Mountain High: Saving $ or Drought Survival Mode?

[SoCal Rider]

It's a mere $50 higher than when I first bought a pass in 2003. But I think the mountain has left it at $299 for several years now.

 

[snowave]

Due to competition and the logistics of the size of the typical socal ski area, I don't think they'd be able to go much higher charging for a pass... especially the clientele for Mt. High.... I hear the local drug market is down these days, so the kids buying passes don't have as much money.

Not to mention, when they shut down 1/2 the resort 5 days a week that could/should be open... and they still use trailers for bathrooms... how do you justify raising season pass prices?

 

[Mike Bernstein]

However, there is a significant cost to opening up East - base facilities, tickets, food & beverage, parking attendants, shuttles, patrol staff, trail maintenance, lift operations - so I can understand why if the numbers are way off it would be a poor business decision to open it.

Yet they've closed East frequently in recent years despite the fact that they have notched year after year of record attendance figures. The notion that this is some sort of anomoly b/c the numbers are way off has no basis in fact. They are doing it despite record numbers in an attempt to put even more money in the owner's pocket. Now, I'm a rabid capitalist and he has a right to make a profit - it's his money at risk. But when you start putting the bottom line far in front of the customer experience, that's where I have a problem.

 

[snowave]

However, there is a significant cost to opening up East - base facilities, tickets, food & beverage, parking attendants, shuttles, patrol staff, trail maintenance, lift operations - so I can understand why if the numbers are way off it would be a poor business decision to open it.

Yet they've closed East frequently in recent years despite the fact that they have notched year after year of record attendance figures. The notion that this is some sort of anomoly b/c the numbers are way off has no basis in fact. They are doing it despite record numbers in an attempt to put even more money in the owner's pocket. Now, I'm a rabid capitalist and he has a right to make a profit - it's his money at risk. But when you start putting the bottom line far in front of the customer experience, that's where I have a problem.

Thank you, Mike... That's largely what I've been trying to say all along...I just don't always have the best way with words.

Also in response to Eric's post..... they can (and do) limit the other operations midweek when East is open... they won't have skicheck, they'll keep the bar closed, the Bistro Bar/restaurant at the top is closed.... have extremely minimal food service (all fine with me).... They also sometimes do not always have shuttles midweek- even with both bases open, anyway.



As a season passholder, it's extremely frustrating that pay for my pass, but yet they close half the resort all week, when I am able to ride... again, when the condit

 

[Tom Moriarty]

I have to wonder as I read what everybody is saying here. Maybe Karl is now sole owner of the operating company due to investors pulling out because they were not making a return on investment and that is now leading to drastic cost cutting to keep it going. Hopefully that is not the case because Karl and Johnny who run the resort are good people.

 

[Mike Bernstein]

I have to wonder as I read what everybody is saying here. Maybe Karl is now sole owner of the operating company due to investors pulling out because they were not making a return on investment and that is now leading to drastic cost cutting to keep it going. Hopefully that is not the case because Karl and Johnny who run the resort are good people.

That narrative doesn't hold together for me.

This is a very small resort that is generating well over 500K skier visits - it's really difficult to imagine they aren't making money on a operating basis. They have grown skier visits dramatically in recent years and it doesn't seem logical that Karl would want to double down on a money-losing entity. He was the majority owner before, no? Also, if money were really tight, it's unlikely you'd see MH blowing large amounts of snow during the first brief October cold snap in an attempt to get open. That's really expensive marketing.

 

[snowave]

It's my understanding the Karl is the sole owner at this point. Also, John McColly is nothing but a marketing puppet. While he is the "voice" of MH, he has no ownership or management influence with the resort.

Interesting you say they are good people, Tom. I've heard next to nothing good about either of them. Karl has "donated" some happy money from time to time to the town and a few organizations in Wrightwood, but that's the only positive thing I've ever heard.

