Snowbird offers sale to increase hotel bookings in December

Snowbird Ski Resort offered a 48-hour sale earlier this week, which started at 12 a.m. Monday morning and lasted until 11:59 p.m. Wednesday night.

The sale offered patrons a discounted overnight rate for the resort’s four hotel properties starting at $99 per night valid anytime in December. The normal starting overnight rate for the month of December is $170 per night.

“We are seeing a big decline in bookings for the month of December,” said Bob Bonar, the resort’s general manager. “Right now, there isn’t much snow anywhere in the country. There is no urgency for people to book when it isn’t snowing.”

The sale created a partnership between Snowbird and Ski Salt Lake. Ski Salt Lake is a marketing group promoting skiing in the area. The deal was advertised exclusively through Facebook ads targeting Southern Californian winter enthusiasts.

“Many of our guests come from Southern California,” said Dave Fields, vice-president of resort operations and the resort’s marketing director. “We have six different graphic advertisements in the ad on Facebook trying to attract people.”

As of 3 p.m. Tuesday, 137 people had taken advantage of the sale.

“Social media is huge,” said John Collins, the resort’s director of mountain activities and mountain operations risk manager. “Most people have a Facebook account.  Partnering with Ski Salt Lake allows us to pin point a large target of people, which in this case was California.”

While the sale appears to have been successful, Snowbird will have to wait until it ends on Wednesday to see how profitable it was. 

“To put on a sale like this, Ski Salt Lake charges us a pay-per-click amount for the ad on Facebook,” Bonar said. “Any time someone clicks on one of the six graphics that are being advertised on the side of Facebook pages, Snowbird gets charged $1.”

The weeks before and after Christmas are typically some of the busiest times of the year for Snowbird.

With bookings currently down, Snowbird representative’s hope the sale will help increase December reservations.

“All we want is heads in beds,” Fields said. “If our hotel rooms are occupied that translates to making money as a whole.”

Snowbird's Mountain Coaster half complete

On Friday, Snowbird stopped construction for the winter on its Mountain Coaster.

The project is half completed and will resume construction in April. The Coaster is a 5,000 linear-foot ride, which starts and ends at the bottom of the Peruvian Lift.

“We are trying to expand Snowbird’s activities to improve business in the months outside of ski season,” said Bob Bonar, the resort’s general manager. “We had to overcome several issues with the Coaster but we finally got everything worked out.”

Originally, the Mountain Coaster was designed to travel over the Little Cottonwood Road but agencies such as the Utah Forest Service disapproved of the plan.

“They didn’t like the hazards the Coaster presented with going over the road,” said Dave Fields, vice-president of resort operations and the marketing director.

Snowbird changed the layout of the Coaster to be built on private resort-owned land after the Forest Service rejected the proposal.

The resort invested $2 million in the Mountain Coaster project and expects to get a return on its investment in two years.

“We modeled our Mountain Coaster from a similar model in Park City,” Bonar said. “We are going to charge $20 per person for each ride. The ride will last about two and a half minutes, start to finish.”

Snowbird’s Mountain Coaster will have a similar set up to many traditional roller coasters found at amusement parks but only two people will ride at one time.

“The ride will start next to the Peruvian Lift,” Fields said. “There will be an up-track mechanism which will pull the guests up the tracks until it reaches the top of the ride. The mechanism will then detach from the bottom of the chair and the guests will continue down the track with the chair hooked to the side railings.”

With more than a 3,200-foot vertical drop from summit to base, Snowbird is one of the most popular ski areas in Utah. Since the ski season usually lasts from the middle of November through April, Snowbird is always trying to increase its annual revenue.

“The ski season is where Snowbird makes money,” said Peter Schory, the resort’s winter operations director. “But in order for a business to function it is important to have year round activities to attract guests.”

With the addition of the Mountain Coaster, Snowbird and Park City will have the only two alpine coasters in Utah.

“It says a lot about our management here to go for this project despite the struggling economy,” Schory said. “Bob Bonar leads our management team and they aren’t afraid to fail. They had this idea and went for it. Sometimes you have to take risks to gain rewards.”

