I was there in the 1980's. I remember the 45 minute lift line at the K chair. I remember sitting on hay bails in the bar because they weren't allowed enough chairs for the square footage to seat all the people. We all skied Bear because that was the only part of the mountain with any kind of uphill capacity. The skiing surface in the Killington basin was really nice because they had really lousy uphill capacity. Killington of those years was doing 600K skier visits, not a million. It wasn't until the mid-1990's when they added the Skyeship, Superstar Quad, Canyon Quad, and flipped the Snowdon double into a quad that they could actually handle the big skier visits and got up to their claimed million skier visits as Preston Smith was preparing to unload Ski Ltd on Les Otten. Even then, the lift lines were huge and Killington was a total zoo on Saturdays.Coydog wrote:That was one perception for some weekend skiers. "Kmart, no one skis there anymore because it’s too crowded."Geoff wrote: How many people do you run into who, when Killington comes up, say, "I haven't been there in years other than for October and May skiing. That place is a zoo." People who ski farther north in Vermont are pretty much united in that opinion. Much of the Boston market says the same thing and now goes to Sunday River. I'll bet a lot of the Connecticut market that now goes to Okemo says it.
However before ASC, Killington had skier visits in the 1 million range per season during the 80’s and they seemed to manage the mountain very effectively back then. It can be done.
And I disagree with the characterization that many or most pass holders don't care about early and late season skiing. I believe that was part of the great appeal of K. They might not all actually ski then, but it was part of the perceived advantage of purchasing a pass.
Kill the extended season and you kill pass revenue. I guess next season's pass sales will prove me right or wrong - we'll see.
Once again, I agree about the perceived value of a Killington season pass when it offers Halloween until June 1 skiing. When I was picking a mountain in the early 1980's, that was by far the dominant factor in picking Killington over other options. I'd had season passes at Stowe and midweek passes at Mad River so I knew there were other options that had a moderately longer drive time from the metro-Boston area. I think Killington is making a mistake by shortening the season. Only time will tell if they're right or we're right.
And to repeat myself, Preston Smith didn't discount anything in the 1980's. Killington was always a tough place to get a comp ticket. Ski shop employees couldn't get comps. You had to be a shop owner or shop manager. In the days before the internet, it was really difficult to find out about ski club voucher deals. Killington didn't sell many of those vouchers. That only exploded over the last decade as the information got out. If you were a flatland weekender, your choices were a season pass that broke even at 20 days or a full boat day ticket. Welcome back to the 1980's Killington pricing structure.
