Exciting upgrades planned for Wachusett Mountain keeps ski area among nation's elite
When the lifts spun on opening day Wednesday at Wachusett Mountain, it marked the 44th year working at the mountain for Jeff Crowley, the Princeton ski area's president and CEO.
Under his watch, Wachusett has grown to become one of the most popular small ski areas in the country — with more annual skier and snowboarder visits than many much bigger resorts. It has become recognized nationally as an innovator in the snow sports business, pioneering the volume discount season pass model made famous by the Epic and Ikon passes and perfecting the art of ski marketing.
Crowley, who started as a lift mechanic at the ski area founded by his late father, Ralph Crowley Sr., has also overseen the installation of three high-speed chairlifts, more high-speed lifts than any other ski area in Massachusetts and unusually advanced amenities for a 1,000-vertical foot resort.
Now, he is planning a major step forward for Wachusett that could end up being his most sparkling legacy, although he's showing no signs of retiring anytime soon.
New summit lift for Wachusett
Wachusett is planning to replace the Polar Express summit quad built in 1994 with what is quite likely to be a high-speed six-passenger chair, Crowley confirmed. However, the final decision hasn't been made yet on whether to go with a "six-pack" or another four-seater.
Largely because of supply chain lags and a flurry of lift-building by giant ski resort ownership chains, Wachusett is envisioning the new lift for the 2024-25 season.
"I don't want to overwhelm the ski area with having too many skiers per acre out there," Crowley said "But I would be inclined to think about a six-pack."
In the meantime, Crowley and his partner in owning and running the ski area, his sister Carolyn Crowley Stimpson, vice president of resort services, have committed $1.5 million to a full-scale renovation of the in recent years reliability-challenged Minuteman Express chair built in 1999, next summer. (The third sibling who had partnered at the helm of Wachusett for decades, David Crowley, stepped away from management two years ago due to a chronic illness.)
Renovation and maintenance, and a new summit lift
Wachusett also did significant maintenance work on the summit quad this summer, splicing new overhead cable onto the 4,307-foot-long lift.
My own view is that Wachusett definitely has the space and demand to accommodate a six-pack and, indeed, needs one.
Any Wachusett regular knows that long and wide lines form on the summit lift in particular on weekends and weekday nights, and the ski area needs more uphill capacity now than in the early 1990s when it was not the compelling draw it is today.
Crowley's passion is lifts. And until the new summit lift comes in, he's going to make sure he takes care of the ones he's got.
"Our crew is young and enthusiastic and really committed to reducing downtime by doing a lot of preventative maintenance," Crowley said. "We've got good relationships with a lot of different outside vendors that are instrumental in keeping these things in top shape. So even though these lifts are getting up there and years, they still are being super well maintained."
Staying independent with new generation
Besides the new lift, I wanted to pin Crowley down about committing to never sell Wachusett to a new owner.
For one, ski area ownership chain giant Vail Resorts with its strategy of buying up small ski resorts located close to cities, would covet Wachusett and its unbeatable location so close to the major population centers of Boston and Worcester.
A third generation of Crowleys and Stimpsons have joined the business. They will keep it in family hands as an independent ski area, Crowley said.
"There's a real strong kind of unwritten understanding that that we're not going to sell. With the next generation coming in, they're passionate about it, and they're dedicated, hardworking, bright kids that that will do a wonderful job of taking this to the next level," he said. "Some of the questions about the future would lie with them, but there are certainly other things that could be done here and I like the idea of just really fine-tuning this place."
Three third-generations Crowleys and Stimpsons have been working in high-responsibility roles for the last three or four years.
David Crowley Jr. was first to come on board, as operations manager. Chris Stimpson, Carolyn Crowley Simpson's son, joined two years ago as head of PR and social media and manager of the ski area's terrain parks.
Jeff's daughter Courtney Crowley spent about a year as group sales director, before recently being appointed snow sports director running Wachusett's excellent ski and snowboard school in the departure of its longtime director, Thom Norton. (More on Thom – who has accepted a job as New England rep for the Rossignol ski company – later this season.)
And in this early season, one of David Crowley's daughters, Trudy, has been working on skis and boards in the Mountainside Ski and Ride ski shop in the area's base lodge part-time. Watch for her to move into management as well.
