Greek Peak Conditions (2018 - 2019)

Trax people and their boat on skis for the pond skimming.

The Trax crew rocks!!!

Did they have the pond skim? I didn't see the pond.

They built the pond on Saturday. If you were there, you couldn't miss it, unless you left very very early. It was fully underway by noon. Conditions were sloppy but still fun. Glad to hear that GP is joining the Freedom Pass. I think I need to visit this page more often to learn these thing. I really had no idea.

Gotcha

Didn't get there until late in the day

Wow! A screen shot from today, Mon. 4/1/19. Fresh snow at Greek. Camp - the pond was small and it was inside the fencing U see to the right of Visions Express Quad.

I know peeps who are skinning today.

We got 3 or 4

twas still snowing hard this Am as well

Skied a couple of hours -- got to all open runs at least once yesterday. I didn't get there until about noon and while temps were dropping the snow was slop, slush or ice.  Yeah, they took a few passes with the groomer yesterday am, but grooming slush is kind of futile. There was a slope wide sea of slush just above the loading area for Visions which everyone had to trek thru.... watching beginners faces as they crossed this was kind of entertaining. Wendy's, Odyssey and Karyatis were decent. Fields was a mess. Iliad was ice or slush.

For me this was a disappointing reunion/return to Greek season for me. It was the first time in 30 years that Greek was my home ski area. Although I'd skied here a few times in the last 30 years, I've been skiing mostly in Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. I expected Greek to have much better conditions and a longer season than all of the places that I used to ski. But no. Greek opened the same day (barely and didn't operate during weekdays in early December) and closed the same day as Snowshoe WV. Meanwhile, Blue Knob and Camelback are both open today. Blue Knob has an top elevation of about 4,000 feet. But Camelback???!  Seriously, how does Camelback have 39 trails open today (not an April Fools joke!) and Greek is dead for the season? I stopped skiing CB 10+ years ago because of the crowds and crap snow. Is there something about CB that has changed in the last 10 years?

Dougski wrote

Is there something about CB that has changed in the last 10 years?

Camelback does an excellent job creating a firm, deep base. They do not constantly move guns around like GP does, until true bases are established. With that said, Camelback also experiences significantly greater skier traffic than GP, so they can afford to make snow. Interestingly, Camelback uses all forms of snow making equipment, so it's not as if they have all of their trails lined with fan guns. It's actually somewhat of a mish-mosh like GP has.

I spoke to a friend who skied GP this weekend, and said it was a ghost town. He said that it was almost depressing how few people there were. He also suggested the GP could likely make it until next weekend, but felt that due to a lack of interest, they opted to close.

In the 30 years you were gone GP has seen gross neglect. It's turning around slowly but surely.

One aspect of their business that has grown significantly over the past several years is the wedding venue. They held 68 weddings last year (versus 2 six years ago). Hopefully that number is even bigger this year, as weddings make money.  

Lots of ski resorts do weddings. I went to one at Wintergreen last fall. The facilities were much better than what Greek has. The skiing there is comparable to Greek, but not as spread out. They had about 100 days this year, they open around Thanksgiving. They do have much better snowmaking than we do. Every slope is lined with permanently mounted fans on towers. It's quite impressive. Their ticket prices are slightly less. Their seasons pass is now less than $300. Like Greek they had some financial problems until current owners bought it a few years ago. Previous Owners did manage to upgrade snow making, it was their lifts that suffered. Now the place is beautiful, and at only 2 hours southwest of Washington DC, along the Blue Ridge Parkway, in an area with a growing population and income base, it is taking money hand over fist 8 months of the year. Greek is going to have a hard time competing against this kind of location. On site golf and skiing and doing both on the same day is quite common for the winter months because one golf course is at about 500 feet elevation.  Skiing is between 2500 and 3800 feet. They don't have Greek's water park slides, but swimming in indoor and outdoor pools goes on all year.

My point is that its hard for Greek to attract people from south and east if Greek can't beat a place like this. Nobody from the Carolinas or Virginia is going to drive by Wintergreen to go to Greek. People actually drive southwest from Baltimore and DC to go to this place. Not to mention Snowshoe WV, Massanutten VA, and all the places in PA, (like Camelback) that they will stop at (instead of drive another 4-8 hours to get to Greek).

Greek had 112 days this year

Rj1972 wrote

Dougski wrote

Is there something about CB that has changed in the last 10 years?

Camelback does an excellent job creating a firm, deep base. They do not constantly move guns around like GP does, until true bases are established. With that said, Camelback also experiences significantly greater skier traffic than GP, so they can afford to make snow. Interestingly, Camelback uses all forms of snow making equipment, so it's not as if they have all of their trails lined with fan guns. It's actually somewhat of a mish-mosh like GP has.

I spoke to a friend who skied GP this weekend, and said it was a ghost town. He said that it was almost depressing how few people there were. He also suggested the GP could likely make it until next weekend, but felt that due to a lack of interest, they opted to close.

Greek did a lousy job creating a deep base this year. THat's one problem.

The other is that they now cater to out of towners. That's their target customer. Those people aren't going to come much after early march spring break timing. After that it's locals, and Greek has gotten their money already in the form of the season pass. It doesn't matter if they stay open for locals.

I was ready for another change next year, and to me he $475 pass price for Greek is just too high. Oddly right now they have a "Night Pass' that's $450. What marketing genius thought that one up? It's not worth the space on their webpage. Even more odd is they have a 9 Pack for $530. I mean WTF Greek Peak? The Senior Pass is $450 (not that I qualify yet). They have a product called the Gladiator Ski Pass that is...wait for it....$900. I guess it comes with a happy ending.