He's been frowned upon by many agency and local groups for his lack of concern and efforts into the resort helping to minimize severe traffic congestion in the areas during weekend and holiday periods. I won't even get into the numerous violations of their special use permit every year, (ok maybe 1 or 2 :-D ) although the one about opening up terrain outside of the permitted area last year and cutting down over 50 trees along an "out of bounds ski back trail" is worthy of a mention, as well as 3 consecutive yrs of violations for resource damage to a critical riparian zone at the end of the East Resort parking lot. (they plow up the ground and vegetation adn smooth it out well past the pavement to provide more parking every year) You can be assured Karl is/was aware of these things in advance and after the fact.

Many employees are angry at Karl for continually cutting staff and hours, (hence, doubling and tripling ski school class sizes) as well as promises at the hiring about minimum work, barring a bad snow year.... and last year there was a big stink near the end of the season because Karl cut significant seasonal work staff right before many were supposed to get season/hourly bonuses and some other benefits.

While some may feel that some of this information may not be directly related to the topic at hand, I feel it has a place here as to give some more insight to some of the complaints and allegations about some of the practices and morals of the operations of the resort, and more specifically, the owner. Who is the obviously the one making most of the decisions about these things.


Am I bitter? As a consumer, yes. Do I claim to know everything? Well, no... (even though I really do.) However, I will NOT make accusations about a business or individual without a significant amount of information and facts. For various reasons, I have ALOT of firsthand and other reliable sources of inside information about the goings on at MH.

 

[egieszl]

Mike, when you reference the annual skier visits you're looking at the operation from an annual perspective and I'm looking at it from a daily perspective. The visits are not evenly spread among all of the days. The mountain only needs to average 3,448 visits per day in a 145 day season to reach 500,000 visits for the season. If only 3,448 people were to visit each day, never any more or less than you can easily make the argument that East should never be open. My point is despite record visits on an annual basis the utilization of the resort will vary greatly throughout the season based largely on snow conditions. Some weekdays the resort will be packed and other days it won't.

I totally get what snowave is griping about, but a ski resort is a seasonal business that is largely dependent on mother nature who unfortunately offers few guarantees to operators. Some ski resorts like those in Utah and Colorado don't have to worry as much about snowfall, but in Southern California the snowfall and weather is totally unpredictable. Southern California ski areas run the risk that at any point they may be forced to close early or they may have to deal with mediocre conditions which has a huge impact on their business. It's very much like feast or famine. If Mountain High burns operating capital keeping East open when business is slow and then suddenly hits a snag with mother nature then that business decision of keeping the extra terrain open could break the operator. It could turn a break even situation into a loss at the end of the season. If the business were less dependent on mother nature and more predictable then I don't think we'd be having this discussion.

Mountain High is no doubt successful. I've personally met Johnny several times and used to regularly communicate with their former marketing director Brad Wilson. They have a great management team.

Also, I believe the blame lies with the forest service for the lousy base facilities at west. They had awesome plans that I personally saw for a brand new lodge at west, that would have resided on the side of the hill parallel to Chair 3 where the five cabins are. It's my understanding those plans got shot down by the forest service.

Southern California ski areas have really suffered from a lack of support from the forest service regarding capital improvements.

 

[Mike Bernstein]

Mike, when you reference the annual skier visits you're looking at the operation from an annual perspective and I'm looking at it from a daily perspective. The visits are not evenly spread among all of the days. The mountain only needs to average 3,448 visits per day in a 145 day season to reach 500,000 visits for the season. If only 3,448 people were to visit each day, never any more or less than you can easily make the argument that East should never be open. My point is despite record visits on an annual basis the utilization of the resort will vary greatly throughout the season based largely on snow conditions. Some weekdays the resort will be packed and other days it won't.

