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Vail Resorts to acquire Seven Springs, Laurel Mountain, and Hidden Valley resorts in Pennsylvania for '22-'23 season

MikeW Philly

Getting off the lift
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As a former employee of one of these resorts, I can tell you it is not the pandemic that has primarily chased the staff away, less then 20% would be pandemic related in PA, majority being people not interested in complying with the vaccine regulations.

Vail has run off a number of management and many guest facing staff who are fed up with the ridiculous Vail policies that work ok in Colorado but make no sense east of the Mississippi, let alone in South PA the lowest elevation/100% snowmaking ski areas in the US. So much so that most have given up a higher base pay rate and just bought a pass so they can ski when they want.

One example: closing the slopeside bar at Liberty at 6pm (instead of 8-9) on Sundays when the bar area is normally filled with parents waiting for their kids to finish skiing for the night.

By pandemic I was more thinking new hires. Unfortunately take overs tend to force a change in staff. Although it’s insane they didn’t keep key tribal knowledge. Also look at subsequent posts hadn’t realized how long of the NH resorts had been owned. Def seems like VR is dropping ball badly.
 

Brad J

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Newbury, Ma.
I have skied NH's Attitash and Wildcat since the mid 60's and have a sense on the problem at these two areas. for years they relied on the local farm workers to fill the lift operations. as that is no longer the case in those areas the workforce changed. Both area had a solid stable work force until they where bought up buy big corps American Ski , Peak Resorts , now Vail. Each time the big company brought in new management treated existing long time employees like crap, probably thinking they can be replaced by chaperons less experience workers. Well after 20 years of treating people badly and a very low pay scale they have developed a reputation in the area . The workforce in the area will much rather work elsewhere even if its the same money ( which it isn't ). They need to do a Henry Ford and offer job at 25-50% more than they are paying and rebuild the confidence and reputation to the local workforce. not going to happen over night but it may be there last chance for success.
 

SKIBUM 6

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7 Springs is a good buy for any resort company. Not sure for the price VR paid. But, MLK weekend 10 year ago 7S set a record of 33k skiers!! This is amazing considering 7S is 3k elevation with only 500 acres and 700 vertical! As small as it is ,,,, it has two high speed 6packs with six other chairs. The mountain has 100% snow making as Herman Depree basically invented snow making! out west take a look at the snow making nozzles. You’ll see HKD on them. Ski magazine a number of years back did a “Families of ski” article. Herman, his wife and his NINE,,,, daughters were pictured in it. They sold out about 10 years back and Herman past a year or two ago.
will keep my ear to the Vale changes.
 

zag

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7 Springs is a good buy for any resort company. Not sure for the price VR paid. But, MLK weekend 10 year ago 7S set a record of 33k skiers!! This is amazing considering 7S is 3k elevation with only 500 acres and 700 vertical! As small as it is ,,,, it has two high speed 6packs with six other chairs. The mountain has 100% snow making as Herman Depree basically invented snow making! out west take a look at the snow making nozzles. You’ll see HKD on them. Ski magazine a number of years back did a “Families of ski” article. Herman, his wife and his NINE,,,, daughters were pictured in it. They sold out about 10 years back and Herman past a year or two ago.
will keep my ear to the Vale changes.
ya, some of your facts are quite off.
 

dbostedo

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ya, some of your facts are quite off.
OK then... care to help provide correction/clarification? 500 acres seems high, but most of that is loosely correct I think.
 
Last edited:

rickg

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Euclid, Ohio
It is Herman Dupre, the vertical drop is 750' and the family sold to the Nutting Family who also own the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was the Nutting family that sold out to Vail.

Not all of the Dupre's wanted to sell at the time to the Nuttings and a lawsuit prevented a previous sale attempt. Herman kept his snowmaking company HKD continuing development to where it is today, the largest in the world.

I was not aware that Herman had passed. He was a very nice and gracious man! I patrolled there during the 80's and 90's and Herman would say hello and ask how you are doing. Always had a smile on his face.

I fear for what Seven Springs will become under Vail ownership, especially after seeing how they are running their premier resorts in Colorado. Blaming Covid for their employee shortages, reducing hours, not opening terrain that can certainly be opened.

I have been skiing Keystone and Beaver Creek this past week and many of the highspeed chairs do not have an outside attendant! Just the guy inside the hut. Same on the Gondolas. No attendants when you get on or off. No one to help with skis if needed. I have never seen that before; every lift and gondola would always have at least one attendant to help.

Shame on Vail for taking our money and not living up to their promises!