The Mountain Coaster is scheduled to open to the public July 4, 2013. 

Despite slow start to winter, Snowbird attracts guests

Snowbird Ski Resort opened to the public for its winter season on Nov. 15.

In the two weeks the resort has been open, Snowbird has sold more than 17,000 lift tickets, a 44 percent increase from 11,805 passes, sold the first two weeks of the 2011-12 season.

“Although it has been a very slow start weather wise with very warm temperatures, we are fortunate to have four lifts open and the tram, which is a top to bottom ski run,” said Randy Trover, a ski patrol member.

From Nov. 12 through Nov. 14 Snowbird received 51 inches of snow at the resort’s base. The snow had a large lake effect element. Lake effect snows occur when cold winds move across warm water and water vapor is absorbed into clouds. The water vapor then freezes and precipitates as snowfall.

A northwest flow weather pattern, present during the Nov. 12 through Nov. 14 storm, favors Little Cottonwood Canyon and the Snowbird Ski Resort.

“It just kept snowing,” said Bob Bonar, the resort’s general manager. “Without that storm in the middle of November there is no way we would be open. We are located in a unique place; other areas got half the snow Snowbird received in that storm. It was all lake effect snow.”

Natural Resources Conservation Services has a snotel site located at 9,640 feet near Snowbird’s Mid-Gad lift. According to the site, the temperature has not been below freezing since 8 a.m. on Nov. 26.

“We have been in a very mild weather pattern,” said Dave Fields, vice-president of resort operations and the resort’s marketing director. “It has been consistently 50 to 60 degrees in the Salt Lake Valley for a large part of the month. It is hard to get people to think about skiing when it is warm enough to go golfing.”

While the temperatures have been warm, many guests are still enjoying the skiing Snowbird continues to offer.

“Even though it has been a warm start to the winter, this is the best skiing around right now,” said Tana Wieringa, a season pass holder and Snowbird skier since 1984. “The beauty of this canyon and the consistent quality of the snow is what keeps me coming back. It seems like it is always good here.”

As of Thursday Snowbird had less than 25 percent of its terrain open and four of 11 lifts operating.

“For the most part people are having a good time,” Fields said. “We have the luxury of being 30 minutes from Salt Lake. It’s not like an all day trip to come up here.”

With snow in the weather forecast for the upcoming weekend, Snowbird representatives hope to get enough snow to open more terrain.

“It’s frustrating not being able to control the weather,” Bonar said. “Even with the slow start we are experiencing, people are still coming. That is a reflection of the type of business we have here. Despite the conditions, people are here enjoying their time.”

Snowbird Ski Patrol busy managing early season conditions

Early season conditions at Snowbird Ski Resort are making it difficult for the ski patrol to manage openings and closings for some of the terrain.

The Cirque Traverse opened for the first time in the 2012-13 season on Sunday and was closed on Tuesday.

The Traverse provides access to some of the most popular terrain in one of Utah’s busiest ski resorts according to Peter Schory, the resort’s winter operations director and member of the Snowbird Ski Patrol since 1973.

“It is a chess game,” Schory said. “As a patrol unit we felt we had adequate snow depth suitable to open that part of the mountain on Sunday.”

For Snowbird to open areas of the resort such as the Cirque Traverse, proper preparations need to take place.

“The Cirque is in a unique place because it doesn’t get any snow cat grooming,” Schory said. “Everything that takes place up there is what we do as a patrol and what the guests who are skiing and riding do.”

During the week prior to opening the Traverse, Snowbird Ski Patrol conducted several avalanche-control tests, marked existing hazards and barricaded sections of the terrain, which the patrol deemed unsafe for the public.

More than 1,500 skiers and riders bought lift passes at Snowbird on Sunday and more than 1,200 purchased tickets Monday.

A popular area, which attracts many of Snowbird’s guests, the Cirque Traverse was closed on Tuesday until conditions improve.

