The Business Of Skiing: Local Resorts Find Ways To Stay Open In Off-Season
PRINCETON (CBS) – Local ski resorts are hoping for snow this weekend, but many of them have been finding innovative ways to keep busy all summer and fall.
At Wachusett Mountain in Princeton, Massachusetts, owner Carolyn Stimpson told WBZ NewsRadio 1030 her family has never lost money here.
"We've been close a few times. We've managed to stay ok," she said.
"It's nice having all those nice Massachusetts residents right within an hour's drive. That's the key."
Read: Anthony Silva's Series: Keeping the Hills Alive
And she said it was her dad who offered the first ideas on how to keep the place hopping even without snow.
"It evolved way back. My dad would say 'Hey, you guys should think about doing these festivals.' Hunter Mountain always did them, back with Tony Bennett and different things like that. He said it for years and we said, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah dad.' Finally we had 'Apple Fest' and it was huge, we couldn't believe it, like 'Hey, this guy knows something,'" Stimpson said.
And now they have Kid's Fest, Barbecue Fest and more events off-season, but she has no plans for a zipline.
"We've got a lot of weddings and it would be hard to have a fancy wedding going on with a zipline flying right into the back door," Stimpston said.
That's not the case at Attitash and Wildcat in New Hampshire.
Both ski areas owned by Peak Resorts have upgraded their ziplines.
"We've recently added the mountain coaster. We have the scenic skyride. We have the climbing wall, the Euro Bungee trampoline jump, airbag jump, the outside water slides and this year, we're actually adding a new zip tour," Tom Prindle at Attitash told WBZ.
He said the new zip tour will be longest in the lower 48 states.
At Bromley Mountain in Vermont, they've added to their alpine slide, which dates back to 1976.
But, some ski areas are finding limited success and some ideas have just flopped.
That story in my next report.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Anthony Silva reports
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