Occurred to me today that the Skyship

[da Pimp]

If anyone ever took the time to go down the main trails to Skyeship base (not early morning/late day), you would see a lot of customers on those trails and good traffic in the lodge. Sure they have less skill on average, but they are paying customers just are not on the more popular trails or lodges. That makes for more space, less interference of different skills sharing "preferred" trails elsewhere, more advertising power and attraction, parking and access to the hill, and an occasional option for everyone on frigid or foggy days.

POWDR's challenge has been to look for ways to reduce operations costs, and looking at Skyeship and Pico as pods that might be "sacrificed" for the greater good. Remember when they rolled out changes in those operating schedules? A lot of people whined pretty loudly. K mostly reverted back to traditional usage, except Pico stayed closed midweek and that seems to have worked out just fine for 97% of their customers. Pico can actually turn a little profit on a decent season, witness the investment this year towards improving the customer experience there.

So I see Skyeship as a good asset to the overall, providing goods & services during the mid season and peak times when the capacity of operations is stretched.

[jimmywilson69]

My high intermediate wife and older friends I often ski at K with love lapping great Eastern. Long trail, not overly crowded, warm gondola trip back to the top.

I do it twice and then go ski "real terrain"

It serves a purpose albeit not for the hard core and or local crowd

[Mister Moose]

I just have trouble ignoring the fact that, among other things, the trails down there are suffering. Valley Plunge is rarely open, the simple existence of Touchdown is debatable, and they don't show the lowest part of Juggernaut anymore (not that it exists or anyone wants to use it).

Not sure when it happened, but as a result of trading away upper Juggernaut for the Bicknells Thrush, the trail name is now off the current on line map. There is only Solitude & Sassafras.

[daytripper]

I just have trouble ignoring the fact that, among other things, the trails down there are suffering. Valley Plunge is rarely open, the simple existence of Touchdown is debatable, and they don't show the lowest part of Juggernaut anymore (not that it exists or anyone wants to use it).

Not sure when it happened, but as a result of trading away upper Juggernaut for the Bicknells Thrush, the trail name is now off the current on line map. There is only Solitude & Sassafras.

I believe that they traded upper juggeraut so they could cut down some trees on top of snowdon when they were putting in the sixpack.

[machski]

I agree that Skyeship will never be abandoned. With the low hours, a well performed overhaul like the K1 had (but better since they have more experience), it should be able to run for years to come. Even if most of the lift had to be replaced, the towers could likely be reused, greatly reducing the cost.

The reason Sunrise was abandoned is because it was so far out of the way and the lift was a 20 minute ride, making it very underutilized. While it was never going to achieve its full potential without Parker's Gore, Otten was too cheap to replace the lift which might have made it viable.

Nope, sorry, not the reason they closed Sunrise base. You are right it was always tied to Parker's Gore expansion but they also land traded in there in LBO's time to gain access to terrain for the Pico interconnect. Parker's Gore was dead and never happening. Obviously, the Pico link hasn't happened yet, but it is still viae and not blocked by environmental concerns like Parker's was/is. So trade a little bit of low elevation, far off the beaten path terrain for higher elevation and more !somewhat) centralized terrain. Decent swap if you ask me, though I did enjoy the midstation down terrain at Sunrise when it existed.

[Highway Star]

I agree that Skyeship will never be abandoned. With the low hours, a well performed overhaul like the K1 had (but better since they have more experience), it should be able to run for years to come. Even if most of the lift had to be replaced, the towers could likely be reused, greatly reducing the cost.

The reason Sunrise was abandoned is because it was so far out of the way and the lift was a 20 minute ride, making it very underutilized. While it was never going to achieve its full potential without Parker's Gore, Otten was too cheap to replace the lift which might have made it viable.

Don't believe those lies.

Sunrise was abandoned because the Parkers Gore land was traded for developable land in Killington Basin and Pico was bought making expansion to the north the future of Killington.

[Highway Star]

I agree that Skyeship will never be abandoned. With the low hours, a well performed overhaul like the K1 had (but better since they have more experience), it should be able to run for years to come. Even if most of the lift had to be replaced, the towers could likely be reused, greatly reducing the cost.

The reason Sunrise was abandoned is because it was so far out of the way and the lift was a 20 minute ride, making it very underutilized. While it was never going to achieve its full potential without Parker's Gore, Otten was too cheap to replace the lift which might have made it viable.