Anyway. Next year' it's Ikon Base, Champlain Valley Ski Card, and scrounging for local skiing, actually use the AT setup I have, and do more xc. Greek will have to do better, or cost less, for me to get a pass there again.

Greek was a ghost town this weekend. Funny story: I talked to a fellow employee who was there Friday. This person told me that there was no one besides employees at Greek Friday morning. So they closed. At Noon.

I think that closing when nobody's THERE was reasonable thing to do at the time. But allowing themselves to get into this position is the real problem. My guess is "total customer confusion" resulted from the messaging (or lack there of) on closing dates. While Greek announced last weekend that they'd be closed during the week on Mon - Thursday, the customer stopped reading the website after reading "closed during the week".  

If it wasn't for the employees being there on Sunday (myself included) there would have been fewer than 30 people on the hill.

I hope the current owners have deep, deeeeeeep, DEEEEEEEEEEEEEP pockets to spend on the ski side, and are willing to dig deep for the next 5-10 years.... Because I can't imagine they are making a whole lot of money on the hill right now, especially with all the capital needs the place has.

Dougski wrote

Lots of ski resorts do weddings. I went to one at Wintergreen last fall. The facilities were much better than what Greek has. The skiing there is comparable to Greek, but not as spread out. They had about 100 days this year, they open around Thanksgiving. They do have much better snowmaking than we do. Every slope is lined with permanently mounted fans on towers. It's quite impressive. Their ticket prices are slightly less. Their seasons pass is now less than $300. Like Greek they had some financial problems until current owners bought it a few years ago. Previous Owners did manage to upgrade snow making, it was their lifts that suffered. Now the place is beautiful, and at only 2 hours southwest of Washington DC, along the Blue Ridge Parkway, in an area with a growing population and income base, it is taking money hand over fist 8 months of the year. Greek is going to have a hard time competing against this kind of location. On site golf and skiing and doing both on the same day is quite common for the winter months because one golf course is at about 500 feet elevation.  Skiing is between 2500 and 3800 feet. They don't have Greek's water park slides, but swimming in indoor and outdoor pools goes on all year.

My point is that its hard for Greek to attract people from south and east if Greek can't beat a place like this. Nobody from the Carolinas or Virginia is going to drive by Wintergreen to go to Greek. People actually drive southwest from Baltimore and DC to go to this place. Not to mention Snowshoe WV, Massanutten VA, and all the places in PA, (like Camelback) that they will stop at (instead of drive another 4-8 hours to get to Greek).

Not sure I see Wintergreen as comparable to Greek in any way except perhaps the ski acreage.  I live in central North Carolina.  No one in South Carolina drives to VA to ski.  They either go to the NC mountains or WV.

Wintergreen has always been a 4-season resort with more occupancy during the summer than any other season.  Golf is more important than snowsports.  Lots of condo owners, not that much in the rental market, no motels close by.  Until 2019-20, non-property owners couldn't even get a season pass that included Saturdays or Sunday mornings.  When the homeowner assoc. owned the slopes, they set it up as a major amenity for themselves.  Most skiers/boarders are from VA, from Norfolk, the northern VA metro area around DC, Richmond, and Lynchburg.  The people I've met midweek drive no more than an hour.  Those who ski there weekends mostly are property owners.  What comparable metro areas does Greek draw from that's about 2 hours away?

Massanutten is also not comparable.  It's my home mountain.  It's a major timeshare resort.  Lots of empty rooms in the winter.  Fully booked all summer.  The indoor/outdoor waterpark and Adventure area probably draws more people than the slopes.  Just happened that 45 years ago, the original developer of Massanutten started with a few ski slopes.  Local businessmen had to take over when he went bankrupt.  They put big money into the two golf courses and the waterpark before making capital investments in replacing the original lifts and adding snowmaking infrastructure.  Snowsports is an amenity that happens to also be fun for local families and college students (JMU).

I pretty much agree with you. I see Greek getting more like these two southern places as winters warm. Because they don't get lake effect snow I was surprised that Greek didn't have much better conditions and a much longer season than they do. However both these southern areas (especially Wintergreen) made massive investments in snowmaking years ago and they are both about 1500-2000 feet higher in elevation than Greek.  All three are all in the hotel/ timeshare/ condo/ real estate biz. Which put all three of them into massive financial trouble at one point or another. All three had periods of time when the skiing was neglected. None of them are ever going to attract crowds from great distances -- 2-3 hours drive is about it. Wintergreen and Greek are more similar to each other than Massanutten, its smaller and more reliant on summer activities.  The ski experience at Massanutten is very limited in comparison to either WG or Greek.

FYI: both my kids did JMU, so we got familiar with "Massa-nuttin". Are you familiar with Bryce Resort, a few miles up the road from Harrisonburg? That's a tiny resort that's got better snow then either Mass or WG. The good conditions are the result of small size, a high base elevation, and no vertical (maybe 500ft) to speak of. Great ski school there.

From the webcam it looks like they did some grooming and they are taking some bikes up on the chair...

I'm a little dumbfounded that Song Mountain is open today.  

Rj1972 wrote

I'm a little dumbfounded that Song Mountain is open today.

Song seems to be better at using their snowmaking equipment to lay down a base.

And they are more reliant on locals since they don't really draw from out of town. Greek's target customers are out of towners who come and stay and spend money while they're there. Those people stopped skiing a few weeks ago, so Greek really cares if their base lasts long enough to make that customer set happy...and it did.