Rick G
 

zag

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OK then... care to help provide correction/clarification? 500 acres seems high, but most of that is loosely correct I think.
285 skiable acres.

Perhaps they had 500 acres total resort land including all housing and taking it to the road borders.
 

dbostedo

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285 skiable acres.

Perhaps they had 500 acres total resort land including all housing and taking it to the road borders.
Yeah... I figured that was probably some kind of land-holding estimate. Maybe it includes the golf course and lodging and parking areas. :)
 

Laurel Hill Crazie

AKA Rob Davis
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Also, Herman did not invent snowmaking, but he was a significant innovator. HKDs are among the most energy-efficient nozzles in the industry. As for skiable acreage, I thought that 285 acres are covered with snowmaking, but several skiable lift lines and side slopes are not covered. However, I don't think that would bump the total acreage to 500.
 

SKIBUM 6

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I see I’ll have to be precise an not estimate?
Dupre
Elevation. 2,990’
Vertical drop. 750’
Skiable terrain. 275 acres
Skied 20 runs today. Only three not yet open. Mostly because of a two week warm and rainy spell in December. With cold temps, these will be open this weekend. 100% snowmaking. Only the glades relying on natural snow.
Yes. God was the inventor of snowmaking.
 

Roundturns

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I see I’ll have to be precise an not estimate?
Dupre
Elevation. 2,990’
Vertical drop. 750’
Skiable terrain. 275 acres
Skied 20 runs today. Only three not yet open. Mostly because of a two week warm and rainy spell in December. With cold temps, these will be open this weekend. 100% snowmaking. Only the glades relying on natural snow.
Yes. God was the inventor of snowmaking.
Tyrol a main slope on the front side is still closed. From the web cams it looks like skiers are poaching the line under the Tyrol chair. They started snow making ( finally) Friday. Looking at the cams there would appear to be enough snow represented in the “whale piles” to provide enough snow to groom it out and open.
Probably letting the whale piles dry out before grooming? Anyway want to go out tomorrow and it would be great if Tyrol was open too.
Regarding the new Avalanche chair lift. Real nice improvement and improved access to the Stowe Slope. One ”bitch” about the lift, loads Really Really low! Great if you’re 3 years old I guess.
Regarding snow making I was out there Thursday and they were blowing snow on the left hand side of Northface at the bottom and the blown snow was distinctly yellow.
UGH! Cold as heck Thursday too.
 

dbostedo

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Tyrol a main slope on the front side is still closed. From the web cams it looks like skiers are poaching the line under the Tyrol chair. They started snow making ( finally) Friday. Looking at the cams there would appear to be enough snow represented in the “whale piles” to provide enough snow to groom it out and open.
Probably letting the whale piles dry out before grooming? Anyway want to go out tomorrow and it would be great if Tyrol was open too.
Regarding the new Avalanche chair lift. Real nice improvement and improved access to the Stowe Slope. One ”bitch” about the lift, loads Really Really low! Great if you’re 3 years old I guess.
Regarding snow making I was out there Thursday and they were blowing snow on the left hand side of Northface at the bottom and the blown snow was distinctly yellow.
UGH! Cold as heck Thursday too.
Ah... I've skied the yellow snow at 7 springs, and at Laurel... you learn to avoid it when it's fresh as it tends to be really sticky.... like worse than a spring day sticky. Like made me crash in surprise sticky. :geek::ogbiggrin:
 

Roundturns

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Skied 7 Springs yesterday and as much as I complain only fair to acknowledge how good the skiing was. Crazy cold in the AM. Car registered -14 F turning on to County Line Road. Minus 4 in the parking lot.
But it was perfect bluebird day. Sun came up and there was no wind. Last several days there had been several inches of snowfall over multiple days after the weekend storm. I was dressed for it, but never got cold. Warmed up quite a bit by noon.
The snow was great . Groomers were outstanding and even the bumps over by the Gunnar High Speed lift between Gunnar and Giant Steps were soft and skiable.

It can “happen” out there but it’s a coming together of sun, no wind, cold temps, and fresh snow which is pretty hard to combine here in SW Pa.
 

zag

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It was very cold both weekend days today but there was not a bad patch of snow to be found on trail. Rocking good conditions, still coverage in the more open tree runs
 

Roundturns

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Out at the Springs again this AM. Still skiing really really good. Going to get some rain- freezing rain before transitioning to snow later this week. Hopefully more “white” will fall out of the sky than “clear” and please no freezing rain!
But hats off to the Springs putting out a very good product for sure.
 

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