Because the place is revered by so many northeast skiers who have barely skied it or not at all. I cant imagine how bad conditions were this year.
What is their revenue? Has to be awful. How do they even survive?
It is good enough. Fact is, they started restricting ski visits during the pandemic and decided to keep doing it since. Obviously, any area hurting for revenue is not going to limit visits.
A bad year is tough on the finances, but the Coop has a rainy day fund and can get by on a few bad seasons in a row. In a good year, the revenue is strong. Share sales are important, but are not a primary source of revenue. Probably pretty low compared to all other revenue sources.
Last powder day that I was there (the February storm), lift line for the Single was around 40 minutes, about as long as I have ever seen it.
A lot of the Coop's revenue comes from families and people who make MRG a big part of their life. But I always see tons of day tickets when I ski there. Their kids programs are huge. Their freeride and racing program are very strong. And, of course, when the snow is good, they get so many people that folks are turned away.
They don't need to get Mount Snow numbers to stay afloat. The mountain has a certain mystique about it that keeps new people coming.
For the record, since it came up, I am a Shareholder in favor of allowing boarders so friends and family can ski together. Folks think snowboarders will wreck the snow. Fact is, a lot of shitty skiers already do just fine scraping down the snow on the trails (I was once that shitty skier, I can judge
).
Back to the original topic, Betsy Pratt did what few other people would do, and that speaks both to the character of Besty Pratt, and also to Mad River Glen... that it would inspire the types of ownership transactions that it did.