You raise some valid points, but let's break those down a bit. Of those 145 days, there are already 60 days (a month on each end) where East isn't operating and business is pretty sparse anyway. What we really need to be focusing on here is what they do in the high-season where the bast majority of their skier visits are concentrated. Moreover, if you can't justify keeping East open at all, then sell it. Obviously that will never happen but it's disingenuous to market it as half of the resort when it's open a much smaller % of the time even with good snow.

I totally get what snowave is griping about, but a ski resort is a seasonal business that is largely dependent on mother nature who unfortunately offers few guarantees to operators. Some ski resorts like those in Utah and Colorado don't have to worry as much about snowfall, but in Southern California the snowfall and weather is totally unpredictable. Southern California ski areas run the risk that at any point they may be forced to close early or they may have to deal with mediocre conditions which has a huge impact on their business. It's very much like feast or famine. If Mountain High burns operating capital keeping East open when business is slow and then suddenly hits a snag with mother nature then that business decision of keeping the extra terrain open could break the operator. It could turn a break even situation into a loss at the end of the season. If the business were less dependent on mother nature and more predictable then I don't think we'd be having this discussion.

This is a fair point, but I have three problems with it. First, you are screwing the passholders who bought one thing and got another. If I'm buying a day ticket, I can vote with my dollars. If I bought a pass, I'm locked in. It's unreasonable to tell passholders "tough" when there's more than enough snow at East to operate. Second, you're screwing the employees who signed up expecting to receive a paycheck for the season. Are they expected to hang out in front of the Home Depot in search of day labor when East is closed? If it rained and East was washed out - that's a completely different story. Tough break for them, but that's the ski biz. But closing with full coverage is something quite different, IMHO. Finally, your premise is based upon the notion of what "might" happen. Even in SoCal, that worst case scenario where MH is washed out and needs to go all out on snowmaking to recover will only happen in a small % of years. If you reserve for that scenario every year, then by definition you are pocketing the difference in the other years, at the expense of your passholders and employees.

Also, I believe the blame lies with the forest service for the lousy base facilities at west. They had awesome plans that I personally saw for a brand new lodge at west, that would have resided on the side of the hill parallel to Chair 3 where the five cabins are. It's my understanding those plans got shot down by the forest service.

Southern California ski areas have really suffered from a lack of support from the forest service regarding capital improvements.

This seems like a separate topic for discussion, though a good one. I'm not sure why the FS blocking a new lodge at West would result in increased closures at East with full coverage. Is it b/c if they had that new lodge, their F&B sales would be even higher, thereby providing the budget to keep East open? Somehow I doubt that.

 

[egieszl]

I don't agree that there is really a "high season" in Southern California. Christmas to New Year's yes, but I think that's the exception. That holiday period is the only week where the crowds will show up when the snow conditions are less than ideal. High season January through mid-March ONLY occurs if there is good snow. If natural snow doesn't fall then the majority of the folks who ski a day or two a year stay home. When the snow is good Mountain High has kept East open midweek. Having adequate coverage and having good snow conditions are very different.

I don't think the passholder argument works in this case. Mountain High makes no promise of how long the season will be or what terrain will be open and when. At a $299 price point where you break even at about 5 visits it's hard to argue that passholders are being cheated. I paid $1499 (early season discount) for a pass at my home resort and rightfully so my expectations are a lot higher. I've shared the same frustration that snowave has and I think voting with his pocketbook would be a wise choice. If we're unhappy with a resort then we shouldn't patronize it.

 

[Aukai]

Missing in this discussion so far is the decision Mt High made last year to change East from the "True Alpine Experience" resort into the "advanced park" resort. Before last year, East was where people with no interest in park would go for GS turns and long runs. But because probably 90+% of their customers go to Mt. High to ride terrain parks, they decided last year to transform the place into a lengthy top-to-bottom park, to rival Bear and Westridge at Snow Summit. They made a conscious decision that those who wanted a True Alpine Experience would have to look elsewhere. This was just business.

