The separation of Burke Mountain Academy and Burke Mountain is something that has been on my mind in this mess.
On a scale of 1-10, how much of a mess is this?
It's no mess at all for BMA, if they work hand in glove with the new owner. For BMA to deliver on their mission, that is essential. With the Federal Receiver mandated to sell at the highest possible price, that takes this relationship off the table. For that reason, I think that BMA will buy it {if the bidding is remotely reasonable}, then work to find a long term owner what will work closely with them. By, "BMA" I mean the community, could be any number of stakeholders. Burkies are a loyal bunch.
How does the proposed Balsalms project affect this mess? Certainly if realized in some form it would be competition for the NEK? Not like it's easy to get anyone to go up there.
I think the key words are
"If Realized". Les has always dreamed big, and plenty of doubters on this. The most logical comments that I have heard, or questions, are centered around where his customers will come from. He's going to ned to get people to abandon where they are currently based. Not an easy sell, I'm told. I don't see overlap with Burke or Jay.
Agree, which is why I said that what does seem questionable is the rational for Vail, Alterra or Peak to consider buying Jay.
Skiing Jay is one thing. Having it be a part of your multi-mountain pass is yet another thing. Owning it, that is a completely different world.
Agree 100%. Or more! Well said. It could be a very tough business venture.
I would be interested to know Jay's numbers, meaning how many skier visits.
I think that Jay's biggest year ever just topped 300K skier visits. It's not small in that respect. I'd be more interested to know how many are day trippers. It's quite a lot, I believe.
Snow is better than Burke and not as good and not nearly as much as Jay, at least that's my guess. They certainly get snow up there, but the location really shines with snow preservation - at least that is what LBO is touting.
I'm not so sure that the Balsams will have that big a difference on Jay and Burke. I think it'll more impact Sunday River and Sugarloaf. Definitely there are only a finite number of skiers who will travel 3.5+ hours from Boston and MA to ski a Jay/SR/SL, but Balsams is in northeast NH, 1ish hour from Sunday River. I doubt Jay will lose many skiers because of that. Different worlds.
I'm a long term Sugarloaf skier. Also began skiing at Sunday River long before it became what it is today. I go back to the early 70's there. Key factor with Sugarloaf is that a huge percentage of the skier base are pass holders who own there, or seasonally rent. Many more own. The actual numbers ar ehard to pin down, but something like 75-80% of the condo's and homes on the mountain {roughly 1000} are never rented and used by their owners every weekend. Rabid fans. They aren't going anywhere. Also, no big LBO fans.
Sunday River is much the same . You don't have third and fourth generation Sunday River skiers, but you have big, big numbers of every weekend skiers and owners. Both areas have some of the largest junior programs in the country. Again, you put down roots in your ski community, and pulling them away is not easy. I hear of potential investors who push Les hard on this subject of where his customers will come from, and what hard research he has to back it up, and I think it's a bit "up in the air." I live on Boston's North Shore, and in our town there are a pretty big number of families who ski/own in Maine, and in VT {Stowe, Sugarbush, Okemo,}.
We'll see what happens with the Balsams.
On Monday at Kilington we met people who came from Montreal on a bus. Left st 5am. Can't imagine they'd go to Burke, but they do go to Jay.
Multi day bus trips.....or one day? Just curious. When we owned in Stowe, many of our neighbors came from Montreal. Big numbers. And they seemed to "support the local economy" in big numbers.