Click Here to Listen: Podcast #193: Holiday Mountain, New York Owner Mike Taylor
A Storm Skiing Journal podcast with Holiday Mountain Owner, Mike Taylor. Discussing the Turkey Trot chairlift upgrade; why Taylor re-engineered and renovated a mothballed double chair just to run it for a handful of days last winter before demolishing it this summer; Partek and why skiing needs an independent lift manufacturer; a gesture from Massanutten; how you build a chairlift when your chairlift doesn’t come with a bottom terminal; Holiday Mountain’s two new ski trails for this winter; the story behind Holiday Mountain’s trail names; why a rock quarry is “the greatest neighbors we could ever ask for”; big potential future ski expansion opportunities; massive snowmaking upgrades; snowmaking is hard; how a state highway spurred the development of Holiday Mountain; “I think we’ve lost a generation of skiers”; vintage Holiday Mountain; the ski area’s long, sad decline; pillage by flood; restoring abandoned terrain above the Fun Park; the chairlift you see from Route 17 is not actually a chairlift; considering a future when 17 converts into Interstate 86; what would have happened to Holiday had the other bidders purchased it; “how do we get kids off their phones and out recreating again?”; advice from Plattekill; buying a broken ski area in May and getting it open by Christmas (or trying); what translates well from the business world into running a ski area; how to finance the rebuild and modernization of a failing ski area; “when you talk to a bank and use the word ‘ski area,’ they want nothing to do with it”; how to make a ski area make money; why summer business is hard; Holiday’s incredible social media presence; “I always thought good grooming was easy, like mowing a lawn”; how to get big things done quickly but well; ski racing returns; “I don’t want to do things half-assed and pay for it in the long run”; why season two should be better than season one; “you can’t make me happier than to see busloads of kids, improving their skills, and enjoying something they’re going to do for the rest of their life”; why New York State has a challenging business environment, and how to get things done anyway; the surprise labor audit that shocked New York skiing last February – “we didn’t realize the mistakes we were making”; kids these days; the State of New York owns and subsidizes three ski areas – how does that complicate things?; why the state subsidizing independent ski areas isn’t the answer; the problem with bussing kids to ski areas; and why Holiday Mountain doesn’t feel ready to join the Indy Pass.