be running a little rough, like it was working against a bad set of bearings somewhere.

The place was pretty much deserted.  Given the conditions, it might be my last day of the season for me at Greek Peak anyway.

Wow - Sunday highlighted just how thin the base at Greek is right now. Spots of ice - from small to large (almost all the way across Iliad) were all over the mountain.

No glades open. The glades off 5 had zero snow - the entry was just dirt and most of what I saw was the same - dirt with a dusting (1/2 inch) of snow).

If we get another couple warm days like last week they won't make it to April.

For sure. We had our SNIRT run yesterday

billyymc wrote

Wow - Sunday highlighted just how thin the base at Greek is right now.

Wow 20-46 inch base according to their website...