Burke bought by Jay Peak

[From_the_NEK]

Burke was just purchased by the owners of Jay Peak. This was definitely kept pretty hushed as I hadn't heard anything about this until the story was broken by WCAX this morning.

http://www.wcax.com/story/18614019/burke-mountain-sold

It will be interesting to see how this plays out for both of my favorite mountains.

More infor here:

http://www.boston.com/travel/explorene/specials/ski/blog/2012/05/burke_mountain.html

[Marc_C]

And on the front page of this very site....
http://www.firsttracksonline.com/2012/05/24/jay-peak-owners-purchase-vermonts-burke-mountain-ski-area/

[Admin]

So NEK, what's the local impression on this deal. Better than Ginn?

Sent from my Android phone via Tapatalk

[From_the_NEK]

How do I post a saved message? I accidentally pushed the "Save" button instead of "Submit". Never mind

[From_the_NEK]

After a day to think about it...
I think this is going to be great for both mountains. Jay will have a feather in their cap that isn't "quite so far away" from Southern New England and will have a laid back option for guests who want to escape the large resort feel that has developed at the main mountain. Combo passes are going to be very attractive.

Burke will benefit from the stability and "making it work in the NEK" experience that that the new ownership has. I'm happy to have Bill Stenger have the reigns at Burke rather than some other "mega-resort" company that would likely have messed it all up because they didn't understand the history of Burke. As for "off season" activities, I don't think we will see plans for anything like a waterpark or a golf course, those are markets are already covered by the facilities at Jay Peak. I do see expanded lift served MTB in the future. MTB in East Burke is hot right now
The fact that they bought Burke debt free is huge.

[Anthony]

As a long time road biker , I have been told to try Mountain Biking as the next best thing to tree skiing in the summer . We just returned from a 3 day stay of Mountain Biking at Burke. Trip was during the week so the lifts were not running but for $15.00 had access to the huge Kingdom Trails network around Darling Hill . Have to say some down hill switchbacks felt like tree skiing . Good option as a off season activity at a ski area. Could see myself skiing at Burke in the winter .