“It got to be a smart test for us as a patrol,” said Randy Trover, ski patrol member. “There was a large amount of use on the traverse and throughout a few days the terrain couldn’t keep supporting skiing without any new snow so we closed it.”

While the amount of skiing and snowboarding traffic contributed to the closure of the area, other conditions  also affected the quality of the ski run.

“It has been unusually warm since the middle of November,” Trover said. “When you have warm temperatures, no new snow and a lot of people skiing in a certain area, something is going to give. Safety is our priority at Snowbird. When there is a chance of someone getting hurt with exposed hazards or lack of snow, we aren’t going to take that risk.”

Although the Cirque Traverse is currently closed, Snowbird was pleased with the product they provided while the Traverse was open. 

“We had fantastic skiing in the Cirque for two days. We got all of the signs set up on that part of the mountain and now, once it snows, we will be ready to open it back up,” Schory said.

In addition to having good skiing for several days, allowing guests into the Cirque provided benefits in that area of the mountain for the upcoming winter storms.

“Skier compaction is huge. Snowcats can’t work in that section of the resort, they don’t have any access to it,” Schory said. “We rely on our guests to break up the weak layers of the snow by accessing the terrain to prevent the fragile layers getting buried under additional snowfall.”

General manager Bob Bonar has worked at Snowbird since the resort opened in December 1971 and knows the process of opening and closing terrain is a standard in the early season.

“We don’t push the envelope around here,” Bonar said. “We operate with safety and we won’t compromise that for a few ski turns in hazardous terrain. The winter is just getting started. We are prepared, open and awaiting the next storm.”

New Little Cloud quad passes final test

During the summer and fall of 2012, Snowbird Ski Resort installed a new $5.5 million four-person chairlift.

The new Little Cloud quad will follow the same tower line as the original Little Cloud double chair, built in 1977.

On Wednesday, Snowbird performed a simulated skier evacuation test, a process required by the American National Standard Institute on all new ski lifts before the lift can open to the public.

“The simulation was windy, we almost called it off,” said Tom Patton, the resort’s director of lifts. “As a staff we decided if we ever do need to evacuate this lift, it will most likely be because of a high wind event, so it was fitting to do the test with high winds.”

The evacuation was the fourth and final test the new lift had to pass to complete the inspection process.

The chairlift previously passed weight bearing, electrical and break tests in November.

In the event of an evacuation due to some sort of failure to the lift, the Snowbird Ski Patrol has developed a rescue protocol.

“The new Little Cloud lift has eight towers,” said Peter Schory, the resort’s winter operations director and member of the Snowbird Ski Patrol since 1973. “If we need to conduct an evacuation we will split the patrol into groups of four people and assign each group two towers to evacuate the chairs between them. We have four zones total for that particular lift.”

During a lift evacuation, one patrol member climbs a lift tower and strings a rope over the lift cable. Two patrol members on the ground belay one end of the rope while the fourth patroller walks the evacuation seat under the chair to be evacuated.

Once below the chair, the two patrollers who are on the belay end of the rope raise the seat up to the chair. The guests then place the evacuation chair under them and slide out of the chairlift.

The guest is then lowered from the chairlift to the ground by the two belaying patrollers. This process is repeated until all guests are evacuated off the lift.

Snowbird hasn’t had to perform a lift evacuation since the 2007-08 winter when the Peruvian lift had a mechanical failure.

“It doesn’t happen often but when it does we need to make sure we are prepared,” Schory said. “It was a good drill to get everyone familiar with what we do in that type of situation.”

The Little Cloud lift passed the evacuation test on Wednesday and is scheduled to open to the public Dec. 1.

The new Little Cloud quad transports guests more than 3,484 linear feet in three and a half minutes. The quad has the ability to transport 1,800 people per hour.

“As a resort we are very excited to open the new Little Cloud lift,” said Bob Bonar, the resort’s general manager. “The addition of this new lift helps us to meet the expectations of our guests. We don’t get guests from around the world that want to show up and ride a 35-year-old bumpy double chair. This is an upgrade to continue to make Snowbird the best it can be.”