Magic Mountain Outlines Plans For Summer Work

Maigic Mountain is an old style East Coast resort that remains determinedly un-corporate. They've announced plans for the summer and upgrades ready for the coming seaosn. They say:

"Greetings from Londonderry,

First off, thank you to so many who were with us this season! Despite one of the worst snow years (just 56% of normal at only 73"), we skied from mid-December to end of March, and had record skier visits thanks to our ever-growing season pass holder community.

The major investments we are making in smoothing out some of the prior rough edges here is always balanced by maintaining our unique “throwback” character. We love natural snow here—it just skis better than man-made. So while we continue to make major investments in snowmaking, lift service and grooming equipment, we will let mother-nature do what she does best on our most advanced terrain. Powder days are legend here and it’s why we have special openings when a storm hits mid-week. It’s why we continue to expand the best tree-skiing in southern Vermont. It’s why we’ve always supported uphill alpine touring. There’s truly something for everyone here who is into the original feel and adventure of the sport of skiing. It’s why Magic remains proudly independent.

Where the topsy-turvy. thaw-freeze (repeat, repeat, repeat...) took its toll was in day-ticket buyers as the weather never got its act together for any of the major holiday time-periods. Huge swings from 40s/50s to below-zero temps in a matter of days. But, thanks to our "whatever it takes" crew who kept at it making snow during short cold windows into March, and our groomers pushing a lot of snow around, conditions were surprisingly good right to the end, even though trail count became more limited and our usual treeskiing was hampered.

While there were only the diehards left for the last Spring Fling weekend, we had a lot of fun and truly enjoyed the celebration of winter together, no matter that New England can be fickle at times when it comes to snowfall. It seems about once every 5-7 years we get one of these, but then, we know the snow will come roaring back next season!

And, we are already getting a jump on massive projects for the mountain that will put Magic in even better shape for next season and solidify our future as a leading independent ski area charting its own destiny--one different than the industry and one that has been gaining traction since our purchase of Magic in 2016. A road a few more ski areas and customers are now seeking to travel. Here are some of the major projects we will be finishing up or starting up to make 22/23 dramatically better for our ski community:

- Complete the Quad Summit Lift, finally! This lift doubles our lift capacity for almost zero lift lines and adds redundancy to the top if one lift needed to be taken out of service for a bit. We all know how important that can be! Pfister has already been working on the newly manufactured lift parts since early March and has installed new sheave assemblies on Towers 4, 5, and 11. Four more towers will get new sheaves per the engineering re-design (Towers 6, 7, 8, 18) and Tower 13  gets a tower arm adjustment. All done by Pfister's crew this spring. 

• Complete the new handle tow lift install in the expanded beginner area with surface re-grading.
  
• Expand the snowmaking pond with new dam (doubling its water volume for snowmaking) and create state-required continuous stream flow around the pond to enhance the nearby river tributary system.
  
• New larger volume pipe replacement from pond to pumphouse to gain significant snowmaking efficiencies
  
• New snowmaking pipe replacement in critical areas with repetitive ruptures due to old pipe (this will be ongoing upgrades over subsequent years as well)
• Connect pump at Thompsonburg Brook for snowmaking pond water replenishment. 

With this off-season's $1million investment in improving snowmaking and finishing the lift projects, the 22/23 season will be one for the books--and I'm sure mother-nature will want to get in on that action as well!

While the Tavern is officially closed for the spring, we do have a few events there this month as well as in June. If you'd like to put on an event, let us know. We are already booking weddings for this year and next, with a new larger deck planned.

This Saturday from 5-10p, we are open to the public with a benefit for the Save The Children's Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund. There will be a door charge of $20 for adults and $5 for kids which will include Ukrainian fare with the help of local chefs from Solo, Jake's, Downtown Grocery and Homestyle Hostel. There will be live music by The Western Terrestrials at 7:30 and before that Greg Cutler & Geoff Chamberlain. There will be silent auction items by local artists and crafts people. There will be a cash bar as well from 5-10pm. Please join us as we can all do a little something to help much needed humanitarian assistance for families and children suffering the unbelievable devastation from Putin's war.

Speaking of events and rentals, Magic is almost already sold out of private mountain ski rentals for next winter on all Mondays. We can also do a few Wednesdays or Tuesdays, but if your company is thinking about a ski trip or you want a special celebration with friends and family, be sure to get in touch with Kerry at sales@magicmtn.com soon!

Make plans this summer to get here for one of our big concerts or events! July 2nd will be our huge Londonderry fireworks show with a live band and great food. And, our Dead of Summer III music festival has already sold out its "early-bird" pricing but tickets are on sale now at tier 2 levels for this 5-band festival on Saturday July 9th featuring Max Creek, Dead Man's Waltz,, Deadgrass, Rolling Thunder Revival, and Rick Reddington and The Luv. Tickets here"