SKI YOU LATER
Upgrades help West Mountain end season in the black
QUEENSBURY, N.Y. >> It cost Spencer Montgomery $4 million to start making money at West Mountain.
This is the first winter the Queensbury ski center has operated in the black since he purchased and rescued it from threat of the closure four years ago.
Upgrades have been large and small, from a modern triple chair to the walkie-talkies maintenance workers use, with more improvements still to come.
“Revenues are up about 66 percent,” Montgomery said. “Really we’re just hitting stride.”
Chairlifts shut down for the season late Sunday afternoon. On a scale of 0-10, Montgomery rates it a “7,” which is okay because he knows the payoff from long-term capital investments can’t be expected overnight.
“It was a weird winter,” he said. “It started off warmer, which wasn’t good for snowmaking, but we had a good Christmas week. This was the warmest January on record, but we got some good snow right before President’s Day Week.”
Then Winter Storm Stella, on March 14, dumped upwards of 15 inches of snow on the area, which helped the season finish strong.
To Montgomery, West Mountain’s rejuvenation is result of one key ingredient: focus.
Former owner Mike Brandt, who opened the mountain in 1961, had proposed a largescale mixeduse development on the back side of West Mountain, a combination of housing and business, extending into the town of Luzerne. In recent years there had also been attempts to generate yearround revenue with things such as concerts and festivals.
Montgomery, however, remembered West Mountain’s glory years. He grew up around the corner and put his first skis on there as a 3-year-old.
His strategy has been returning West Mountain to its roots as a popular family-oriented ski center with a strong scholastic race program.
“We’ve got one of the best locations in the Northeast, right off I-87,” he said. “The Capital Region has more skiers per capita than anyplace in the U.S. and there are 75 schools within striking distance.”
The base lodge has been remodeled, snowmaking has been expanded and the center has large new grooming machines to
keep snow surfaces in good shape.
However, at least another $1 million worth of improvements are planned. Next season will feature a completely overhauled base lodge at the NorthWest area, with a new triple chair and better snowmaking to follow a year later.
By then, everything skirelated will be fixed, spruced up or replaced.
Then Montgomery can focus on the next part of his vision for West Mountain: finding a development partner to build town homes, condominiums and a ski-in, ski-out lodge at the NorthWest area, which has more than 300 acres of vacant land to work with.
Montgomery mentions West Mountain in the same breath as well-known resorts such as Okemo, Jiminy Peak and Windham because he believes it can be like, or even surpass them.
It will take someone with deeper pockets than his to make it happen, but he believes it’s possible by proving that West Mountain can operate profitably, by doing what it does best.
His first winter, 2013-14, snow conditions were great, but revenues were flat as it took time for people to come on board with what he was doing.
The next year, business increased 35 percent. Then came last year, the snowless “winter that wasn’t.”
“That really stung,” Montgomery said. “It was the worst winter ever. We opened Jan. 3, closed March 13 and it rained every weekend.”
With just an average year, things would be much farther along by now.
One of these years, Mother Nature will cooperate with a “Perfect 10” winter.
Montgomery is getting ready with the best facilities possible, so West Mountain can take its place as a true destination resort.
“That’s the goal,” he said. “We’re getting closer.”