Snowbird to close early

Anecdotal evidence only, I know, but there was always a steady flow of people at the ticket window on the Tram Plaza.
 
Snowbird numbers are much lower than Mammoth, but the proportion that are day ticket buyers rates to be higher. The late season Snowbird skiers may be locals, but they can be passholders to other areas, Alta in particular. Snowbird does not do nearly the amount of spring work on the mountain that Mammoth does in terms of number of lifts, being open 3 days a week vs. 7, grooming, salting, moving snow around if necessary. So I have to believe Snowbird's operating expenses are lower.

The Memorial Day numbers snowboard247 posted showed Mammoth visits to be 2/3 passholders. Mammoth does get some northern California business after Tahoe shuts down, but not a huge amount. It's still a 7+ hour drive from the Bay area until Tioga opens. Mammoth has nearly always hosted racers in late May/early June.

I suspect late season at A-Basin is quite profitable. I get the impression there are even considerable weekend liftlines, though lifts are slow and capacity is much less than Mammoth. And as in Utah they can be selling day tickets to people who skied other areas mid-season, though in the current era there are probably a lot of Epic/Colorado passholders.
 
Tony Crocker":mhwx3avy said:
Snowbird does not do nearly the amount of spring work on the mountain that Mammoth does in terms of number of lifts, being open 3 days a week vs. 7, grooming, salting, moving snow around if necessary. So I have to believe Snowbird's operating expenses are lower.
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It depends on exactly when in spring. Snowbird scales back gradually, rather than going suddenly from nearly full operation to just the tram and LC. Jamesdeluxe was talking from the mid-April time frame onward. At that time, Snowbird is still in mostly full operation, with only Mid-Gad and Gad-II done for the season. Gadzoom and Wilbere shut down near the end of April and Peruvian at the start of May. Baldy Express in MB shuts when Alta closes. They don't go to the 3-day/week schedule till after the second weekend in May and they'll keep MB open until it gets warm enough that the snow is unsupportable by 9:30a. It becomes just Tram and LC later in May. As always, it depends on a given season's spring snowpack and that year's weather.
 
OK, guess I need someone with his fingers on the pulse of the Utah ski industry to tell me whether it's a loss leader or a cash-positive operation.

I figured Admin would know.
 
if mammoth management were steering the ship here they wouldn't have closed they'd still be pushing it around .instead of shoveling it to the public . alta would still be turning lifts . i didn't see evidence of cat work anywhere in little cloud bowl why it's still wall to wall cover only wind blown spots were melted out. snowbird wouldn't disclose those figures unless you got a court order.i suppose i should have expected this with a bad economy . snowbird mgnmnt. is very stubborn and sometimes quick to draw conclusion besides there's abig mtn. bike race coming up on the twenty fifth specialized is footing the bill for this.
 
I just final Snowbird snow stats from patrol. Some observations from them:
1) They think Snowbird at least breaks even on the late season weekends. They would be running the tram anyway, so marginal extra cost is minimal.
2) Marketing people would want to go as long as possible. They see much free publicity value if they make July 4th. Which is the argument I've made for many years at Mammoth.
3) The abrupt closure was due to grooming problems. The last week of May they damaged a cat to the tune of $2,500. The cat crew made the call not to open last weekend. Patrol believes they should have opened with no grooming, and clearly posted that info so people would know before they bought tickets.
4) Patrol does see widespread suncupping off trail. There is clearly less off trail skier-packing than at Mammoth.
5) Patrol has no idea why the change in policy for summer riders with skis. They do think the intent was "one ride for backcountry access," not to run multiple laps per day.
 
Tony Crocker":bdir7vzg said:
3) The abrupt closure was due to grooming problems. The last week of May they damaged a cat to the tune of $2,500. The cat crew made the call not to open last weekend. Patrol believes they should have opened with no grooming, and clearly posted that info so people would know before they bought tickets.
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What they only have 1 cat to groom with?

BTW about 1-2 inches of fresh snow from yesterday evening on the upper mountain today @ mammoth.
 
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