Nope, sorry, not the reason they closed Sunrise base. You are right it was always tied to Parker's Gore expansion but they also land traded in there in LBO's time to gain access to terrain for the Pico interconnect. Parker's Gore was dead and never happening. Obviously, the Pico link hasn't happened yet, but it is still viae and not blocked by environmental concerns like Parker's was/is. So trade a little bit of low elevation, far off the beaten path terrain for higher elevation and more !somewhat) centralized terrain. Decent swap if you ask me, though I did enjoy the midstation down terrain at Sunrise when it existed.

Killington/POWDR/SPL still owns the lower Sunrise land through Cherry Knoll associates. Look it up.

Parkers Gore was DOA because they fought a restricted operational schedule in that area and lost, like around 1984 iirc. S-K-I held the land for quite a while before selling out to Otten and him doing the swap in late 1997. Sunrise operated until late winter / spring 1999, after the swap.

[newpylong1]

Yes and far prior to using Woodward for water they wanted to create a pond in Parkers Gore and were shot down horribly by the VT Land Use Board (pre ACT 250) in 1987. The handwriting was on the wall not long after the lift went in unfortunately.

[Highway Star]

Just wanted to clarify on the land swap, they did it in late 1997 and traded 3000 acres of Parkers Gore for 1000 acres of developable land, mostly in Killington Basin. Tied in with this were the Woodward water rights, relocation of the Appalachian trail, the permitting for the Interconnect and possibly the protection of the Long Trail. Looking at the state parcel maps Killington controls the shoulder north of Rams Head peak, part of their main 2200 acre parcel of what I think is leased state land, and a swath to the east of Pico where the Long Trail is. Pico Pond LLC owns the lower planned Interconnect land and 75% of the existing Interconnect Trail. Mid-Rams Head and the north of Rams Head bike trails already use some Pico Pond land, I believe they have some sort of lease agreement with them.

[Southside_Bobby]

Skyeship will likely remain for the foreseeable future, even if GE is the only trail it services. But an unreliable lift at stage 1 is obviously much more of a problem than anywhere else on the mountain. When it goes down you are absolutely stuck. Imagine if every time K1 or the bubble went down, you had to take ground transportation to get to any running lift.

Someone mentioned the word "exponentially" to describe the decline in reliability the last couple of years. No better word to describe it. If you were at K a lot last year, and didn't experience being stuck on the lift or down at stage 1 more often, you either don't ski that part of the mountain much or you were very lucky.

Hopefully they will do something soon to refurbish the Skyeship. They have to.

Ever end up in the car that gets caught on it's bottom exiting the midstation, causing it to lean way over then slam back down before shutting the lift? Lots of fun.

[KingsFourMan]

Killington is intermediate terrain starved as it is, for that reason alone they'll never shutter "Killington East" as it was known when it first opened. My wife and three daughters love cruising down there.

[newpylong1]

I think many of the folks on here do not grasp how utilized Skyeship base and GE/Home Stretch are on weekends, and even some midweek days. Believe it or not, that lot gets close to capacity, the lodge (including the bar, seating, and Mexican cafe) get packed, and there are a lot of skiers on those two trails. Just because you don't ski or use it doesn't mean someone else doesn't.

[ME2VTSkier]

I think many of the folks on here do not grasp how utilized Skyeship base and GE/Home Stretch are on weekends, and even some midweek days. Believe it or not, that lot gets close to capacity, the lodge (including the bar, seating, and Mexican cafe) get packed, and there are a lot of skiers on those two trails. Just because you don't ski or use it doesn't mean someone else doesn't.

They can't see it from the Peak Lodge Bar or the U-Bars

[hillbangin]

I think many of the folks on here do not grasp how utilized Skyeship base and GE/Home Stretch are on weekends, and even some midweek days. Believe it or not, that lot gets close to capacity, the lodge (including the bar, seating, and Mexican cafe) get packed, and there are a lot of skiers on those two trails. Just because you don't ski or use it doesn't mean someone else doesn't.

The only way they can get rid of it is if they build the new bear lodge.

And make sky a 6.

Not for a long time.

They could also replace the gondi with 2 chairs.

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[jimmywilson69]

Stage 1 would make for a long ass chair ride to basically nowhere.