They held a photo shoot there last season after East closed formally that actually made a magazine cover. East was going to be their path to legitimacy in the snowboarding world. They talked a big game earlier this season about their newfound commitment to East, but La Nina, fickle bitch that she is, had other ideas. So they haven't been able to build the kind of jumps there they had last year or that they envisioned for this season. Having already written off the skier/rider population that would actually enjoy uncrowded turns at East (i.e. the people likely to be reading this forum), the business decision not to run the lifts there during the weekdays is a no-brainer. [/baseless (all pun intended) speculation]

I've had a love-hate relationship with the place over the years- it's where I went as a college kid just learning how to ride, it's where I learned to love terrain parks, it's where I first destroyed my shoulder back when they had a park on East on Sundance. But since becoming the kind of rider that prefers the terrain at a Mt. Baldy or Waterman much much more than Mt. High, but the idea of sitting in hours of traffic on the 2 to stand in long lines with the most disrespectful elements of the SoCal snowboarding scene is just torture to me.

That and the fact that they still have the gall to advertise themselves as "Southern California's Closest Winter Resort" is still nails-on-a-chalkboard irritating to me. Unless I'm to believe that the driving experience of someone from Victorville is a fair surrogate for all of Southern California.

 

[SoCal Rider]

I don't agree that there is really a "high season" in Southern California. Christmas to New Year's yes, but I think that's the exception. That holiday period is the only week where the crowds will show up when the snow conditions are less than ideal. High season January through mid-March ONLY occurs if there is good snow. If natural snow doesn't fall then the majority of the folks who ski a day or two a year stay home. When the snow is good Mountain High has kept East open midweek. Having adequate coverage and having good snow conditions are very different.

I don't think the passholder argument works in this case. Mountain High makes no promise of how long the season will be or what terrain will be open and when. At a $299 price point where you break even at about 5 visits it's hard to argue that passholders are being cheated. I paid $1499 (early season discount) for a pass at my home resort and rightfully so my expectations are a lot higher. I've shared the same frustration that snowave has and I think voting with his pocketbook would be a wise choice. If we're unhappy with a resort then we shouldn't patronize it.

Gosh, I'm not so sure. That place is a freaking zoo every weekend into March. I've never seen West not busy. You are talking specifically about non-passholder visits?

 

[SoCal Rider]

That and the fact that they still have the gall to advertise themselves as "Southern California's Closest Winter Resort" is still nails-on-a-chalkboard irritating to me. Unless I'm to believe that the driving experience of someone from Victorville is a fair surrogate for all of Southern California.

Ha, ha. Yes, Baldy and Valley are closer to me (north SD Co.). Mountain High's advantage is purely storm-driving dependent.

 

[Tony Crocker]

January/February are unquestionably "high season" in SoCal resorts. This is reflected in pricing at Big Bear, where deals start to take effect in mid-March.

This January was much warmer than normal with maybe 1/3 normal snowfall. If East is still covered as snowave says (sun is low even though it's warm), it should be open 7 days a week IMHO. March is like April in other western places, the sun will take out the snow much faster in this kind of weather.

Snowave lives there, probably knows more inside info than the rest of us.

 

[Tom Moriarty]

Kind of funny, but people are even telling them sell East on the Mt. High website Forum now.

 

[egieszl]

High season can be defined by rates, but if the people don't show up then it really isn't high season for crowds is it?

If the crowds were actually showing up midweek at Mountain High then I suspect East would be open. (Since it's "high season" where are they? Someone please explain.)

So again, my point and in reply to what someone else wrote, "high season" doesn't mean anything in terms of crowds in Southern California. It only means higher prices at the window. Snow conditions alone drive the crowds (one exception Christmas to New Years). End of story.

(Tony, of all people, I would expect you to back me up on this one. You darn well know that when the snow is good the crowds show up, even midweek and when they suck people stay home. You yourself even define on your site the amount of terrain that must be open for you to consider visiting.)

