cd wrote:rfarren wrote:I may be naive, but what else has Nyberg done that has harmed the brand other than shorten the season? (it's been 4 or 5 years since I last skied there)
They forgot that cachet, loyalty and reputation are everything. Maybe they can get it back, but every additional year they shut down and leave conditions like are on the mt right this minute to rot they get a little further away from a possible recovery...
Killington was THE place. The only places running weekends in a row. Open until you had to tale off your skis 3-4 times before you did top-to-bottom. At one point, I'll post some old stuff on Ski Mad World about the good old Spring Days. The blog is still a work in progress.
Here is something from a few years ago...
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6809&p=34630&hilit=Kmart+June+days#p34630
Patrick wrote:Geoff wrote:Killington is day trip distance from metro-Boston and 4-ish from metro-NYC. In the spring when everyone else closes, there has always been a huge amount of day ticket business at Killington as the people with all the ski passion from other Northeastern mountains wander in. Tons of Canadians. Tons of Massholes. Tons of New Yorkers.
Sure, the 7 month season and snowmaking reputation has always been a reason to settle at Killington and buy a season pass. A big April into May is also a viable business based on walkup day ticket sales. You don't get the same skier yield since lodging is steeply discounted and there's a price break on the lift ticket but it doesn't take many staff to operate the resort at that time of year. They run the K1 in the summer for mountain biking and touron lift rides when the place gets very little traffic. There's no reason why they can't do the same thing in at least the first half of May.
I remember arguing this point a few years ago. Speaking as a ex-"Canadian within a day trip distance", I've almost exclusively skied Kmart on the margin of the season. Killington is, I believe it's still, my 3rd area with the most visits, although I've only skied a handful of time in months other than May and June. I haven't skied at Killington much in the last few years, because the Kmart isn't the only game in town for me and I've had other choices.Geoff wrote:I think ASC really created the problem when they ripped out the Killington double chair. They could load at the midstation and operate the lift with 3 or 4 staff for October and late-May skiing. Upper Downdraft held snow much better than Superstar and the trail is much narrower so the costs to stockpile snow were much lower. To restore the Killington brand, I really think they should buy a used double or triple and run it from midmountain up to Killington Peak for fall and spring skiing.
Even before they removed that double, they moved late Spring skiing operations on the new Superstar. This was shortsighted, because it required some much more to get Superstar to open that late in the season. Once they decided to removed the double and replace it with K1...that pretty much made the energy and efforts to start early and end late so much harder...the fate of K legacy (early/late skiing) was living on borrowed time.
It would be great if they would try to restore the K brand the way that Geoff mentions, however I would be surprised if that would happened. How many people saw the arrival of the K1 Gondola has an improvement over the 0ld K Peak double? Not many people had a tear from that old double, the ones that did really understood what it meant. :cry:
PS. Superstar would look in much worst shape than the actual pic of a closed OL on K's closing days.

PPS. Superstar and Skye Peak is a way better terrain than Jay (Haynes-Jet) for late late season. As Mt. Ellen with FIS is better than Sugabush Valley.