Other new developments
While all this has been happening the ski area kept busy over the summer with a number of improvements in addition to the work on the summit quad.
Wachusett installed some 3,000 feet of new high-efficiency snowmaking water and air piping throughout the ski area's 110 acres of terrain, from the Easy Rider beginner area to the summit, and repaired leaks elsewhere in the system.
Along with the new snowmaking lines came more than 20 new state of the art snowmaking hydrants that are easier to use and more efficient than previous generations of hydrants and will make snowmaking operations more efficient.
In other developments, the much-loved Wachusett Ski Train and bus shuttle system is back after a three-year COVID-19 hiatus, according to Chris Stimpson.
The MBTA train — complete with racks for skis and boards — will run on weekends from North Station in Boston to the Wachusett station on the outskirts of Fitchburg and a shuttle bus will move skiers and riders back and forth from the mountain.
"We're excited to have that back," Stimpson said.
Ski trains, buses and the future
Wachusett also offers a great internal shuttle bus system to its satellite parking lot 2, with new, clean buses that run constantly and pick up and drop off at the base lodge front door when the main lot fills up. I've been using the buses the last few years and it's a lot easier than hunting for a spot in the upper lot, and when that lot is full, the shuttle are a really good alternative and probably faster than walking to an outer row in the main lot.
Wachusett — hopefully — is about to stage its first pretty much non-COVID-19 challenged season, and the system of four daily sessions that started during the main part of the pandemic remains, as do outdoor lockers, in addition to indoor ones.
But as of now there are no COVID era restrictions in the lodge or anywhere at the ski area this season.
Wachusett navigated the COVID years incredibly well. And the long-range future looks bright.
"I think that as long as you're providing a really high-quality experience and making it better every year, this will be sustainable," Crowley said. "It's not like you continue to need to put lifts all around the whole mountain in order to attract your base business. People will still come; they'll continue to come. And this is just going to continue to get better every year."
Opening day at Mount Snow
The Dover, Vermont, ski area is the closest big mountain skiing to Worcester and hitting opening day here is somewhat of a tradition for me.
Mount Snow opened for the season on Sunday with frigid temperatures and gusty winds that brought the wind chill factor to single digits.
But it was sunny and the snow was dry and fast on the three or four top-to-bottom runs that were open.
The Canyon-Cascade combo was in good shape with good snow coverage width and a decently smooth surface in the middle of the trails for so a pre-Thanksgiving opening.
Freefall on the underrated North Face was gorgeous with snow guns blasting on adjacent trails and good snow to be had on the edges. It was nice to have a steep like this one open so early and to be able to lap it with zero crowds.
Good vibe
The vibe at Mount Snow was friendly, with an open bag check and lifts that kept running despite high winds. Hopefully this is a harbinger of a season to come without the drama of some Vail Resorts-owned properties of the last few seasons, with problems including crowding, low staffing and cumbersome COVID regulations. This season there will be no COVID restrictions in the lodges or lifts.
Two great new lifts were installed over the summer, the most new lifts of any Northeast ski area this season.
The new Sundance Express six-pack is designed to significantly relieve pressure on the Bluebird Express heated bubble six-pack by moving intermediate and beginner skiers over to the middle of the mountain where most of the terrain suitable for them lies. At the base, the classic Sundance lodge has been renovated with a new bar adding to the festivities.
Meanwhile, the new Sundance Express quad will nearly cut in half the time to get to the top of the previously underutilized Sunbrook area and its beautiful long cruisers.
Be aware that paid parking continues this season for the choicest lots closest to the main and Carinthia parking lots. However, I've found that the free parking near the tubing hill is almost as convenient to the Bluebird Express loading area.
Mount Snow this season has a new general manager, Brian Suhadolc, and it looks like he'll stick around for a long tenure, unlike the short stints of the last few GMs Vail Resorts has assigned to its flagship southern Vermont property.
Suhahdolc was previously vice president of mountain operations at Vail Mountain – a big job. And he held top leadership positions at Park City before that. He's a New Jersey native and it's good to have an East Coaster back at the top management slot at Mount Snow. I plan to catch up with him soon for this column.
Contact Shaun Sutner by email at s_sutner@yahoo.com
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Exciting upgrades planned for Wachusett Mountain Ski Area