 

[Tony Crocker]

SoCal local skiing is nearly all daytrippers and highly weekend concentrated. The midweek days after big dumps I would guess have a relatively bigger impact at Baldy. Do the Mt. High/Big Bear park rats really care if snowed 2 feet last night? They might even consider it a negative.

Snow conditions drive the crowds mainly based on when snow is visible on the front side of the mountains. I think the SoCal skiers on FTO are way more sensitive to the snow conditions (particularly with respect to the midweek powder days) than the bulk of the clientele, which are park-oriented snowboarders. I completely agree that Baldy's business is highly sensitive to snow conditions, but Baldy is less than 5% of SoCal total skier visits.

If rates drop in mid-March that tells me that skier/rider volume tends to drop then. Remember Big Bear rarely loses terrain before late March once it's covered, unlike Mt. High and Baldy. I suspect Big Bear's distribution of skier days is rather similar to eastern resorts with comparable world class snowmaking.

I'll defer to snowave about where Mt. High falls in terms of when it's busiest and how sensitive it is to snow conditions as I ski there so rarely. I have just assumed that once it was doing 500K skier visits/season that it was a lot more like Big Bear than Baldy.

Somewhere around 1997 I think Mt. High had a management change that resulted in upgrades to snowmaking and park construction. The overall quality improved, and while East had lesser priority its midweek closure generally preceded complete closure by only a week or two. It seems evident from snowave's comments that there has been a more recent management change, and this time not for the better.

 

[Mike Bernstein]

High season can be defined by rates, but if the people don't show up then it really isn't high season for crowds is it?

If the crowds were actually showing up midweek at Mountain High then I suspect East would be open. (Since it's "high season" where are they? Someone please explain.)

So again, my point and in reply to what someone else wrote, "high season" doesn't mean anything in terms of crowds in Southern California. It only means higher prices at the window. Snow conditions alone drive the crowds (one exception Christmas to New Years). End of story.

(Tony, of all people, I would expect you to back me up on this one. You darn well know that when the snow is good the crowds show up, even midweek and when they suck people stay home. You yourself even define on your site the amount of terrain that must be open for you to consider visiting.)

I look at this is as somewhat analogous to the Sugarbush set up in the East with Lincoln Peak and Mt Ellen being separated by an often-skied basin in between. It would have been easy for the newest owners of SB to simply close ME (the former Sugarbush North)mid-week. There's a reason it had come to be known as "Club North" - no one was ever there midweek, and it was pretty empty even on most wweekends. But what did they do instead? They invested $4MM to fix the lift system and then rolled out a series of deeply discounted, ME-only passes and products that made it much more attractive to local VT skiers and families. Despite the fact that SB generates over 1/3 fewer skier visits than Mt High, ME remains open every day once it opens for the season. If you were to apply your simple metric re: dividing total skier visits by number of days open, the outcome would look much, much worse for ME. And this is despite the fact that ME has two high-speed lifts and another three major lifts to maintain and provide electricity for over its 2600' vertical. If SB can make it work, there's no reason that the more popular MH shouldn't be able to make it work. The difference is that one apparently prioritizes money in their pocket at the end of the season while the other has broader concerns (though obviously they are not in business to lose money). I leave it to you to decide which is which.

 

[Tom Moriarty]

That would be a great idea to have an East only ticket and pass system and keep it mainly for skiers and families. I think Big Bear has a Bear only pass and Snow Summit is kept set up for mainly skiers except for Westridge I believe.

 

[Tony Crocker]

As Aukai mentioned, Mt. High formerly differentiated the 2 hills similarly to Big Bear, with East having mostly long cruisers and the park features concentrated at West. I think this is/was the right way to go. Not only to attract a wider range of people, but they clearly do not have the water to build big-time parks at both areas.

Tom's idea of a discounted East-only ticket is an interesting one, certainly worth doing midweek to attract more business.