By Christine Graf
With ski season officially underway, staffs at Gore Mountain and West Mountain are gearing up for what is likely to be another very busy winter. Last season, Gore had a record-breaking year for both revenue and season pass sales.
According to Gore’s general manager James “Bone” Bayse, pass sales for the 2022-2023 season have been strong.
“I’m not sure that we will break last year’s record because it was so high, but we will be very close. At the moment, we are tracking that way.”
Meanwhile at West Mountain in Queensbury, “Last winter was a good, solid, profitable year,” said co-owner Spencer Montgomery. “Coming into this year, revenue-wise which includes season passes, we are up about 20 percent over last year. We pre-sell school programs, and that has been really strong this year. We’re on a fiscal year that starts May 1 and we’re probably pushing a 30 percent increase in sales for the same period last year.”
During the off season at Gore, an additional 230 snow guns were added to the snowmaking fleet. Some of these guns will be used on the new trail that was cut into Burnt Ridge Mountain.
This 60-foot-wide, intermediate-rated trail with grooming and snowmaking capabilities is called Backwoods. It will enter near the top of the Burnt Ridge Quad and run alongside the Barkeater Glades, ending just uphill of the Roaring Brook Bridge at the bottom of the Pipeline.
Others snow guns will be used on the interconnect trails that lead to Gore’s North Creek Ski Bowl area.
In January 2022, officials at Gore unveiled plans for a $30 million expansion of the Ski Bowl. Their proposal includes construction of an 18,300-square-foot year-round base lodge.
“As far as our Ski Bowl expansion, we are still working through permitting processes,” said Bayse. “Ideally, we will be able to hook up to the town (North Creek) sewer, but that is a town project and they are multiple years away from that. We’re hoping that we are able to find a solution to be able to move forward with the Ski Bowl project.”
In October, the hamlet of North Creek approved the community’s first public sewer system. The project is expected to span multiple years and cost $7.6 million.
In addition to working on the Ski Bowl proposal, Gore is preparing to host the World University Games in January. In what will be the largest event ever to take place on the mountain, intercollegiate athletes from all over the world will compete there. The majority of the games are being hosted at Lake Placid, and Gore is hosting the freestyle events only.
“It is a huge event for Gore,” said Bayse. “It’s an international event that will be televised, and some of the days of competition will be ESPN Live broadcasts.”
Although Gore faced a staffing shortage last year, Bayse is hopeful that they will be fully staffed for this year’s ski season. The mountain has 70 full-time employees but needs a total of 550 employees in order to be fully staffed during the winter. They were more than 100 employees short last season.
“We don’t have all the staff that we need, but we are in better shape this year than we were last year,” said Bayse. “We’re seeing improvement there, and more people are willing to come back to work.”
At West Mountain, they are also grappling with staffing shortages. The mountain has 30 full-time employees but needs an additional 350 employees during ski season.
“Hiring has definitely been a challenge,” said Montgomery. “Ski areas are in very employment-intense industry. Staffing is one of our biggest challenges.”
According to Montgomery, a resort-wide RFID (radio-frequency identification) system that was installed at the mountain during the off season will help with the staffing shortage by reducing the need for ticket takers. The $400,000 system uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify cards that skiers wear in their jackets.
RFID cards will work across the resort and can be used for accessing ski lifts as well as purchasing food or renting equipment. The cards can be purchased ahead of time and will be dispensed by an on-site dispensing machine. The same card can be used for the entire season and can be recharged online.
“It will really be seamless for the public. There will be fewer lines,” said Montgomery.
The RFID system will be especially beneficial to those purchasing timed tickets. Timed tickets will not begin until a skier passes through an RFID ticket-reading gantry for the first time. In the past, timed tickets started from the moment of purchase at the ticket counter. In addition to the 4- and 8-hour tickets that were sold in previous years, West is reintroducing the 2-hour tickets for non-holiday week days and evenings.
“Bringing back the 2-hour ticket will be big for us,” said Montgomery. “We’ve also added some new lessons, and we hired Thomas Vonn last year. We have a really strong race program.”
Vonn is an elite alpine racing coach and former member of the U.S. ski team. Since hiring him as the Alpine FIS and program director, West Mountain has established a boarding academy on the mountain.
“That was a big add for us to have a boarding academy,” said Montgomery. “It plays into the long-term goals of our race program.”
The addition of the FIS program and boarding academy, as well as an off-season ropes course and summer camps, have contributed to what it shaping up to be a profitable fiscal year.
According to Montgomery, he and his team continue to move forward with their previously announced plans for a ski-and-stay development project on the northwest side of the mountain.
“We’ve done a lot of work on that conceptualizing and getting the plans ready for that. But that’s still a way down the road. Best case scenario for breaking ground would be next fall.”
The website for gore is goremountain.com and for West Mountain, westmountain.com.